Month: March 2023

HiGuys 盖市茶饮 (Bubble Tea) – London, Walworth Road

On By Bao Bao QiuIn drinksLeave a comment

Ah hah! There’s a new bubble tea shop on the Walworth Road!

With the increasing decline of the main shops and businesses on Walworth Road (for example Barclays Bank – still can’t believe that Barclays are closing this branch thinking that not many people use this branch! There’s so many people in the community who still rely on face-to-face services, I’m sure their stats are all wrong… then there’s a temporary closure of the Post Office! So angry!).

Well, if you’re fired up from all this chaos of high street closures, and the increasing strikes in the UK, I think a bubble tea might cool you down. 😅

HiGuys 盖市茶饮 (Mando: Gai Shi Cha Yin; Canto: goi si cha yam … literal meaning: lid/to build – city/market – tea – drink) is a bubble tea brand from Taiwan. From research on the Internet it looks like they started up in 2018 in Taiwan, and have expanded throughout the world. There’s 3 branches already in the UK (Derby, Nottingham… and Walworth Road), but not sure if this is a very popular brand… best thing to do is just try it out!

The menu on the screen is a bit small to read, but there are menus at the counter for you to decide on your drink, and there’s a menu at the window in case you’re too shy to go in.

And whilst you’re waiting, you can watch the video about this bubble tea shop… with English and Chinese subtitles.

I wasn’t given a bag, so I carried these home. It felt a little warm at the bottom as they had heated up the brown sugar tapioca bubbles, which started to cool down with the ice.

Here I ordered the “Night Elves” and the “Dream Chaser”. Guess which one is which.

If you haven’t guessed yet, well here’s the Night Elves which is basically the brown sugar tapioca pearls in milk. I forgot to shake it before I started to drink it. This had 75% sugar and less ice… Whoops. Too sweet! But so good! I had a long morning, and this one instantly cooled me down.

And this one is obviously the Dream Chaser. Maybe it’s because of the light colours at the top that make it all dreamy… not sure! They ran out of the blue tapioca pearls, so I had the brown sugar ones instead. Not a problem! This one reminded me of drinking an iced slushie. Like crunched up ice with a mix of different flavours. I didn’t check out the ingredients properly, but it looks like it’s got cranberries, coconut jelly and the white part is probably yogurt… not sure. This was amazing! So many sweet flavours in little cup…

I can’t wait to try more in the future!

Total came to £9.45. Not a bad price if you’re not heading into China Town for this stuff.

Address: 231 Walworth Rd, London SE17 1RL

Telephone: 07447978989

Facebook Menu: https://www.facebook.com/100057608882805/menu/

Just Eat Menu: https://www.just-eat.co.uk/restaurants-hi-guys-walworth/menu

Uber Eats: https://www.ubereats.com/store/higuys/okiZjOejVwKYntHBWEuvAA?diningMode=DELIVERY

p.s. It was my birthday a few days ago… here’s a mini birthday cake bought in Kowloon Bakery in China Town.

Pot and Rice – London, Elephant and Castle / Walworth Road

On By Bao Bao QiuIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Have you tried Chinese claypot rice? It’s a very popular dish for breakfast, lunch and dinner in Hong Kong and China.

I’ve been watching lots of Chinese YouTube videos of food vloggers in Guangdong, China. There’s ones on claypot rice… and my parents said there aren’t any places in London that make this… and I said there is, it’s near Elephant and Castle, I just haven’t tried it yet!

So on Deliveroo, I ordered to claypot rice to pick up from the restaurant. (These days since the covid restrictions have been lifted, I try to go out and walk more to the places rather than sit and wait at home… A lot of people are doing the same thing (I hope) and going out to make up for the lost years of not exercising 😆).

So, Pot and Rice not only makes claypot rice, but also sell udon noodles, cheung fun and other Chinese (Cantonese) favourites. They’re expensive, so I would rather buy the frozen stuff from the Chinese / Asian supermarkets, and steam or make my own version of whatever.

My order was already waiting for me when I got there, and I was five minutes early too!

When I got home, the food was still hot, and they were impressively wrapped at the top like a flower. The sauces were neatly packed, wrapped with clingfilm and cellotaped to one of the claypot dishes.

This is the chicken and mushroom claypot… All I could say was woooow when I opened it. The smell of the sauce already in this was aromatic, you could see a lot of the ingredients on top which is typical of a claypot rice dish.

You wouldn’t think there was not a lot of rice in this, but when you scoop it out, you can see how deep or the depth at where the rice is.

This was a very flavourful dish even without the sweet soy sauce, but I still recommend adding the soy sauce after the first bite!

The beef and mushroom was also a delight to see at first opening the cover. It looks very plentiful at the top. It didn’t smell much of anything compared to the chicken and mushroom.

And again the rice was very deep. So if you’re a hungry person, just eat one claypot. If there are two of you, one is also enough… but order another one just in case!

The beef and mushroom one is quite bland, so I do recommend adding that sweet soy sauce on top just to make it more flavourful.

Unfortunately for both takeaway dishes, the rice was slightly on the raw side, not totally raw… I think they were trying to get the bottom to be a bit crispy and burnt, which is what a claypot rice is supposed to be, however there was probably not enough water to cook the rice properly… Oh well. Maybe eating in would have been a better option?

Anyway, later on the evening, MummyGeek steamed the leftovers, and the rice was edible! 😅

Total came to £32.80 without any delivery charge as I walked to collect it.

My geeky rating: 4.5/5 – I really liked the flavours, but it was unfortunate about the rice (the takeaway version).

Website: https://www.potandrice.co.uk/

Address: 3 Sayer St, London SE17 1FY

Telephone: 020 8063 5173

Momotu Poke and Bento – London, Camberwell

On By Bao Bao QiuIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Recently, I’ve had not many reasons to make a blog post, but finally, there’s a new eaterie in Camberwell, London. A Japanese style takeaway (and eat in) that sells poke and Japanese style curry.

I’ve been eyeing this place for a while and waiting for it to open. Sometimes after work I forgot it was even there, so one day I decided not to make lunch the night before and go to this place Momotu.

As I entered there’s a self-service like till area with the menu on the wall, where you use a touchscreen to choose what you want to eat, and you can pay either at the counter or at the self-service area. It’s the first time I’ve encountered one of these in a small restaurant in London. Most will take your order at the counter, or well-known fast food places will have those large touchscreens.

There’s a seating area right in front of the window so you can stare at people who pass by…

I chose a large poke with white rice and various toppings, here’s the counter area which is neatly equipped.

So back in the office, I closed my office door to not be disturbed in this moment of eating time… My colleagues are quite noisy and nosey during lunch time, and sometimes I can’t rid of them unless I say I’m busy and can’t talk to them… The many times I get disturbed in the office is ridiculous!

I chose tuna and salmon as the main fish which tasted fresh. I asked for edameme beans, carrots, kale, seaweed, tofu and fish roe with a slightly spicy sauce. The mixture of ingredients I chose was incredibly amazing…

By the time I finished this I was practically full, next time I will try it with the brown rice with different toppings…

I would be happy to buy this again than eat the M&S versions, as the refrigerated versions can taste a bit stale (and sometimes not enough to fill one’s stomach).

Total came to £12.90 with a can of diet coke (I think there was a discount at the time I bought this).

My geeky rating: 4.5/5 … and will try and remember to test out their curry next time!

Address: 69 Denmark Hill, London SE5 8RS

Telephone: 020 7967 1435

Deliveroo menu (it says Peckham, but it’s actually Camberwell!):

https://deliveroo.co.uk/menu/london/peckham/momotu?utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=google_maps_link