168 Hi Tea
168 Hi Tea
Delivery: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Price range.
$ Price range Under $10
5 reviews
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Price is fair. Environment is clean. Owner is nice and friendly.
I tried beef fried rice and beef chow-men several times, really like their food!
Meh is all I can really say about this place.
Food is typical but the drinks here are mediocre. For a place that has "tea" in the storefront name I expect the bubble tea to be good. I wouldn't waste my money here on the drinks. I can go to tea shop on Union/Horace Harding for that.
This is an interesting place and it's unfortunate that they recently opened nearing the end of the semester, given that I'm studying across the street.
Overall, it's a decent place to go to just for something quick and alright-priced. I've had a chance to taste two or three of their dishes and they're just typical Chinese food dishes but I can't really bash on the quality since there isn't anything notably bad about them. I haven't encountered any issues with the food so far. The wait time on any regular rice dish isn't long at all so there's no harm there.
With regards to the bubble tea, I'm not one to usually go for flavored bubble teas so I can't give any review on the various flavors. Instead, my preference for any place that serves bubble tea is the regular milk bubble tea. Now depending on where you go and how you like your tapioca, your opinion of this place will vary. I personally like tapioca that's cooked all the way through which means its soft. The denser tapioca leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I'm glad the tapioca here is soft.
The milk tea [and milk bubble tea] is prepared on a as-ordered basis rather than places like Quickly or Kung Fu that have it pre-made and ready to go when you order. With that being said, the flavor will be a little different each time but it's still good in my opinion and I'll take a large cup of milk tea here over a tiny drink at Starbucks for the same price.
You can tell the people running this place is new to the restaurant business because they're still trying to figure out proportions for their food and stocking with regards to how much ingredients they need to have at a particular time. There is a possibility that when you go in for bubble tea they may not have any more tapioca but don't be discouraged, they will have it later in the day, or the next day if you stopped in late.
I'll give this place a chance to get better since they're all really polite and friendly inside. I'll definitely go back and be a regular for the milk tea and I'm confident they'll figure how to get things going really well in no time.
I was so excited to see a Hong Kong style cafe open up near my neighborhood, but given the variety of mediocre Asian food places around St. Johns University, you shouldn't get your hopes up too high about this one either.
For a place called "Hi Tea", it was disappointing to see that their tea isn't really all that good. I ordered the small mango bubble tea for $2.75 and it was overwhelming sweet. The bubbles were also too soft. I'm guessing that bubble tea is not really its forte, but I'm willing to give this another shot. Maybe their Hong Kong style milk tea will be better (which ranges from $1-2, depending on the size).
According to its menu, it seems to offer HK style dishes such as baked macaroni and curry chicken. Their prices are higher than those in Flushing, but I have yet to taste them. They also offer an all day Hi Tea Combo for $4.50, which includes satay beef in soup with choice of mei fun macaroni, spaghetti with ham, or spam omelette +butter toast and a small hot drink. Even though the bubble tea was underwhelming, they also offer HK style crushed ice drinks, milk shakes, smoothies, frozen yogurt, and shaved ice (which is hard to come by in the area)!
There's free parking in the rear. They do offer delivery, but $20 minimum. $15 minimum for credit card use. I'll definitely be coming back here to try the dishes, but I wouldn't really recommend the bubble tea.
Michelle,
If you are reading this, know that I totally regret taking you here for your first bubble tea experience. I should have taken you to the bustling streets of Flushing, where bubble tea options are endless.
Next time, I will personally drive you there.
That being said, I don't recommend the bubble tea here–it is Chinese bakery quality, at best. If the name of the shop has "tea" in it, shouldn't they have "higher-quality" means. When it comes to bubble tea, I don't expect organic and made from scratch because the majority of them use syrups anyway but I sure as hell was disappointed when I saw all the colorful powders in the back, waiting to get in my stomach. I got a Strawberry Milk Tea and it was so pink, might as well drink Strawberry Milk. Throughout the whole time, I swallowed little chunks of powder and it felt like I was eating some Pixi Stix, only Pixi Stix tastes much better. I felt bad for my friend Michelle, too, because she tossed her drink out half way. Imagine your first bubble tea experience was a bad one, it'll stay with you forever.
$2.75 was definitely expensive, given that I pretty much paid for strawberry powder and powdered milk tea. FYI, they aren't ferociously shaking your drink up so it gets cooler faster–they shake it so the powder/syrup dissolves.