@Bagel @jntcho I heard rumblings about a second location in Irvine, so it’s good to know that they’re open with relatively shorter lines!
Definitely matters, especially if they have a system in place that notifies you when your drinks are ready to pick up. It makes it really easy to stroll up and leave without being around other people for too long.
Thanks for the tip about the Chino Hills location! I may try to check out Omomo in Chino Hills sometime this week because traffic has been light especially during the week.
Thanks to @JeetKuneBao for the tip on Hopper and Burr! and @Chowseeker1999 for catching my typo in the original post! I had to go to OC to make a special delivery on Friday morning so I made it a special point to stop over.
They make their own chai blend… which I was excited to try. Further, when I requested Almond Milk (I think it adds a little something to chai) they said they make their own as well! And I was super impressed… It foamed up BEAUTIFULLY!
The chai blend was very nice. Balanced but spicy. It also was WAY too smooth. I could have just downed it!! The only thing I would chance is to order it with a shot of espresso. This is how I’ve been getting it at my local coffee shop (They use excellent espresso beans from Red Bay in Oakland) and not only is it delicious but it also tempers some of the sweetness. That is what I really liked about the Badmaash one… it wasn’t super sweet. This one was a hair towards that.
So, I resisted sucking it down… because since I was early there, I could head down to Paderia to finally try some of their egg tarts!
I had been to Paderia before, but I always make it too late to get egg tarts!! They also specialize in Levain type cookies and they do an excellent job with them (That is why I got some! But I REALLY. REALLY wanted to try their egg tarts. And on Friday… SCORE!
AND THEY WERE WARM!! OMG. They were everything I hoped. Super flakey crust. CREAMY filling. Eggy in taste and not overly sweet. Just an all around excellent egg tart. And while it tasted great warm, there was something to be said about having one that is cooled. The crust becomes even more flakey and the egg tart flavor more deep. The only thing about these is that the crust is butter based. There is something to be said about a lardy egg tart crust. But honestly at this level, it really is a quibble.
Finally, we also always get one of their seasonal cheesecakes. We had it tonight and it was excellent as the one’s we had prior. Right now it’s Lemon Blueberry. The top is covered by a whole berry compote and instead the cheesecake are blueberries as well. However, the lemon note is VERY present. I love Lemon flavors, so it make very happy. Although we ate it a day later, nothing suffered in this cake. They use a THICK graham cracker crust that holds together well. It’s yielding, not grainy or crumbly. The cheesecake itself is light and almost fluffy. But not so much that you think you are eating one of those instant cheesecakes. It’s very satisfying and one is more than enough to share. It also went well with a Chai this evening… this time home brewed chai from A Rare Tea Company with a bit of Rosa Bros Horchata milk…
Hi @Dommy,
Thanks for the report. Sounds like a great day! 
For “Panderia” which place is this? Google keeps thinking I’m trying to find a “Panaderia” instead. 
Ha! My bad… Force of habit… no N.
I’ve only been to Paderia a few times and never been there in time for the egg custard but we love their malasadas. Not quite Leonards in Honolulu but made to order and excellent.
Hopper and Burr is one of the best in the OC. Guys know what they are doing and source good beans. Jason from Playground loves this joint.
yes! They sell out usually before noon. In one of our pre-pandemic visits we tried the Malasadas as well. I’m not a huge fan of them ordinarily, but the ones Paderia make are so light and delicious. I’ve never been to Hawaii… so I can’t compare… but it made me a convert. Lots of deliciousness going on there and like the barista at Hopper and Burr… the folks could not be nicer.
–Dommy!
I think they’re Viet-owned, but specialize in Portuguese/Filipino ones.
It’s worth it. Next time your back in OC, make sure you come really early because they sell out everyday of certain items.
I am glad you liked the chai latte recommendation!
Yup it’s so good and smooth I can easily drink a few of those!
I tried Tiger Sugar for the first time this past weekend. Placed order online and picked it up about 10 minutes later.
It was really good. 
With the warnings from this thread about how you can’t adjust sweetness here, I thought it would be super sweet. But it actually isn’t all that sweet to me. It had a burnt caramel taste that I really enjoyed. The boba pearls were perfect! Warm, soft and chewy and carried through with the black sugar (brown sugar?) flavor.
I wonder how this drink from Tiger Sugar compares to Half and Half’s iced milk drink with caramel and boba. I haven’t had that particular drink from H&H in a while.
My drink definitely didn’t look like all their promo photos, but maybe it’s because I picked up my drink 10 minutes after it was made? There weren’t any of the brown stripes on the sides, it looked like it had already blended together a little. No matter, it was still delicious.
I hope they open more locations closer by!
Factory Tea Bar Opened up recently near by us (USC area) and it would have been a great spot for them… except the Pandemic… They were not on my radar to be honest, but they have been doing promotions (giant jugs of Milktea!) and even made a nice little post on our tiny neighborhood board because they hired a local. So P had to make a run to and so I asked him to bring back some Boba and Popcorn Chicken…
He brought home the goods and it was very nice they put it in a sealed bag! I guess they do enough delivery business that this is a great way to let customers know they care.
He got me the Passion Fruit Green Tea with Boba and He got the Dirty Nom Nom Milk Tea with Brown Sugar.
The boba was fresh, but a little chalky sadly. The drink was very much on the sweet side. I perfer the green tea drinks at Pot of Cha just down the street. His Milk Tea was VERY good. It tasted just like those Brown Sugar Boba Ice Cream Bars.
The popcorn chicken was okay. They served it with sweet chili sauce, but it had enough seasoning on its own. The pieces were super tiny though, and could have been crispier. I actually prefer the popcorn chicken that is served in the Culver City Mall. Hold for Tea, which is surprisingly good for a mall shop.
Hopefully once they get through this they will re-open. But for now, locally to me at least, I’ll be at Pot of Cha.
–Dommy!
Finally made it to Paderia for the first time and loved everything! I went to the new Irvine location, which doesn’t seem to have the malasadas - dunno if they’ll be coming or if it’s just a Fountain Valley thing. Pre-ordering from their website was easy and everything was ready to go when I arrived.
The egg tarts are great - a bit different from Jim’s Macau/po-style tarts whose fillings are more milky while this one is more eggy. Love the cookies, a little crispy/chewy on the outside and moist and rich on the inside. Ensaymadas are nice too, delicate dough, not too sweet.
Admid this heat… made it down to two places new to me for tea!
The first was Off Set in Torrance. I had been to Pop Monster so many times for Tee Shirts that I can’t believe I had yet to take a peek into Off Set. I had come in hopes of their Mango Nitro Tea… but sadly they were out. Instead I ordered their Jasmine with Passionfruit, lightly sweet.
Light sweet was indeed light sweet. Which honestly I think worked well with the Jasmine tea as not to muddle the lovely floral notes. This as very refreshing and a nice change of pace of those cloying passion fruit teas.
I also recently went to Document. When I’m in the area craving tea, we usually go all the way to Hwa Sun Ji Tea house… but they closed… so I was very happy to see that Document carried a wide variety of Korean Herbal teas! I ordered the Mulberry Leaf Tea… no sweet.
This was my first time having Mulberry Leaf Tea, so I didn’t know what to expect. In the end, it tasted like other Korean Teams I’ve had like Barley Grass. Very green… not like grass clippings… but maybe a tiny bit. But really smooth. Even with no sweet, this was easy to drink down. I prefer this green taste over most straight matcha teas as they can be a little fishy. I would totally order this again, although when it gets colder, I look forward to trying their Hojicha Latte!
When I was 19, I went through a phase when I enjoyed this. There was a place in Berkeley that used lots of fresh fruits and tannic tea. I thought milk was an abomination and powder should be illegal. Today, I think the whole idea is an abomination.
You consider milk tea an abomination ??
Went to YiFang on Sawtelle this Friday. I drove past it a few weeks ago and along with the somewhat favorable reviews here… I am a huge fan of fruit drinks and tea so real fruit teas really appealed to me…
I ordered the seasonal special, Kyoho Grape!
I love Kyoho grapes, we just got some from Tokyo Central. And the flavor is there. You also got a great sense of the green tea they use, quite floral and very nice! The only thing that was a miss for me was that they garnished the tea with quite a few slices of unpeeled apple which led to a little bit of an astringent note.
Because I wanted to get the full flavor of the tea, I ordered it 100% sweet which I don’t usually do. And again, perhaps it was the peel but it wasn’t overly sweet and on a slightly muggy night quite refreshing.
I probably won’t order this again… but am looking forward to trying their other teas, like pineapple.
Beard Papa’s (Sawtelle Japantown), for a limited time, is offering a BOBA custard filling for their cream puffs. It all sounded kitschy to me at first, but it turned out to be quite, quite good…
#RechargeThatAsianCard #BobaFat
