It’s just called “Teahouse”.
Today was tax-free-clothing-shopping Saturday in Texas, so me and my kids shopped all day. We took my cousin Randy along, too.
I’d taken the kids to Momoko in Austin a few weeks ago, where they’d tried bubble tea for the first time and liked it. Today we went to the bubble tea place that I knew to exist in Memorial City Mall. It sucked because the woman working there was stupid and had a bad attitude. And she told us they didn’t have bubble tea. And the name of the place was Fuji Teahouse, and the stuff they were selling looked just like bubble tea, but she said nothing they sold had tea in it. So whatever. I told the kids that, later, we would go to a real bubble tea place in Houston’s Chinatown.
We shopped for the rest of the afternoon, until we were worn out. Then the Baby asked me where we were going next. I said, “[The place where I buy all my Atkins-diet fake candy products], then home.” Dallas said, “But Mom! I thought we were going to Chinatown to drink bubble tea!” Houston’s Chinatown used to be downtown, but now it’s actually in/around a satellite town called Bellaire, and I was too tired to drive out to Bellaire with all my kids on a Saturday evening. I said we’d go get bubble tea another day. The kids said, “Aw.”
Then we pulled into the Atkins Fake Candy Place shopping center near our home, and I immediately saw a new establishment there. It was called [Chinese Characters] Teahouse. “Look!” I said. “A new bubble tea place!”
Even though I’d been tired and ready to go home, I couldn’t resist stopping off. “Just real quick,” I told my family. At first we weren’t even sure it was open, but it was like the place was beckoning us in. It was open. It was very small and at first seemed dimly lit. Then we went in and I could immediately tell that the teahouse owners were into Feng Shui. One wall was completely mirrored, with shelves and/or ledges supporting all sorts of plants and fountains and hunks of jade and stuff.
This place was hardcore. The most prominently featured menu choices involved red beans, black beans, and something called Grass Jelly. No long lists of sweet American tuti fruity crap here. The kids selected from the few flavors they could recognize, and I ordered Peppermint Creme Tea with just a little tapioca. While we waited, we saw that there were board games scattered throughout the room, as well as laptops on a bar for complimentary web-surfing. We were among the few non-Asians there. For a sec I wondered if we were intruding, but after a few minutes, I completely relaxed. The place was just so freaking mellow. We set up a Monopoly board and invented a version of the game that didn’t necessitate counting out the paper money. The Baby didn’t like his fruit slush. Passion Fruit — real fruit and too bitter. The counter girls poured it down the sink and made him a Strawberry slush for free. “If you don’t like your drink, we give you one you like. That’s our guarantee,” they explained. And it turned out that this Teahouse was a branch of one that had been in Chinatown since 1992. So we didn’t have to go to them… they had come to us.
We stayed for at least an hour. Although the place was full of people and the tables were very close together, it didn’t feel cramped or hectic. It felt like we were in a cozy game room on a calm, balmy evening with no worries at all. We had a good time. We’ve decided that [Secret Name] Teahouse is our new favorite hang out. I missed my kids a lot. I’m glad they’re back home.
When we left the teahouse, I was thinking about how bubble tea places are good because they’re like bars or Starbuckses in that you can have an overpriced beverage, hang out and relax. But they’re also better, because your kids can hang out with you, too. So I thought that, then I got home and started writing this blog entry, then I found this article called “Will Tapioca Pearl Tea Conquer Starbucks?” See what you think.
You down with OPB?
(You know — Other People’s Blogs.) Here’s a list of blogs I’ve scoped out lately:
- “Sometimes it seems that Karma never catches up to the people I hate the most. Note to self: Check batteries in your Voodoo dolls and change your altar blood- it may be losing its verve.”
- “So, with negatives far outweighing the positives, his absence leaves the parts of me not filled with pork chops and sauerkraut sad and hollow.”
- “Yes, Marilyn is Janet’s mother. And by virtue of that, she is certainly a ho.”
- “But come on, why walk around in a plain cheap padded bra when you could walk around in a cheap padded bra with flowers all over it?”
- “I am nasty, but not in the way you’re probably hoping.”
- “This morning I left my house looking a way that I’m pretty sure I don’t have to think twice about because I’m white.”
- “If a marriage between a gay man and a drug addict cant work, I dont want to go on living in this world.”
Hmm. There was a site by three boys, and one of the boys – Steven – was funny, but it looks like his two friends kicked him off and replaced him with someone else. Steven, hope you’re okay. Other stuff:
my new favorite show
best blog I’ve ever seen, link stolen from littleyellowdifferent.com
where I’ll be in October to shoot the bull with anybody who feels like shooting it with me
