I was perusing DoorDash in search of a nice healthy breakfast one fine morning, when I came across what appeared to be an Asian-inspired dessert cafe.
Naturally, I swerved hard and hopped on that train. So, this week, you’ll be taking a ride with me to Cha Chat Cafe
To start off with a little beverage, I went for the chrysanthemum rose tea. Cha Chat also has an extensive list of bubble teas, which were hard to pass up, but I’m glad I did because I really loved my tea. I love a nice, strong floral flavor, and the rose definitely came through. It was sweet and a bit herb-y with a very delicate chrysanthemum aftertaste and just a hint of honey to tie it all together.
On Cha Chat’s menu, after all of the “bubble tea”s and “iced tea”s, you get to the “hot traditional tea” section and then another separate “hot healthy drink” section, which is really just a few floral teas (including the one I ordered). I don’t really get why they’re separated like that, but oh well, my “hot healthy drink” was lovely.
The real selling point of Cha Chat for me, was the crepe cake. I adore crepe cake, but since you don’t see it too often, I was so excited to get to review it here. Cha Chat offers a fairly extensive selection of crepe cakes in many fun flavors. I could not resist the call of one of my absolute favorite flavors: mango.
This mango crepe cake was everything that I could have dreamed of. The crepes were light, perfectly thin, delicate, and so buttery. They were layered beautifully with sweet, airy cream, and slices of perfectly soft and juicy mango were layered throughout. The texture was decadent and creamy while also light and not overly rich. It was like eating a buttery mango cloud, and, oh my goodness, I need to try all the other flavors, too.
Now, on to something completely different and totally unfamiliar to me: I decided to try out the matcha pudding, which wasn’t actually even remotely like pudding. I wasn’t positive what I was eating, but there seemed to be different kinds of jellies floating in heavy cream. The milk part ─ which everything else was floating in ─ was creamy and rich and just slightly sweet. A hint of coconut flavour made me think it might have been coconut cream, but I really have no idea.
Overall, this pudding dish was a pretty fun mix of different textures. I didn’t get much flavor from any of the jellies, but the combination of creamy, chewy, and jiggly elements was unique and interesting for me. There were pink and green jellies that were perfectly bite-sized gumdrops. Though both had very little flavor, the green ones were ever-so-slightly grassy, and the pink ones were much starchier with a tiny hint of sweet potato flavor. There were also jiggly green chunks of jelly that I believe were the matcha pudding part of this matcha pudding. Again, very little matcha flavor, but they were cool and refreshing. The crystal bobas throughout were tiny and soft and introduced another fun variation to the jiggly, chewy texture. I wouldn’t be compelled to order this dish again, but I’m definitely glad that I tried it because I’ve truly never seen anything else like it before.
So, TL;DR: though a new and interesting experience, I won’t be ordering the cream-and-jelly soup again. But I would totally love to hit up Cha Chat Cafe for bubble tea, “hot healthy drinks,” and every crepe cake under the sun. Sometimes it pays off to just mindlessly go on DoorDash and let Jesus take the wheel.