Famous Ankles

Of all the neighborhoods I go into, the one I’m least likely to eat in is Chinatown.  I love Chinese food and Chinatown boasts some great Chinese eating, but I’m generally put off by the smell from the grocery stores.  I’ve mentioned this issue in an earlier post.

But there’s one place in Chinatown that I love to go to and partake of the comestibles: Ten Ren Tea Time.

It’s a tiny place, but kept impeccably clean.  It’s on Mott Street, just to the south of Canal Street (it’s on the west side of Mott).  Tiny in width, but about 50 feet deep, there’s enough seating for maybe 15 people.

And all they serve is tea.  Lots of different teas, but for me there’s only one:  bubble tea.

That’s the “passion fruit bubble tea”.  I’m mostly fond of the mango.

Okay, maybe bubble tea is old hat to you, but most of the people I’ve taken there, or tried to take there, have been blissfully unaware of what it is.  Okay, it’s tea….with bubbles.  A lie!  Actually, if you look at the picture, the dark stuff at the bottom is the “bubble” part of the tea.  Every cup gets the same set of bubbles.  And the bubbles are large pearls of tapioca.  If you can’t tell, the straw in the cup is huge.  It’s specially sized to pull in the tapioca bubbles just right (or, more likely, the bubbles are sized the the oversized straw).  Whatever.  It’s a wonderful, wonderful combination.

-H

This entry was posted on October 20, 2007 at 7:31 pm and is filed under Chinatown, Food, Manhattan. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.