Tapioca Express

+extensive menu
+loads of drinks
+relatively clean bathrooms
–waited in line for MORE THAN HALF AN HOUR (the line was not even out the door, it just took foreverrrr)
–took at least another half hour to get our drinks. just drinks!
–if i wasn’t obsessively craving a passionfruit slush, i would have bounced on the quick.

Tapioca Express is CLOSED! I usually drink a lot of Tapioca but I had to stop because I was going on a diet. So yesterday, my little sister wanted some bubble milk tea, we decided to pass by Tapioca Express. When we walked in and we didn’t notice much of the outside, I had this strange familiar sense of Quickly — until I realize that is WAS Quickly. To be honest, I almost cried when I found out the sad truth.
I can’t stand how Quickly uses the original design of Tapioca Express and now left the place all filthy. The cool TV screen is gone, the fancy chairs are not there anymore and the food sucks.
BOO to Quickly!!!
We want our Tapioca Express back !

This Tapioca Express is closed. Very unfortunately, it is now a Quickly, and Quickly sucks. The green tea Boba drinks are watered down just like other Quicklys. The fried tofu was doughy, soggy, greasy and it’s served without any sauce. Not that any sauce on earth would help. I had one piece and threw out the rest. Would not return.
Please, Tapioca Express if you see this review… please come back. This was the only Tapioca Express in the city.

after a light shopping on fillmore street and california, drive on down to the other side of fillmore.
I like to park my car in the safeway parking lot near the karaōke portion… walk over to the tapioca express to pick up the must, thai iced tea with boba/​tapioca and their friend chicken and fried tofu. Ohhh how I missed thee…
I was so glad that my friend and I stopped by here. The tapioca fad has definitely died down, but as long as this place is available, I’ll be coming back.

Warning: the tapioca balls are for your chewing pleasure and are not to be swallowed whole.
Unless you’re into choking.
Come to think of it, it’s worth choking on a good boba. Tapioca Express has got their recipe down, their tapioca balls are soft on the outside and chewy inside with a hint of sweetness.
I’ve gotten hooked on the Tapioca Milk tea so much that I refuse to try anything else. For those of you who crave variety, they also have fruit flavored milk teas like watermelon, cantaloupe, etc. Click on this link for the rest of the menu:
As for me, I will be content sipping my milk tea and chewing on these soft balls.
Tapioca balls, that is.

It’s Monday night and I’m walking aimlessly in Fillmore district. What to eat, where to go. Oh, a tapioca drink spot. A typical tapioca drink place with the young asian chicks drinking and talking. Pop, 94.9 type music playing in the background. kinda japanese décor feel. So it’s easy to choose my drink, a watermelon tapioca. What to eat… Bento chicken box huh. Interesting enough, I’ll have one of those. Nothing unexpected about the drink. The bento box had two pot stickers, a tiny salad, rice, and unidentifiable salty chicken balls. I’ll pass on the food next time. Maybe i’m too old for this style of place. Maybe i’m expecting a fine dining experience from my six dollar bento box. Whatever it is, this 32 year old is looking for more in life than that bento box and a drink with chewy balls on the bottom, drinkin with an oversized straw.

Better than Quickly. Hands down. lol.
I love their milk tea. Whenever I’m in the area (except for this ONE time) I usually get it there. It’s got a great little cozy setting too. lol.
And yes, you can use card, but with a minimum purchase. But what tapioca joint doesn’t have one, nowadays!!!
Anyway! Definitely worth the trip outside of J-​town!

I wanted to LOVE this place because I am a tapioca drink addict, and I really liked their honeydew melon milk tea. It was refreshing, and not too sweet. Their tapioca is chewy, and not hard or tasted like it went beyond its expiration date. BUT, the big but, is that their food is pretty crappy. I ordered the fried pork chop, and it was overly fried. Dry and tasteless. The mac salad was obviously scooped from a Safeway made batch.
I would skip this $ 6.99 special, and stick to the drinks. In fact, cafes should just stick to drinks and desserts and not serve Food food. If you do, DO IT RIGHT!

I’m on a pudding milk tea craze these days thanks to McLauvin. Since I knew we’d be going to Sundance Kabuki to see a movie, I searched for a boba tea café to stop by on our way. Lucky for us, Tapioca Express was only a block away. I had never heard of this place, but apparently it’s a chain and is comparable to Quickly.
He opted for the hot milk tea with boba. Nothing amazing. Just plain and boba was overcooked. I opted for the pudding milk tea. The milk tea flavor was ok, but definitely came from a powder. The pudding however was disgusting. It was actually chalky. As if they didn’t mix the ingredients enough and the inside was still all powdery. I couldn’t even finish mine. Just gross.
And the employees looked like they would rather die than be there.

I LOVE THIS TAPEX! It’s on Fillmore — close to the 38 muni stop, close to Jtown. After I go to Ichiban Kan inside the Jtown mall, I come here and chill — alone. No one comes between me and my love super spicy fried string beans.
I fell in love with TapEx since my college days when my friends used to take me to the San Mateo Marina Plaza one. I LOVE their friend string beans snack!
This TapEx makes it super spicy — the way I like it. One time I came here, I even ordered two orders — talk about love.
You go in, walk to counter and order, sit and browse through their magazines, walk up to get your delicious food when they call out your order and ENJOY that hot, flaming taste on your tongue. Then run up to order another drink because one tapioca will not take care of that spicy taste in your mouth.
They have nice black marble tables — good for two to four people. Clean space. A lot of mostly-​old magazines — both American and Chinese.
Usually friendly workers there. Out of all the times I went, I would say I only encounter one bitchy worker.
Yes, I know I’m a sucker for the friend string beans for $ 2.99. I can probably make it myself for a cheaper price but I can’t cook so I gotta spend my money here.

Sure it is a franchise, but their boba tea is always what I am looking for. My friends and I have been here three times in the past week, that may actually be a bad thing.
Atmosphere: Obnoxious bright colors, netbooks, sounds of people chewing. Soundtrack: Something between samba and opera
Cost: $ 4.80 for for a large bubble milk tea.
Try: Vanilla chai with black (chewy tapioca)
Skip: Avocado bubble tea (really)

I like how they don’t make their drinks too sweet. They are across the street from harputs (my favorite place to get adidas).
oh, and clear boba. go for the clear.

When they say «Lavender Milk Tea» they mean bits of real lavender in the bottom of your cup that makes you spit like a character out of Hee Haw. And don’t tell me you don’t know what Hee Haw was or else I’ve completed aged myself.
I’m sticking to the regular green tea milk tea from now on.

I used to live on top of this Tapioca Express and I became addicted to the honeydew melon snowball, three, maybe four or five times a week I’d stop by to get this deliciious treat. They use fresh honeydew melon and the tapioca balls are the perfect consistency, chewy and sweet.
The staff is really friendly and they are full of suggestions if you want to try something new.
The décor is cute and modern, they have a flat screen TV and lots of US weekly magazines to flip through while you wait for your drink. They also have a karaōke room in the back.
Unfortunately i no longer live on top of this Tap-​X but everytime I’m in the area I always make a trip back. I miss this place!

So I take it Tapioca Express is a local chain here in San Francisco. (I keep wanting to say «San Fran» out of laziness, but word on the street is that you folks don’t like that too much.)
My bff/​roomie from college, Nikou R, brought me here for a quick chat before my flight back home. She insisted we stop by, even though we just had a feast at pizza inferno. Alright, madame. I’ve heard SF (can I say that?) has the best tapioca drinks, so I had to try it.
The menu offered, not only bubble teas, but fresh juices, teas and milk teas, icies, bento boxes and small snacks. Needing a caffeine fix (I was a good girl all week and didn’t have any coffee), I ordered the Cappuccino Bubble – no whip. I probably annoyed the sweet lady working the register. It took me forever to decide between big or small tapioca balls; I’ve never had an option before. «Big balls. No small ones. Big. Small. Ack! Okay, big.» «How about mixed?,» she asked. MIXED! Oh my. What an idea! (If you think I’m embellishing my enthusiasm, trust me. I’m not.) Nikou had the Honeydew, my second choice. Both really good, but the honeydew was really sweet and fresh. Like I mentioned, they juice their own fruits, so it may take a while to get your order, but it’s worth the wait.
Plenty of seating, an assortment of current mags, upbeat dance music, free Wi-​Fi … this place rocks.

I prefer Tapioca Express to the various Quickly locations around SF. Plenty of delicious drink choices! They also don’t taste blandly sweet like a lot of these types of drinks tend to do. Prices are good too.
I’ve had the food once and it was alright. That and the fact that I can never seem to get the tapioca bubbles I want in my drink makes me bring this down a star. Though, since it is a drink shop, that’s what you should focus on.

Try their snow bubbles – really good. I had the Vanilla Cookie Snow Bubble with white tapioca; was a fun combination, my friend said it looked like there were air bubbles in the drink.
They also serve fresh-​made drinks, which is a plus.
The only complaint I have is of the clientele – some of the «smart» ones today decided to block off the window seats with their huge and clunky stroller and didn’t even think to move the stroller so my friend and I could sit at the window. People like that should not be at a small tapioca bar/​café. Really inconsiderate. /​rant

The tapioca drinks I get here are either hit or miss for me. Some of the good: hot ginger milk tea, banana milk, hot taro milk tea. Very tasty, and I like the wide selection of jellies and tapioca you can add in your drink. I also like how some of their drinks have real fruit in them too, like the banana milk. However, some of the snow bubble drinks I’ve had have not been very good (too bland), and I had a mango tapioca drink that was too sweet with not enough «mango» flavor.
I’ve gotten some of their bento boxes to go, and they’ve been pretty good, plus you get a discount on your drink if you get a drink + entrée.
Service: Always very friendly and the drinks are made very quickly for you.

In terms of quality of drinks, I’d say it’s about the same as Quickly. One thing Quickly wins at is price — they offer $.99 milk tea or $.69 milk tea at most locations in SF.
However, when it comes to service and cleanliness, TapEx wins hands down. (This branch is still new though so that they have the advantage on cleanliness.)
Beware when ordering their drinks — they are very literal. Order lychee milk tea and you’ll get milk tea with chunks of lychee jelly — not lychee-​flavored milk tea. Order lavender milk tea and you’ll get milk tea with lavender bits — not lavender-​flavored milk tea. They’re also a bit skimpy on the pearl/​pudding/​whatever you decide to add to your drink.
And in terms of snacks, the quality here at TapEx is much better than that of any Quickly’s I’ve been to.
What they need is later business hours, but I might be the only one hanging out there late at night.
JONASAPPROVED!

Beats Quickly’s ass
…with a huge menu of drinks, some bento-​like food and snacks, impressive, fun, clean interior and fairly good boba tea (boba is good but not all use fresh fruit and I don’t care for the syrup taste)…
…a great place to stop before waiting for the Geary or Fillmore bus, after Japantown, a show at the Fillmore, the Sundance theater, or one of smaller jazz clubs…
…and they don’t have to bribe a county Supervisor to do it!