BUBBLE TEA

Published by Pinko Punko on March 20, 2008 in *BOOP*, CONTEST!! and Foodstuffs. 42 Comments

BUBBLE TEA BUBBLE TEA

Kathleen and I have a special place in our hearts for the consumer review site Yelp. It is just so darned cute with the mini-meta novels that get typed concerning various food establishments etc.

K points me to this article concerning some Yelp quality.

K and I are going to have a running Yelp-Off. Here’s my first volley.

EWWW I HATE THIS PLACE. When u first walk in it smells like old plastic, they seat you then they just leave u there, the tables are sticky, so are their utensils which is one of my biggest pet peeves. And for the record, ive only eaten there 3 times and 3 out of the 3 times i have gotten out of the restaurant puking in the parking lot. Sorry, don’t mean to gross anyone out but i thought the third time was a charm and maybe id get over it. But i couldnt understand why everytime i ate nam vang i would yak. I came to the conclusion that the restaruant is not anything close to sanitary and thats why i had that allergic reaction

I suggest science was used! N=3, puke=3. 3/3=100% puke ratio. Thanks, Yelper!

42 Responses to “BUBBLE TEA”

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  • shayera
    March 20, 2008 at 1:33 pm

    Ya know, my general rule is: make me puke in the parking lot once, I never ever have to go back.
    Hell, I would have walked out of there the second I was “treated” to “sticky silverware.”
    People are doofs.

  • Pinko Punko
    March 20, 2008 at 1:58 pm

    Science demands repetition! Maybe this character has an intrinsic affinity for booting.

  • Kathleen
    March 20, 2008 at 2:03 pm

    I’ll volley back, as soon as I can stop laughing…

  • The Uncanny Canadian
    March 20, 2008 at 3:07 pm

    I have this same dilemma when it comes down to the well-liked Thai restaurant Khao Sarn. My campylobacter ratio is now 33% from N=3. That is still statistically significantly different form 0%. How many more visits before I can be confident of its safety and sanitariness?

  • Jennifer
    March 20, 2008 at 3:10 pm

    everytime i ate nam vang i would yak

    Was s/he eating yak nam vang?

  • Kathleen
    March 20, 2008 at 10:02 pm

    Four Stars

    In college I dated this guy, and by dated I mean we made out in his Ford pick up in the dorm parking lot after getting plastered at an outdoor frat party where I lost my favorite earring. After the guy went back to the frat house the next day to find my earring (read: creepy) he took me to dinner, at Burger Hut. I was a vegetarian. A few dozen phone calls, a couple hundred IM’s and three unannounced drop by’s later and burger boy earned the title “Stalker Matt.”

    Unfortunately Stalker Matt didn’t understand the whole concept of “I don’t eat meat,” but T-Rex and it’s world of sides knows how to please the finickiest of eaters.

    I eat poultry and seafood now, which I give myself a pat on the back every day for, because T-Rex knows chicken like Martha Stuart knows constipation face. The bird was juicy, tender and flavorful, but unfortunately it was held hostage by a couple of soon-to-be parents who are trying to eat everything they can before they’re forced to grab a handful of Cheerios before re-starting the Raffi DVD for the fifth time in a row.

  • Pinko Punko
    March 20, 2008 at 10:18 pm

    Damn it. That is McSweeney’s quality Yelp. I call parody!!!!

    And fracking Yelp is down right now. Because it is so on.

  • Pinko Punko
    March 20, 2008 at 10:29 pm

    So randomly going through google cache, does this suggest that maybe grade inflation is in play?

    Three stars

    You’d have to be insane, retarded or tongueless to go here when Castillito is 20 steps to your right.

    How would this place get two stars??? Blood puddles?

  • Mandos
    March 20, 2008 at 10:30 pm

    I believe a BSG f-bomb is still an f-bomb.

  • Pinko Punko
    March 20, 2008 at 10:50 pm

    Slight, but good Yelp:

    Three stars

    Hell yea they closed!!!! You rat bastards will never take my parking spaces again!!! haha!

    (in all honesty they did have good noodles….but the customers always took ALL the parking in front of my house and made me park blocks away!)

  • Pinko Punko
    March 20, 2008 at 10:53 pm

    Yelp! OCD:

    One star

    I’m kind of torn writing this review. One part of me loves the food, one part is disgusted.

    Not knowing what to get for lunch and never trying this place out, I decided to give it a try.

    Their menu offers a good variety for meat eaters, even one for the veggies. I even spy’d a cup of chili…mhmmm….

    I decided to try out a Bird dog (Turkey, reg and green pepper, and cilantro) and a cup of chili.

    The seating outside cool as the inside is super cramped for the people waiting in line and/or people waiting for their order. The seating outside varies from 2 person chair to 6 person tables. Filled with locals and college folks, the place was pretty packed.

    I really wasn’t sure when my food was done, I just saw people going up to get their food randomly, so I kept a mental note of the group of people ahead of me and went in after them.

    Now I’m not a food specialist or a food safety inspector, BUT I DON’T LIKE PEOPLE TOUCHING MY FOOD ESPECIALLY AFTER YOU TOUCHED MONEY. There’s only one guy working and he’s taking the order, collecting the cash, putting the dog’s on the cooker and MUSHING THE BREAD. Dude is using his fingers and palm mushing the bread on the grill. My stomach turned.

    Thoughts run wild in my head…”you’re not wearing gloves and you’re touching my food” “Did you guys collect that guys cash then mush your hands on that guys bread?” “Did he mush my bread….?”

    I sucked it up and got my food. I told my coworker (whom was with me) and decided to just eat my food. Man did he eat it up! I added sour kraut and deli mustard on my dog. The dog was great and full of flavor.

    The chili was off the hook! For $1.50, man that hit the spot! The meat is super soft and everything blended together perfectly.

    Now you ask why the 1 star? As much as I like the food, if it’s dirty you do not pass go and collect $200.

    I’ll come back, but just for the chili. Until I see either a cashier or you wearing gloves when handling food like food safety guidelines state you have to, no dogs for me.

    Link: http://www.dhs.ca.gov/…
    What about the single employee operation? When a single employee is responsible for taking orders, preparing food, and serving it bare hand contact with ready-to-eat food must be avoided through the use of gloves or utensils or hands and arms must be washed between each order.

  • Pinko Punko
    March 20, 2008 at 11:01 pm

    The classic breathless, mysterious style:

    Four stars

    what! I haven’t wrote a review for 99 chicken! The chicken is fried well not the kind that drips oil when you eat it and they’re open till 1am so it’s great late nite eats. In fact, I was here this past friday at 12am. :)

    The male owner is nice and would chat it up with you. The female owner, haha, not so much. I won’t get into details because she’s usually in the kitchen anyway.

    The salad buffet is a great compliment to the fried chicken. We usually get the sampler and the chicken isn’t small. They’re good size drumsticks unless you get the all wing platter.

  • Kathleen
    March 20, 2008 at 11:02 pm

    four stars

    Had I a penis, I would have put it in the mac and cheese. Fo sho.

    surprisingly, I don’t find the idea of the reviewer fornicating with the side dishes to be that much of an inducement to eat there.

  • almostinfamous
    March 20, 2008 at 11:03 pm

    you WEAKLINGS would die if you ever came to india.

  • Pinko Punko
    March 20, 2008 at 11:15 pm

    The “do we hang out, because I don’t know these people” style, and my official response to K’s above:

    4 stars

    i came here with a bunch of koreans…my ancestors are thankful to korea for providing us buddhism and a writing system. what i appreciate most is how korean spots that are really good- like 85% of the joints in the southbay, are all signed up only in hangul with no damn subtitles–how the hell am i supposed to decipher that #1restaurant is ilbunjee pojangmacha??

    i swear i drove in circles trying to find this spot- euge was laughing at my sorry ass– even with a GPS…a**hole!

    the food is a meatlover’s dream. henry rocked at serving and explaining how i should be dipping my meat in the various sauces, yeah that sounds nasty…my bad.

    before even pouring our first drop of soju, irene was talking about playing some drinking game called titanic…it was a weekday and i wasn’t interested in feeling all crappy so declined. yes iam a kitty-kat.

    like connie said, a translator is mandatory.

    man, i freaking passed out from the food coma i experienced after the gorge-fest. plenty parking on the street, so don’t fret that the lot is all full…

    what iam most thankful to koreans for are hawties like…
    http://www.pestaola.gr…

    omfg. i recognize that face…no way..is it possible??!!
    http://video.google.co…

    Also, as a bonus:

    _ _ Yelp???

    SEXISM
    MEAT

    There. Those are my tags. If that doesn’t interest you, move on.

    K-Twiggy and I met up for dinner on a weeknight. Where should we go? Cafeoohlalatrendy? Chezpretty’npink? Nah…

    Meat. Soju. Tent. That’s how we roll. So Ilbunjee #1 isn’t actually a tent, though they call themselves a pojangmacha. What it IS, in fact, is a hole in the wall. A nice sort of dump, shall we say. It’s like a drug lord office d/b/a copy services shop that got ransacked by the [insert name of corrupt city here] PD and this jolly ‘ol Korean owner marched right up, threw up a few hand-written poster paper menus, folding chairs, cardboard tables and portable gas grills and decided to make a business of it like it ain’t no thang. I can almost hear my mom’s scolding voice, “A lady doesn’t eat like a dog!” Well, momma hasn’t seen lifestyles of the rich and famous puppy food like the stuff at Babies in Hayes, but that’s another review. Actually, even my cousins IN Seoul won’t touch the tent businesses for fear of contracting hepatitis. While I can’t speak to the disease factor of Ilbunjee, I can say this: the tender beef and pork combo is BLISS. The combos come with odeng guk (fishcake soup) as “service”, and the banchans are average.

    Based on meat alone, it’d be 5 stars, but I have a bone to pick with the ajumah hostess/server. K-T and I were the only female clientele and everyone orders the same thing: beef. So I notice as we’re waiting for our order, this ajumah is going around to all the ajushi/business mens tables grilling their meat, and I’m thinking to myself, “sweet, full-service!” Moments later, our tray of pork bellies and dungshim arrive and this ajumah turns right around and sits her flat korean booty behind the cashier and proceeds to read a magazine. Hello…Yoboseyo? I’m a woman! I have rights!

    Did she treat us differently because we’re women, and since she’s a woman, she’s thinking, “Psh, if I have to grill, they gonna grill. Handle it!” Who knows, perhaps she was tired, but I thought the whole thing was awfully rude and presumptuous. You know what really kills me though? I still left a 15% tip. Sigh.

  • Mandos
    March 20, 2008 at 11:17 pm

    I’ve been to India. Almost everything I ate came from a trusted source, though.

  • Pinko Punko
    March 20, 2008 at 11:19 pm

    Oh, K, I didn’t know anyone else was still awake. I can’t believe you are mining suck gold out of that T-Rex thread. I would have hammered T-Rex. They ruined my birthday.

    Mandos, take it to the ombudspersonpants.

  • Pinko Punko
    March 20, 2008 at 11:19 pm

    Yeh, but was someone’s dong nestled in it?

  • Mandos
    March 21, 2008 at 6:20 am

    I *am* one of the ombudspersonpantses, as I recall. I’m ombudspersonpants to the ombudspersonpants. And what is the ombudspersonpants doing, anyway? Isn’t there some leftover grapefruit business to deal with?

  • The Uncanny Canadian
    March 21, 2008 at 8:03 am

    Can’t. Stop. Laughing. OMG>

  • Kathleen
    March 21, 2008 at 9:05 am

    Really Random four star

    I buy all my clothes from H&M. It just sucks that they were probably made in a sweatshop, and where ever I go someone else is wearing at least one item that I am wearing.

    Why do they have so few men’s clothes? Don’t they realize how many gay guys live here, and how much buying power we collectively have?

    I feel really bad for the people who work there.

  • Kathleen
    March 21, 2008 at 9:07 am

    Five Star Pizza review:

    I gotta write this, before I forget: at Haas Business school I worked at a cafe and my boss at the time was this dude named Jacob, whose background was in catering.

    Fast forward to about eight or nine years ago. After going through the full-size windows at Cheese Board pizza, I felt really bad. My favorite place, and even as my sliced hand trickled blood, has now another thing to have a meeting about. When I become rich, I`ll pay for it, cos I asked Jacob`s sister (who`s a member of this wonderful collective, hopefully still), who was the first person to say, “Jackson, what happened?” after the incident, if I had to pay for it. That same day, I went to my gig as usual as a counterboy at Mod Lang Records (no longer in Berkeley)…

    …anyways, to this day I have a thing against middle-class yuppies who wear North Face, but one day I aspire to return as the same, and grow old there. And dumpster that wonderful trashcan, full of unsold pizza. God Bless Cheeseboard and their wonderful establishment.

    link

  • Kathleen
    March 21, 2008 at 9:10 am

    Anyone want a cream puff?

    I used to be chun-ky.

    Not like…”Aw cute, look at the little chub roll on the cute little baby girl”.

    But more like, “Is your kid gonna eat all my kids cheez-its?”

    And yes, I am not ashamed to tell you that there have been times where I might have grabbed a pat of butter from that little bowl of golden delicious, snuck under the table, and licked it, like a sweet, creamy lollipop made of animal fat.

    Beard Papa’s kinda taste like that. They leave a coat of fat on your tongue and eating a whole one makes me want to puke, but at the same time reminds me of the cool, calm feeling I used to get while licking a cube of butter under a dirty restaurant table, counting the wads of used gum that stealthy teenagers with bacne decided to stick there.

    Would it be weird if I still had the urge to do that?

    If you ever see me fingering that little bowl of butter, just look at me and say “No” firmly.

    Also, don’t date me.

  • Brando
    March 21, 2008 at 9:27 am

    Yeh, but was someone’s dong nestled in it?

    These comments are killing me, but that one destroyed me like some laughter-born salmonella.

  • The Uncanny Canadian
    March 21, 2008 at 9:40 am

    I can’t eat Beard Papa’s again. At least for a while. Thanks alot, Kathleen!!!

  • Chuckles
    March 21, 2008 at 11:01 am

    I kinda feel like annieangelling this thread, but instead:

    “I even spy’d a cup of chili…mhmmm….”

    I think you meant: “I spied a cup of chili.” Dumbass.

  • billy pilgrim
    March 21, 2008 at 11:15 am

    It should be “I spiced a cup of chili”

  • Pinko Punko
    March 21, 2008 at 11:29 am

    Alright, K, top this!

    One star

    A Quack. And not a very good one. At least he plays soccer.

    I needed my wisdom teeth removed, and Podlesh was the closest guy. Well, he removed the wisdom teeth and told me to pack it with gauze for a few hours and it’d stop bleeding in 2 hours.

    So 6 hours pass and its still bleeding and I’ve swallowed a half gallon of my own blood. So I call Podlesh and he is all pissed off about how its my fault and I should’ve called him earlier. He said “FINE, I’LL FIX YOU UP” and also “I HAVE A SOCCER GAME TOMORROW. I NEED MY REST.”

    Sorry drowning in my own blood from your screwed up surgery caused you to miss the required rest for your soccer game. I apologize. My bad.

  • Kathleen
    March 21, 2008 at 11:35 am

    at least he got one star. I could see that review still getting three stars.

    oh, and, you’re so going DOWN, Pinko.

  • Kathleen
    March 21, 2008 at 12:35 pm

    OK, but on to the actual service. When I spend more than $20 on getting my nails done I expect the person doing them to speak English. Not that I have anything against non-English speaking people, just that I’ve never been to a nail salon that charged $25 for a pedicure and had a mostly ESL staff. It kind of threw me. “Was this a dirty dive nail salon posing as a posh place,” I wondered, or just a sign of inflation? But then they proved me wrong.

  • Kathleen
    March 21, 2008 at 12:47 pm

    MUNI three stars

    my bus caught on fire
    MY BUS CAUGHT ON FIRE

    passengers pitched in to help wheelchair guy down the stairs minus one star for having to walk a mile in the rain. other than that, four stars.

  • Pinko Punko
    March 21, 2008 at 12:55 pm

    A theme of “aliens”

    To wit:

    Three stars

    Well, as far as laundromats (why is it laundromat and not laundrymat… wikipedia it!) go this is pretty standard. I think the best laundromat I’ve ever been to was on Forbes ave in Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania, not CA. It was frickin’ huge, shiney, and had a lot of arcade games. Including the one where you shoot frickin’ aliens. I love to shoot frickin’ aliens. Anyway, like I said, this place is pretty standard, a couple magazines to read, a corkboard for community posts etc. No frickin’ aliens.

    Ahem:

    Four stars

    Movies

    Movies

    Movies

    Movies

    Movies

    Movies

    Am I a pain in the ass yet?

    Always has a huge selection.They carry American Dad esp too.I love that drunk alien dude.

    Yeah.

    Goldmine:

    One star

    It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

    No, actually it was really just the worst of times. I needed to break a 20 so I could get change to ride the bus. I went into Honeybaked Ham Company at Geary & Divis and waited patiently in the short line. When I got to the counter, I asked, “Could you break a 20 for me? I’m one quarter short of having bus fare.”

    Unbeknownst to me, the clerk has just been through a harrowing ordeal:

    Two years ago, they had been abducted by a unpleasant race of intergalactic slavers known as the Spugorth. The clerk had been plucked from planet Earth and taken away to a distant galaxy where they were kept in a degrading pen and treated like an animal. After six months of being ogled and prodded by the uncaring public, they were finally sold to a cruel master who was a Dominator – a powerful race of alien being who traveled the galaxy in planet-sized starships. The Dominator, who’s name was Lord Ultim, forced the Honeybaked Ham Company clerk to cater to his every surly whim. No degredation was too base; no demand too vile. The clerk was forced to eudure this humiliation for a year and a half. Then, though a strange interdimensional occurance, the clerk suddenly found themself back at work behind the counter at the HBHC.

    And that’s when I asked her to break a 20.

    So, after having endured 720 days of powerlessness, it’s perfectly understandable why she now, more than ever, felt the need to assert her personal power. With new-found vigor, she irritatedly asked, “You gonna buy anything??”

    I said that I hadn’t been planning to. Power coursing through her veins like liquid cocaine, she boldly asserted: “If you buy a ham, I can give you change.”

    Her sneer bespoke volumes. She saw her prey squirming in her grasp and knew victory was at hand. No visits from the valkeries today; today I have the power, little pawn.

    “I don’t think that having to buy a $30 ham to get a quarter is a reasonable exchange.” I said.

    Like the lone protestor of Tienamen Square facing down a column of main battle tanks, she stood firm in her resolve. Leonides himself would have wept tears of joy at her fierce resistance; her never-say-die demeanor. Honeybaked Ham Company had become a crucible of truth and justice, and she, lone sentinal in a world gone mad, said, “Well, too bad.” and grinned in her smug superiority.

    Woe! A thousand times woe to he that dare challenge this fury, upholding the sword of justice, and ready to strike!

    Knowing I could not stand against such awesome might of mind, I left Honeybaked Ham Company in disgrace.

    I was forced to go into a flower shop just down the block which changed the 20 for me with no problems, and even wished me a nice day.

    Guess who will NEVER be getting my business again?

    These two, you just gotta read in context.

    And this wtf:

    Five stars

    get yourself some bad unkl sista!
    stazl is the head, hands and fingers of the bad unkl sista delight, seaming together performance, alien-otherworldly-victorian-sexiness with butoh, bugs and heavy chop-lickin’ basslines. her live shows are bizarre performance treats and in person, well, the nodes are stretching and reaching through all your layers of skin…….
    a costume designer and performance artist [you can catch her delights at supperclub too], stazl also produces a fantastical ready-to-wear line available at the grant building monthly trunks and boutiques around town. check the website for details, but get yourself some gear before the bad unkl sista is whisked away for contract costume design jobs by all those hollywood types just needed a dose of the bad unkl to level that shit up down there in LALALAND.
    i personally own : a maroon and grey short bustle, RED! flare pants, a weeeeird yellow vegetable print shit [yes, you read right, vegetable print], and this fantastical light grey, peach satin and cream lace used-to-be-pants-but-now-a-skirt remake. and i have my eye on something new when i get that tax refund i’m due …….. yay!
    highly recommended.

    Some Quizno’s:

    Two stars
    Where DID all these places come from so suddenly? The only thing I can think of is that these are dimensional portals set up by a race of aliens who are waiting for the signal to swarm out and take over the Earth. It certainly is not the food or the service. COME ON, folks, it is better than Subway but it is not that good, okay? There is sugar in everything so you would think it’s kind of tasty. Small, lackluster shops. Plus side: good attitude, they’ve got some game. Of course they do, they’re aliens. Fortunately for us the CIA has installed a Starbucks at every corner to keep tabs on them.

  • Pinko Punko
    March 21, 2008 at 1:11 pm

    This one isn’t very dramatic:

    One star

    They don’t even deserve half a star! Terrrible service, grouchy waitress on PMS, and contaminated food that gave me the worst headache and nauseated feeling ever. The boss (waitress) didn’t care to greet or utter a word when she dropped off the menu or took our order. Then, she started chit chatting happily with the next table as if they’re her goddam lovers. When I asked for a containter, she gave me a small one that wouldn’t even fit half of my bowl. When she brought the bigger one, she took away my lid. What am I to do with a big and small containers that have no lids??? So, I asked her for my lid and got a dirty response. I was happy to get the hell out of that place, but unfortunately, I was so sick for the next two days. I wanted to puke but nothing would come out and I developed a humungous headache that prevented me from driving. It was the most terrible feeling I’ve ever encountered. Went to two meetings the next day only asked to be excused because I was in so much pain. Drank tons of water to try and flush the MSG or bad food out, but am still suffering today.

    Should never have come back since the last time I was here I ordered the fish cake and got a piece of bone jabbed straight into my gum. I was bleeding like crazy when I got it out. That should have been a big warning sign!!! I refuse to go back and will boycott their other two restaurants on the block!

    I eat out every day and this is by far the worst experience of all.

  • Kathleen
    March 21, 2008 at 3:33 pm

    ok that alien compendium was pretty good. curses.

    Top this pretentiousness.

    What a thrill to be alive on a bright Sunday afternoon of the early spring, almost implausibly privileged with simple indulgence: reading Mallarme’s anecdotes while sipping on a cup of Blue Bottle Coffee. The fragrant aroma burns deep with enchantment. The verve from the acidity glows. And, the richness of the body lights up all senses. Sweet beauty. Harmony. Perhaps, it is the incompetent beverage that we gulp down our throat everyday brings out the sophistication of this cup of Latte. And, it only takes one sip of this Latte to remind me gratification; thanks to the Farmers, the Roasters, the Tasters, and the Baristas. And, thanks to the sun, the soil, the wind, the altitude and the latitude. The cup is slowly emptied, but the cheerfulness is pervasive. A moment like this is a blessing.

  • Pinko Punko
    March 21, 2008 at 4:44 pm

    If that person had wanked thanking the attitude and the latitude, I would have totally lost it.

  • plover
    March 21, 2008 at 5:18 pm

    “I even spy’d a cup of chili…mhmmm….”

    I think you meant: “I spied a cup of chili.” Dumbass.

    It’s Shakespearean blank verse. If it’s not spelled that way it doesn’t scan.

  • fish
    March 22, 2008 at 6:18 am

    I spied a cup of chili Dumbass

    s’trooth, it came not in a glass

    if it had come in a glass, alas

    prithee I would have to pass

  • Kathleen
    March 23, 2008 at 9:58 am

    how do we decide who won? the ombudspants is drunk in Portland.

  • Mandos
    March 23, 2008 at 7:30 pm

    I’m afraid Pinko won with the alien compendium.

  • Pinko Punko
    March 23, 2008 at 7:45 pm

    Huzzah!

  • Lesley
    March 23, 2008 at 10:31 pm

    The male owner is nice and would chat it up with you. The female owner, haha, not so much. I won’t get into details because she’s usually in the kitchen anyway.

    Wtf wrote this? The Postman Who Rang Twice?

  • Kathleen
    March 24, 2008 at 11:05 am

    how can Pinko expect to win when he can’t win any big states?

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