Sweetheart Cafe Almond milk tea with boba: Every few months, I stop by Sweetheart Cafe for their preternaturally chewy boba, despite the fact that I’ve never had a particularly good drink here. This time, I waited patiently in line after a group of Cal students arrived for their bubble tea fix at 10pm (the busiest I’ve seen the place, though now that I think about it, I’ve only ever gone there at night). The almond milk tea had a sweet and predictable flavor (even at half sweetness), but the boba was very good. I wonder if they would... (read more) 3.0/5.0
berkeley bubbletea milktea sweetheartcafe almond milk tea boba 3.0
Golden Gate Bakery Sesame Ball: A dim sum classic, fried glutinous rice balls filled with red bean and tossed in toasted sesame seeds are a rare treat often worth the calories. Instead of choosing the default eggtart at San Francisco Chinatown’s Golden Gate Bakery, I selected their take on the sesame ball, seemingly transmogrified to twice its normal size. Barely fitting in my palm, the ball still had the same thin glutinous rice shell you expect but with double the amount of red bean paste inside. As the red bean paste is... (read more) 2.0/5.0
redbean glutinous chinese sanfrancisco goldengatebakery sesame ball 2.0
Bearded Brothers Mega Maca Chocolate Energy Bar: A glazed protein bar flecked with a scattering of beige and white crushed nuts (almonds and cashew to be exact). Given its chocolate flavoring and brown color, I expected a strong cocoa flavor only to find that the predominant taste is dates (also listed as the first item in the ingredient list). Maca, a type of root vegetable, is mixed in powdered form, though I am inexperienced with its actual flavor. The bar had a much softer texture than I anticipated, more like a soft cookie than a c... (read more) 3.0/5.0
vegan glutenfree organic protein beardedbrothers mega maca chocolate energy bar 3.0
Go Raw Pumpkin Seed Sprouted Bar: Labeled “junk-foo” free, this sprouted pumpkins seed bar also contains flaxseed, all held together with a dried date paste. An organic energy bar that tastes exactly like the sum of its components, with a balanced but fairly neutral savory sweet flavor (without being too sweet with 5g of sugar). Texturally, it’s too hard to be chewy and too soft to be crunchy. 3.0/5.0
organic goraw pumpkin seed sprouted bar 3.0
Trader Joe’s Calamansi Cooler: I’m a fan of the increasing number of calamansi-flavored products I’ve witnessed overt the past year, and there is perhaps no bigger institution to bring visibility to this tropical fruit than Trader Joe’s. Their calamansi cooler contains less than a 12oz can but looks substantial given its slender and tall packaging. Non-carbonated, the beverage tastes like a cross between lime and grapefruit with a trace of a more acidic, funky fruit like passion fruit. Overall, it’s a bit too sweet for my... (read more) 3.0/5.0
drinks tjs traderjoes calamansi cooler 3.0
Polar Tart cherry limeade seltzer: Like the initial bite into a ripe juicy cherry, amplified 5x, this seltzer has an intense concentrated flavor without any of the sweet qualities of fruit. It tastes artificial in the way that Cherry Coke doesn’t actually taste like cherry, but rather an imagined scenario where you could reduce the flavor of a mouthful of cherries into a single simplified taste. Lime trails behind, with a zingy citrus note at the end of each sip. Highly carbonated. 3.0/5.0
drinks polar tart cherry limeade seltzer 3.0