Bubble Island

Update 5/17/11: Bubble Island's food court is closing.

In a word: Like many an island, surrounded by nothing.

The specs: #0426
Address, hours & details via Isthmus; reviews at 77 Square: 1/22/09 and 2/4/09, Isthmus, Daily Cardinal, the Culinary Adventures of Jahboh and Tossy, Jaimie Chapman; official web site.

JM had a strawberry smoothie.
Nichole ate the classic Thai tea.
The bill was $8, or $4/person.
JM gave Bubble Island a B-; Nichole gave Bubble Island a B+ (see our grading rubric).

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This was our first visit to the shiny new University Square. Our bubble tea adventure followed a thoroughly disappointing early lunch at other parts of the food court that shall go nameless for now.

The Bubble Island staff were friendly and willing to mix up samples. Another plus was the small library of loaner board games of the kind you'll find at Target (think Boggle, not Settlers, but still). The view from the floor-to-ceiling windows made for good traffic- and people-watching.

A word of advice for tea drinkers: stab through the plastic cover decisively or you'll make a mess.

Nichole's classic Thai tea with colored bubbles tasted, well, like a light, sweet Thai iced tea with the bonus of flavorless tapioca pearls that seemed like they'd stick to your teeth but didn't.

JM's smoothie was not quite sweet enough for him. Basically, he was just glad they had something other than tea.

Bubble Island is also onto something that we had only recently discovered: cereal makes an ideal ice cream topping.  Bubble Island has both kinds of Pebbles as well as Rice Krispies.  We also recommend Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

University Square on Saturday was a ghost town, and the vendors were hawking their wares vigorously, but there's nothing much that we'd go out of our way for.

Comments

[Timmy]

The food at University Square is beyond terrible. Whoever was in charge of giving food licenses must have been paid-off with free Quizno's day-old bread. That said, Bubble Island is awesome! I had never had bubble tea before their stand but now I stop by all the time for flavored calpico or green tea. Plus, as written, those tapioca balls are really fun and delicious. If you're by campus, this place is a must visit. Just ignore the smell of the four terrible food stands.

[Kyle]

Tapioca pearls kinda freak me out. Had my first bubble tea at Uwajimaya in Seattle last year, and while the tea was tasty (Thai, same as yours Nichole), the bubbles were too big, too chewy, and too plentiful. Also, they tasted like nothing which was disconcerting for something that took so much effort to eat.

[Jaimie]

Bubble Island is good. Some of the flavors are WAY too sweet though. I've had "The Millionaire" which is more of a blended drink and doesn't contain tea. But I've gotten it two times and it was really good. Not too sweet, tasted like apples! : ) However, the bubbles were different both times and were kind of strangely shaped the second time. I had a hard time getting them through my straw. I HATE stabbing the straw through those plastic covers. I can barely do it- it's sad, really. Next time, I am going to try something of the tea variety.