BobaJam (Asian Desserts Cafe) – Soho
Permanently Closed and re-branded into Aye Aye
As a “specialist tea and dessert house”, BobaJam offers an array of what’s known as “brewed bubble teas” along with a selection of cakes and desserts popular in the South East of Asia, but rarely available here in the UK.
While it claims to also be “the first bubble tea place to open in Central London”, this particular branch in Soho opened late in October 2016 and offers seating for 40.
It’s brightly lit, simply set up, with plenty of space, and offers a fairly large variety of items as part of an elaborately designed and colourfully attractive menu.
HOUSE SURPRISE
Purple Raindrop Cake – served with bamboo charcoal ice cream, coconut decoco and coconut milk on the side, £6.95
Certainly looked attractive enough with three large translucent globular balls served on a bed of white jelly accompanied by charcoal ice cream and an assortment of fruits.
The best thing about this, however, was the ice cream, which had a mild sweet taste tot it. As for the jelly, then all three of us were agreed that it lacked any real flavour. In fact, the white jelly was more flavourful than its counterpart with a light bubblegum-like taste to it. And while the coconut milk lifted the taste to a degree, it certainly wasn’t enough to make an impression, let alone win us over to what was otherwise a concept that came across as confused and muddled.
As for the fruits, then the bananas were green, hard and on the raw side, the strawberries equally hard, and the raspberries, halved grapes and blue berries decent.
Matcha Creme Brolee (Soho) – This traditional custard dessert has been pimped Asian style. Served with fresh fruit and ice cream, £6.95
This was the best thing on the evening. The vanilla ice cream was light in taste and decent. And while the creme brulee was presented with a crispy top, it was, in the end, extremely subtle.
And again, a bowl of hard bananas and strawberries just seemed out of place.
Go Dark Warm Brownie (Stokey) – Warm brownie with our gothic bamboo charcoal ice cream, £6.95
A strange brownie this with a crunchy top, crispy in texture, and rice crispies scattered about the plate. To make matters worse, there was even popcorn incorporated into the mixture making this one big brucnhy mess. Add to that an insipidly tasting scoop of charcoal ice cream, and the entire dessert was ill conceived and wrong.
BRICK TOAST
Nanaberry – Slices of strawberry and banana with chocolate ice cream, cream and almond flakes piled high on a tower of thick brioche toast. Served with chocolate sauce. £6.80
A disparate dessert that simply failed to come together with any real coherency.
The brioche bun pieces, stacked as they were one on top of the other, were toasted, crispy and relatively sweet, and covered in this, that and the other.
From the best thing on the board, i.e. the scoop of chocolate ice cream, to the slices of again hard bananas and strawberries, sprinkles of plentiful almond flakes, and cream that we would have preferred light and fluffy. Sparsely drizzled as it already was in chocolate, the whole thing was also accompanied by a cup of thick nutella sauce which, if you are brave enough to pour all over, will culminate in a sickly, sweet, chocolatey overkill.
ASIAN DELIGHT
Mango Pudding Lo – Soya pudding with creamy mango mix, sago pearl and fresh mango, £5.50
A refreshing one this Mango Pudding Lo. The mango had a syrupy texture to it which, when had with the sago pearl and pulpy mango mixture, made the dessert a difficult one to finish by the end.
Far lighter than the others had above, though that’s not saying much, essentially we enjoyed this for the soft, light nature of the sago pearls more than anything else.
BUBBLE TEA
Caramel Milk Tea and Taro Milk Tea
This has to be an acquired taste or something, because we simply did not enjoy its overall taste. The caramel flavoured milk tea had a strange, mild acrid taste to it that no one found pleasant.
We’ll put this down to one of those Marmite moments where you’ll either like it or you won’t. We’d wager, however, that this will probably be enjoyed by a certain age group!
