Bubble What?

This past Thursday night, Betty Clair and I went out for a drive to find a new place to try for dinner.  What we eventually found was a place called Elena's Cafe east of here in Brentwood.  It was a rather unique little restaurant that served a few foreign dishes I didn't recognize or even care to consider.  As you could probably guess, BC was a little more adventurous with her meal selection and decided to eat some kind of wrap, while I went with the more traditional dish of chicken alfredo.  (I did eat a salad, though).  

But neither her wrap or my salad were the most unique parts of the dining experience.  The owner there offered us a sample of something interesting called bubble tea.  He explained to us that is a new type of drink that originated somewhere overseas (my words, not his) and is growing in popularity here in America.  There are a few different versions of the drink, but the smoothie was the variety we were given the opportunity to try.  I will admit it was very tasty, but I have to point out the most distinct characteristic of these drinks.

Mixed with your drink, be it the smoothie or whatever, are little, gelatinous tapioca bubbles at the bottom of the cup that are apparently meant to be sucked up through the straw.  They are about the size of a small marble and, as you can imagine, require rather large straws to transport them from the cup to your mouth.  One place here in Nashville that specializes in these drinks is actually called Fat Straw after the utensils needed to enjoy this delicacy.

After enjoying our free sample, we decided to go back and purchase an entire drink to give it a legitimate shot.  Our sample was a kiwi smoothie, so we chose the peach smoothie to share on the ride back home.  The smoothie part was very delicious, and the bubbles (a.k.a. pearls) were kind of fun to suck up and chew on like gummy bears.  There did seem to be too many of them in our drink, though, as it became almost tedious to chew enough bubbles just so we could savor the drink itself.  Maybe he was just trying to make our first experience with bubble tea really fun.

To be honest, I did rather enjoy the drink.  I am definitely planning on going back to Elena's to try another one sometime soon.  I'll probably just ask him to go easy on the bubbles this time, though.

Side Note:  I am probably way behind on this phenomenon, but it was new to me... so don't make fun!  At least I was trying something new.

Side Note #2:  Check out what I was able to get early on Wednesday because Kroger doesn't know how to wait until the release date, i.e., January 6!  Very Cool!