By Elena Kadvany
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I am a perpetually hungry twenty-something journalist, born and raised in Menlo Park and currently working at the Palo Alto Weekly as education and youth staff writer. I graduated from USC with a major in Spanish and a minor in journalism. Though my first love is journalism, food is a close second. I am constantly on the lookout for new restaurants to try, building an ever-expanding "to eat" list. As a journalist, I'm always trolling news sources and social media websites with an eye for local food news, from restaurant openings and closings to emerging food trends. When I was a teenager growing up in Menlo Park, I always drove up to the city on weekends with the singular purpose of finding a better meal than I could at home. But in the past year or so, the Peninsula's food culture has been totally transformed, with many new restaurants opening and a continuous stream of San Francisco restaurants coming south to open Peninsula outposts. Don't navigate this food boom hungry and alone! Feed me your tips on new chefs and eats and together we'll share them with the broader community.
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In the latest local boba news, Tea It Up is now open at 993 El Camino Real in Menlo Park and Te Amo Boba is opening on March 13 at 4131 El Camino Real in Palo Alto.
Te Amo Boba is a new boba shop opening in Palo Alto. Photo by Elena Kadvany.
Tea It Up took over the former Cobblery in the small shopping center at the intersection of El Camino Real and Menlo Avenue. The shop serves a range of fruit and milk teas with topping options such as lychee jelly, coconut jelly, egg pudding, strawberry popping boba and aloe vera. As at most boba shops, customers can adjust sweetness and ice levels.
Meanwhile, Te Amo Boba has put up signs at the former Starbucks space on El Camino Real in Palo Alto. If it's similar to a new outpost in Castro Valley, there will be typical boba tea options, smoothies and coffee — plus mochi donuts with glazes in flavors such as strawberry, matcha, chocolate, churro and black sesame. According to Yelp, the donuts are made in house and only available Friday through Sunday (at least in Castro Valley).
Te Amo Boba's mochi donuts. Photo via Tea Amo Boba/Instagram.
Bakeries like
Third Culture Bakery in Berkeley and Mochill in San Francisco have popularized the hybrid, chewy donut. (You might have also seen Third Culture's mochi muffins for sale at local cafes.) Honolulu-based MoDo Hawaii, whose mochi donuts have drawn long lines during pop-ups at San Jose's Mitsuwa's Marketplace, is
returning to the Japanese grocery store starting this Friday, March 6, through April 5.
