Today my friend and I finally made time for What8ver Cafe! Hidden at Union Square near Richmond Sushi, is a very small cafe with 5-6 tables. It is a Taiwanese cafe and it’s similar to other places like Pearl Castle, Well Tea, Bubble World- it sells bubble tea, snacks, and small meals. We made a reservation just in case and we were seated on time.
We hunted down What8ver Cafe to try their Toast Box! It’s not on the menu, so you have to ask for it. It costs $7.99.
There are three flavours- original (honey), strawberry, and matcha. We opted for the original one since it’s our first time. It’s a huge box of toast, and shared it between my friend and there were still some left over. On the topping is strawberries, whipped cream, bananas, pocky, an oreo cookie, and a scoop of frozen ice cream with strawberry glaze. It took a while for it to arrive since it takes a while for it to prepare- and judging by the pictures, no wonder they need time to make it!
What’s inside the box? The bread is hollowed inside, and when you cut it open, there are slices of honey flavoured toast. It took a while to cut it open, and the crust at the bottom was really hard to split through. After a few struggled attempts and lots of strength, we semi-destroyed the box to get the insides:
Sorry for not eating elegantly. The slices of toast was really yummy when mixed with ice cream and strawberry. I stayed away from the banana slices – not my thing with desserts and toast. It is quite sweet, since there was a lot of honey and sugar coating all over the meal. I looked over at the other table where two other girls were also struggling on how to eat their toast box. We stared at them while cutting and they stared at us.
The toast box was a bit burnt at one bottom corner- but we couldn’t even finish it between two people so that was okay. The crust was crunchy and hard to cut, the inside was soft and sweet. Overall, it was a good first experience and I would love to try the other two flavours when I go back.
I also ordered a bubble tea. I tried the Osmanthus flower green tea with pearls. (I actually ordered coconut jelly, but they messed up my order or something because my came with pearls =( Oh well, I didn’t bother to change it because the drinks took approximately twenty minutes to make. Quite awhile compared to other places.)
I only had osmanthus flower in those asian jelly desserts with longan. This was my first time having it as a drink. It was quite tasty, not too sweet, and it smelt good. You can see the flower petals in the drink. My drink costed $3.75 + $0.50 for pearls.
The food was good and all, but their lack of customer service is worth noting. There were two people at the bubble tea station, and they didn’t see our table + another table with our hands up waving, wanting to order. We probably waited for 10 minutes for them to actually come around and ask what we wanted. Which was weird, since it wasn’t busy and all the other tables were already eating.
I will return again so I can try the other toast box flavours! If you ever try it out, be sure to make a reservation before hand!!
Rating: 4.5/5
