50 Tea Longan Red Date drink with grass jelly: On my last visit to Oakland, iTea was out of ice and only offering hot beverages. Given the beautiful weather, I decided to go across the street to a new tea shop instead. Named 50 Tea, the shop is iconic Chinatown – half of the storefront is for tea and ice cream while the other half is for purchasing various goods like DVDs and small trinkets and gifts. Their walls are covered in hand-written menu additions with distinctly Asian flavors like winter melon and sour plum. I opted for thei... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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A Taste of Ethiopia spicy red lentils and cabbage and carrots: Microwaveable meal that is true to its spicy label. Best eaten with rice to both soak up and distribute the strong flavors. Overall, both sides was quite tasty, but I found that it had an excessive amount of oil. Impressive how much spice they were able to preserve in this refrigerated meal. 3.5/5.0
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Breadtop matcha red bean bun: Breadtop is an Asian bakery chain in Australia. There is one close to the hotel I'm staying at in Brisbane, and it offers staples like sausage buns and sesame balls but also modern takes, like this matcha red bean bun. Unfortunately, the bun was unsuccessfully; the dough had very little matcha flavor, and the red bean filling was overly sweet and uninspired. The dusting of icing sugar made it messy to eat, without much added flavor. 2.0/5.0
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Chimei red bean buns: Made in Taiwan, these frozen buns are light in sugar, at 3g per bun. Once they are steamed past a particular threshold (㸐 minutes), though, the dough tightens up, wrinkling and hardening almost like it was under a vacuum. If anyone knows scientifically what causes this phenomena, I'd very much like to know. That is the most interesting thing about this frozen product, which is pretty average flavor-wise. 2.5/5.0
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Choripdong korean red bean buns: Large, frozen buns filled with a substantial amount of red bean. The exterior has a surprising savory flavor, which tastes strange in combination with the sweet filling. 2.0/5.0
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Fong On Can't Go Wrong Tofu Pudding with Red Beans, Grass Jelly, and Taro Balls: Fong On is a small family-run tofu shop on Division Street in Chinatown, right next to the Manhattan Bridge. I found out about it from a profile in the New York Times a few months ago, describing how the long-standing neighborhood tofu shop, which had been open for 80 years, had recently relocated and reopened after the son took over the family business. They sell freshly made soy milk, rice cakes, and doufu hua, all traditional Chinese favorites. Doufu hua is kind of like getting frozen ... (read more) 3.5/5.0
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