It was lunchtime by the time I arrived, so I met up with my friend in the food court.
The first time that I had tasted Thai Milk tea was last fall in Hamilton. Seeing the word "Hamilton", you can already guess that it was nothing short of an icky powdery mess. I had high hopes for Chatime.
We went on to explore First Markham Place before I met up with other friends for pre-karaoke dimsum.
Wi-Fi was stable, servers friendly, and the meals incredibly satisfying (albeit a few of them being revealed as erring on the greasy side). Fusion food is a generally difficult concept to grasp, especially when crossing the cultural border. However, Shiso Tree Cafe is one of those few exceptions. While I hadn't tried the other pastas, I found my portion of Carbonara to be more than enough to fill my stomach; I had only managed to finish half of the plate, but enjoyed every bit of the shredded Parmesan and crisp bascon bits entwined between spools of creamy pasta. The single common aspect of the pasta that could be improved on would the viscosity of the sauce: a thinner, less congealed formula would have been preferred.
The full album can be viewed HERE.
I had also been bugging a particular friend about Cha Me. Cha, so we went for snow ice afterwards.
Cha Me. Cha was packed when we first arrived, but thankfully the wait only lasted a few minutes. We ordered three snow ices to share amongst all of us, in addition to three drinks to fulfill the minimum charge requirement.
The full album can be viewed HERE.
All three snow ices were much softer in texture than I originally imagined. Snow White and Nutty Storm contained just the right amount of flavour, but I found Green Tea Wizard to be slightly lacking. It may be because I generally prefer a stronger green tea taste though. Nonetheless, all three were great! It was just a shame that Mango Tango had been sold out, else I would've loved to compare and contrast against the one I tasted while in Taiwan.
I ordered a Guava Happy Lemon to go; it was essentially a slightly melted citrus-flavoured slush with lychee popping boba and green apple jelly. As with many reviewers, I did find that their drinks weren't as great as their desserts, but will admit that the Happy Lemon is a decent pick-me-up. Perhaps next time I'll go next door to try ZenQ's grass jelly desserts!