FK Frozen Custard Black Sesame and Matcha White Chocolate Ice Cream: The last time I had ice cream from FK Frozen Custard, the brand was still named "Frozen Kuhsterd," and they were a food-truck-only business. Now they have a brick and mortar in the Lower Haight in SF, still offering a mix of classic flavors and asian-inspired options like black sesame, milk tea, and ube. I ordered one scoop with two flavors, which was generously sized and easily sharable – though I had the entire scoop for myself. (: My previous experience with Frozen Kuhsterd involved an ... (read more) 3.0/5.0
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Galvanina Blood orange, black carrot, and blueberry sparkling fruit beverage: Organic Italian soda that apparently is sold as Whole Foods branded Italian soda. I purchased this glass bottle from Molinari deli in North Beach, SF (which I also recommend, by the way). While I found it on the sweet side, the addition of carrot was unique and not at all overpowering. The berry, vegetable, and citrus combination is well balanced and worth a try. 3.5/5.0
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Garden Creamery Black sesame and oolong ice cream: By now, I've become wary of long lines in San Francisco, and there is nowhere else where this sense of trepidation is stronger than in the Mission, the tech-saturated, ultra-entitled west coast version of Williamsburg. Regrettably, I do find myself here once in a while, often to see a show at the neighboring Chapel, which is exactly what brought me to Garden Creamery, an ice cream shop squarely at the halfway point between the 16th and 24th street Mission BART stops. I had some extra time ... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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Greenmax black sesame cereal: If you haven't had black sesame cereal before, it's a powdered mix drink popular in asian countries. This brand is from Taiwan. Mixed with hot water, it creates a thick drink (similar in consistency to hot chocolate), but typically much more nutritious. It is one of my favorite things to drink in cold weather. This brand is especially good because it's not too sweet, and the black sesame flavor is deep and comforting. 4.0/5.0
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Hanco’s Black milk tea with boba: Went to 5 different supermarkets in Brooklyn to look for fish sauce and could only find Thai Kitchen brand. Stopped by Hanco’s, a Vietnamese sandwich shop a few blocks from where I live, to ask where to find. They told me there were no asian grocery stores in the area and I would probably need to go to Chinatown. The sandwiches at Hanco’s were pretty good, but this bubble tea was quite bad - very diluted and milky tasting, with overly chewy boba. Might need to go to Chinatown for that too. 2.0/5.0
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Happy Lemon Lemon black tea: Textbook mediocre black tea. Tastes like Lipton, and it probably is. On the plus side, the drinks contains an entire lemon, sliced into wedges. But the overall effect is black tea I can easily make at home. Good thing it was free (from the buy one get on free promotion during Happy Lemon’s opening weekend in Berkeley). 2.0/5.0
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