Chennai

Barrocco by Cafe De Bangkok serves 21 flavours of bubble tea and Asian street food eats

Sonali Shenoy

Sweet, creamy or slushy. Bubble teas at the recently launched Barrocco by Café de Bangkok serve up delightful thirst-quenchers for the summer. Expect 21 flavour variants with flavours as diverse as Cotton Candy to Japanese Sweet Potato.

Authentic Thai bubble tea with cream cheese
<em>Authentic Thai bubble tea with cream cheese</em>



Cheese-us, this is good! 
We welcome a glass of Thai Bubble  Tea with Cream Cheese with much anticipation. It’s a sunset shade of orange. And according to owner Cake Ratchadaporn, this one is brewed with Thai leaves all the way from Chiang Rai in North Thailand. “Unlike most places, we don’t use any powders to make our teas,” she shares with us. Instead, opt for fresh brews of Taiwanese leaves from Taipei, Japanese matcha leaves from Hokkaido or Moroccan leaves from Casablanca. 

We take a sip. And have a sweet, fleeting moment of nirvana. A generous topping of cream cheese pairs like a dream with the gentle vanilla notes of the classic Thai tea. And of course, the satisfaction of chewing on those tapioca pearls at the bottom. For those in the mood to experiment, look out for homemade toppings like the soon-to-be-introduced sweet potato sauce that comes recommended with the Magic Blue Pea Bubble Tea and a matcha tea sauce that goes with the matcha variant. We sample the latter and find ourselves quickly go from delicate sipping to unabashed slurping. And then move on to a chocolatey Milo option before a slushy-like (but overly sweet) Berry variant.

Matcha bubble tea



Raise a toast 
Hoping to be inclusive in their offerings, Cake tells us you could request a vegan option. “We have both almond and coconut milk and the coconut option especially enhances flavour,” says Bee, Cake’s son who also is part of operations. From the Asian street eats, we opt for the Egg Drop Sandwich made with bread baked fresh in-house. We like the hint of green in our crunchy toast from Cake’s homegrown pandan leaves and the fillings of cloudy scrambled eggs, salty ham and kick of health from the lettuce —  all coming together. The Prawn Tempura Bao is a close second. Although, we are even more eager to get our hands on the ‘Rainbow Toast’ that is much-awaited on the menu next week and Cake’s inspired Mango Sticky Rice Bubble Tea as we head into mango season. 

Bubble teas at INR 259 to INR 269. Asian street food at INR 189 to INR 289.