Restaurant: Dragon Ball Tea House
Cuisine: Bubble Tea/Chinese/Desserts
Last visited: October 6, 2010
Location: Vancouver, BC (Shaughnessy)
Address: 1007 W King Edward Ave
Price Range: $10 or less
1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!
Food: 6
Service: 3 – well it’s pay at cashier and they go as fast as they can
Ambiance: 2
Overall: 5
Additional comments:
- Local favourite
- Family owned and operated
- Line-ups during peak hours (late night/after dinner)
- Fresh fruit flavours
- Made with real milk
- Seats 15 or so (very limited)
- Great price
- Very casual/quick
- Hole in the wall-ish
- Small selection of hot snacks (7 items)
- Couple parking spaces in the back
- Pre-order/pick-up service available
- Opens daily at 1:30pm
- Open late
**Recommendations: Japanese Green Tea Ice Cream, Supreme Milk Tea, and any of their fresh fruit series
This is my second post for Dragon Ball Tea House in Vancouver, BC. It truly a local favourite specializing in bubble tea and it’s one of the best bubble tea places in town. The portions are big and the prices are decent for the quality they deliver. It’s a little bit of a hole in wall, but they’re affordable and great at what they do so it keeps people coming back for more. It’s very small but they have steady traffic and line ups during peak hours. On this occasion I came for dessert after my dinner at Burgoo. Bubble Tea barely counts as dessert, but I guess it kind of is.
They’re most famous for using fresh fruit in their drinks, although they still offer powdered versions as well. They also use real milk instead of powered Carnation crap. You can get drinks sweet/half-sweet/non-sweet/hot/slush/combination of flavours/mixed fruit etc. Almost everything can be customized, but they just don’t advertise it. Everything tastes like it’s made with ice cream here. The fresh fruit flavours are like smoothies. I haven’t had one bad drink. Even the tapioca pearls are great. Besides tapioca pearls they have coconut jelly and grass jelly.
They offer a small selection of simple Chinese hot foods and snacks, which I’ve never seen anyone order. Of course all the rice dishes have to have a fried egg on it.
On the table:
Strawberry Bubble Tea – 3/6
- $4.00 + $.50 with tapioca pearls – $4.50
- This was the fresh fruit version with milk, and I would have enjoyed it better without milk.
- I really like the fresh fruit strawberry without milk from Little Tea House.
Papaya Bubble Tea – n/a
- $4.00 + $.50 with tapioca pearls – $4.50
- I can’t “rate” it because papaya doesn’t taste good to me.
Pudding Bubble Tea – 4/6
- $4.00 + $.50 with tapioca pearls – $4.50
- You can get it with real pudding pieces that are like jello, but they’re not flavourful.
- The drink is a bit sweeter and it tastes like creamy vanilla pudding.
- If I order pudding, actually if I order anything I always get it in slush form.
- My post for Pudding Slush Bubble Tea from Dragon Ball Tea House
**Taro Bubble Tea Slush – 6/6
- $3.50 + $.50 with tapioca pearls – $4
- This was obviously my drink, which I made a slush… no, I did not have 4 bubble teas to myself!
- I actually like the powdered taro bubble teas better than the fresh taro bubble teas. The fresh taro is just too starchy in texture for me.
- This one is sweet and creamy with ice crystals and it tastes like a taro ice cream milkshake. It’s all frosty and delicious and I love it!
- It didn’t taste exceptionally better than any other places that serve taro slush bubble tea, but they do give you a lot of chewy and sweetened pearls.
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Now I have a mad craving, Mijune! I’ve been wanting to go to Dragon Ball all week and it hasn’t happened yet. My favourite is the Green Tea Ice Cream bubble tea with pearls. It tastes just like the Mario’s Gelato green tea ice cream, but in a drink. Sooooo good.
My fav is anything with Mango and I like the tapioca pearls…however in this cold weather it’s gonna be a glass of Maker’s Mark bourbon or English Harbour rum…can’t afford single malts and great cognac. I must say the prices seem cheaper than some bubble tea places and if you gave it a “6”, well I should go and try it out.
@Victoria lol I’m sorry! Omg the green tea ice cream slush is HANDS DOWN one of my favourites! I put as my #1 rec!
@Bow I’m SO surprised you haven’t tried this place! It’s almost everyone’s favourite bubble tea place! It’s definitely because they use lots of fresh fruit! in their drinks. If you like mango though, I HIGHLY recommend the mango mooshake at Phnom Penh… that’s the best!
Fresh Taro is for sure my favorite flavor, it’s hard to find a place that does it fresh! You should try the hot version, perfect for this weather. See if you can catch the fresh persimmon flavor, I had it without sugar and it was still super fruity sweet!
@vivian – you’re a fresh taro lover huh? I actually like powdered taro bubble tea and fresh taro in savoury forms. If you like fresh taro though, Pearl Castle, Well Tea, Twinkle and Chiffon also do it. Mind you they’re all in Richmond. For Vancouver I think Bubble World and Flo does it as well. I actually do like hot bubble tea too but I have to have the pearls served separately or they get too soft and just melt in the drink. Thanks for the comment and suggestions!
I looove their bubble tea. I helped them with the manufacturing logistics of their bubble tea bases. Their flavours come from flavour houses in Asia. I believe the owner said his boss owned did the initial flavour formulations. Wow. I really wished I remembered how to make up the bubble tea. Let’s say I lived on this stuff while doing the project.
@craftcrazy – Oh really?!? Oh wow! Insider info! I love it! Thanks so much for sharing and commenting, I appreciate it!