I’m actually not at Panera Bread. Today I am at Barcode Fusion Café. It is primarily a pearl tea place. It’s much closer to home than Panera. I used to come here all the time, but it gets a little loud and crowded in the late afternoon. There are usually a bunch of Asian’s here playing some sort of card game or another. I’m not really sure what it is they are playing.

Barcode is pretty cool. They have free wireless and a big flatscreen TV playing a mix of Chinese and English music videos. There are also some cool, hand-painted murals on the walls. They have a ton of pearl teas to choose from. They also have some pretty good box lunches like katsudon and teriyaki. A combo comes with the main dish, rice, fried tofu and a drink of your choice. It’s pretty good, especially the little fried tofu cubes. I had a picture of the combo I ordered today (chicken teriyaki), but somehow I managed to delete it. Of course it’s all gone now!

Man do I love pearl tea. I know I have mentioned pearl tea before, but for those that don’t know it is an iced drink made with sweetened tea, milk and tapioca pearls. I have also heard it called boba tea and bubble tea. The tea can come in many different flavors like black, green, jasmine, etc. You can also add flavors to it like mango, strawberry and chocolate. Today I am having a honey milk tea. The pearls are small balls of tapioca about the size of a marble. They are generally dark brown (not sure why), and the good ones are sweet and almost the consistency of gummy bears. You drink it with a fat straw which you poke through the sealed plastic lid (not all places do this, but I think it’s an important part of the experience). If you’re really good you get pearls with every sip, and if you’re really, really good, then you finish the last pearls with the last drop of tea!

Well, I guess I’m not getting much work done today. Oh well, I need to recover from a late night of working anyway. For more on that, you can check out my International (Ad)Venture blog.