Cascadian Farms Oats & Chicolate soft baked squares: What do you get when you get a Chips Ahoy cookie, make it square and 1.5x as thick, use organic ingredients, and soften the texture to make it more crumbly? These Cascadian Farms oats and chocolate soft baked squares. They really do taste like Chips Ahoy. 2.5/5.0
organic cookies cascadianfarms oats chicolate soft baked squares 2.5
Biena Rockin' Ranch Chickpea Snacks: An unlikely combination of fried chickpeas and ranch that works remarkably well, though I'm convinced that almost anything could be made tasty with the tangy and zesty ranch seasoning. The addictive coating is a cross between sour cream and onion and ranch dressing, making it bolder than your typical ranch snack. Adds great texture to salads but is also addictive straight out of the bag (though a bit messy to eat). 3.5/5.0
recommended berkeleybowl vegetables biena rockin' ranch chickpea 3.5
Sweetheart Cafe Taiwan Style Milk Tea with Boba: This hole-in-the-wall on Durant in Berkeley features a small counter overflowing with asian snacks and walls plastered with laminated drink menus (items listed in Chinese followed by English). The first time I stopped by shortly after it opened its doors for the day, I was informed that the boba had not yet been delivered from Oakland, where they have a sister cafe. Returning several weeks later on an impulse at around 11pm (they are open past midnight on the weekends), I opted for their T... (read more) 4.0/5.0
recommended drinks bubbletea boba sweetheartcafe taiwan style milk tea 4.0
iTea Lychee Green Tea: A rare miss at my go-to boba shop, I found the lychee green tea at iTea to have an overly sweet artificial flavor and very little herbal taste. The boba was also too soft, though the lychee jelly that comes with the drink had a nice bite and satisfying fruit flavor. I've generally found that the more traditional tea drinks are better than their fruit teas. 2.5/5.0
drinks itea boba bubbletea lychee green tea 2.5
Berkeley Bowl Fig Newtowns: Berkeley Bowl sells an assortment of fig newtown-style cereal bars in their bulk section, from apricot to raspberry to, well, figs. I sampled both the raspberry and fig cookies and prefer the tart sweetness of the raspberry to the more ordinary, but still decent, fig. They're more dense and substantial than traditional fig newtowns, both in terms of the texture of the soft cookie and the fruit-chew-like interior. The fruit flavor overall is far superior than what you will find in other pa... (read more) 3.0/5.0
berkeleybowl recommended cookies fig raspberry newtowns 3.0
Asha Tea Matcha: While I enjoy matcha-flavored snacks, it's rare for me to get matcha full on. I decided to give the matcha tea at Asha Tea in Berkeley a try and found myself reacting to the caffeine levels after only drinking half of the regular-sized portion. Symptoms including jitteriness and high distractibility. The matcha flavor itself was prominent and clean, but this drink is surely for those with higher caffeine tolerance than me. 3.0/5.0
drinks berkeley tea ashatea matcha 3.0