Tapioca Express

* LOOOOONG Menu at a spot that you could never tell was a chain *
I stumbled into this spot after a failed attempt to go to one of the «spots on my list» (my list of new places to check out). Somehow this spot wasn’t on my list, but apparently has been opened for a while now.
You could never tell from outside as it looks just like almost every other bubble tea/​Taiwanese snack shop in Vancouver but this is a medium sized chain originally from California.
No idea if the offerings are the same down in California or the other locations like Houston, Texas or not. Not even sure if they are the same at their other Canadian location in Richmond.
Based upon all of the handwritten special menus, etc. it is hard to tell this spot is a chain. I would have never known if it wasn’t for the one pre-​printed menu that looked awfully glossy and professional (with all of the required English typos like «Coffea», «Rice Noddle», «Chikin», and «Preserved Vegerable»).
Anyway for lunch I decided to try my staple test dish of Taiwanese style crispy chicken. When I ordered it the very friendly person behind the counter asked if I wanted to put it on a combo (which I hadn’t seen on the ridiculously large menu!), to which I said yes. It was only about a dollar more to make a combo and to the chicken and rice dish it added on a gentle tofu dish, some Taiwanese pickles, some steamed broccoli, and an iced jasmine green tea. Good add on deal!
She also asked how spicy I wanted the chicken, and I said «Spicy.» She then gave the double check of, «Really spicy?» I answered, «Yes.»
So the chicken was freshly prepared and very hot (temperature wise). It didn’t have as much of a marinade as I would normally expect, but had the added flavour of being dipped into chili powder (guess that was the extra hot addition?). It had a few fried basil leaves as garnish — but not as many as I would normally like. It was good. Not amazing. But decent. It was not greasy at all.
The rice was nicely presented in a shape with some black sesame seeds for decoration. The broccoli was steamed nicely and still slightly crisp as I like it. The Taiwanese pickles were not overly salty. The tofu dish was little cubes of tofu with a few bits of corn and peas in a corn starch based sauce. It kind of reminded me of mapo-​tofu without any spice. The green tea was sweet — but not overly so.
Overall a decent and very quick (hence the name Express I guess!) lunch with friendly service.
They have a very wide variety of items on a ridiculously long menu including items like:
— Chinese yam and pork soup with red dates
— Taiwanese beef noodle soup
— Taiwanese style stewed beef with rice
— Pepper squid balls with rice
Some highlights for the adventurous:
— Pork and egg mush (I’m still not sure what that means!!!)
— Crispy chicken tail (I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a chicken tail before.)
— Deep fried chicken neck
— Crispy chicken heart
— Crispy chicken gizzard
I’ll be back if in the area to check out some of the other menu items and to give the bubble tea a try too.