Tapioca Express
- Price Range: $
- Accepts Credit Cards: No
- Parking: Private Lot
- Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
- Outdoor Seating: Yes
- Wi-Fi: Free
29 reviews
Los Altos, CA
"Rick's cafe is my absolute favorite breakfast place. The place is always clean, the food is always fresh, the portions are large, the…" read more »
19 Reviews for Tapioca Express
I got turned on to this beverage by my beloved fiance...Thanks for making me a crack fiend, sweetie pie honey bunch :)
Well, the service is really good, the people who work here are really nice. Out of all the Tapex places I've been to, this is the best. It seems like the drinks have more flavor.
Highly Recommend.
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I remember the first time my co-worker told me a story about getting pearl tea. He couldn't understand the lady behind the counter and when she said "pearl" he kept hearing "craw". So getting "CRAW" has been synonymous with doing a pearl tea run.
So he spots this TapX and I kept thinking that he was trying to get us to go into the Popeye's Chicken. I mean these two are literally connected. So on the menu there's crispy fried chicken....do they just run next door and get that for you? Some sort of Popeye's proxy?
As another co-worker goes for the death blow punch with his huge straw into the top of his drink, we realize he's holding on to it way too tightly. An explosion of mango goes all over his shirt like a grenade that he forgot to toss after pulling the pin. Ouch.
As noted by yet another co-worker, this place seems to not have any Asian patrons (except for in our group) and I'm thinking the shadowing of Popeye's doesn't help. As we leave the first co-worker goes:
"Aw, you know I forgot how much I appreciate a good CRAW"
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I'm So freakin addicted to My Tapiex...
Well my fiancee was super suprised to find that there was a Tapioca Express in Sunnyvale.
We hop into the car, and we seen this mini Tapiex. It's the size of a closet, I walk in and the girl with a huge smile on her face greets us within in seconds of us walking in the door.
As I go to the menu I order a Mocha snow bubble with Tapioca. and my Fiancee orders the Kiwi snow bubble with Tapioca. When we pay she ask if we want our tapioca card. I said yes please. Juan (that's my fiancee.) and me sit down at the table watching some chick flick, about 3 minutes later she calls us to our legal addiction.
As we sip our drinks. It was HEAVEN. So much Flavor without the icy icy icy feel. Oh jesus I wanted to run in the store and hug em because they did such a kick ass job
-----No one was here when we went in----------
So maybe thats why she took a lil more time to make our drinks taste fuckin outstanding.
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TWO WORDS: SUPER MANGO! 5 stars for SUPER MANGO! Get it, you will be addicted and thank me for it. It's mango ice cream and mango bits in a milk smoothie. Mmm...I want one right now!
My roomies and I ended up here after dinner at Yume-Ya (yummy!). I got the sesame milk tea (I really liked it), one roomie got the coconut milk tea (she said it was fine, but not impressive), and the other roomie got honeydew green tea (she said it was too sweet). Overall, we all thought it was a solid place for boba, but nothing really stood out. We'll probably end up here again since it's so close to our house.
They earned these four stars!!! This Tapioca Express is pretty typical. You have your milk tea, your flavored tea, your juice, your Milkshake Thing Whose Name I Shall Not Name, etc.
When you get down to it, there are two primary draws for this Tapex:
1. The owner, who is very friendly and pleasant. She always remembers my favorite drink! Hahaha.
2. Their items labeled as "Fresh!" which use fresh fruits and milk.
For example, the "Grapefruit Green Tea" which is their iced jasmine/green with a fresh grapefruit they juice into it. It's nice to see them bust out the old-school hand juicer, and nicer to slurp sweet, tart grapefruit chunks through your straw!
Other good "Fresh!" items: Jackfruit Snow Bubble (Yeah!!), Banana-flavored milk, Papaya-flavored milk, Lemon & Kumquat juice...Avocado Snow Bubble, of course!
It's true that Mountain View Tapex has a wider selection with more-appealing fried items, but I often get the icy "we are cool HK kids and you are NOT" look from both employees and other customers. This one, on the other hand, doesn't have as much to offer for fried munchy goodies, but the service is much nicer and the music isn't quite as ear-splittingly loud.
This Tapex is just really solid.
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I love the Mountain View Tapex and decided to give the Sunnyvale one a try since it was actually closer to my home. Maybe it was an off day, but the crispy chicken wasn't as spicy as the Mountain View store (I usually order medium spicy, but maybe the girl behind the counter forgot and just gave me mild), and it was missing the yummy basil leaves that the other place has mixed in with the chicken. My earl grey milk bubble tea also tasted like it wasn't sweetened at all, which was also a bit surprising, since I was used to the Mountain View Tapex's affinity for making things extra sweet. However, the mango snow bubble was perfect. All give this place a try again though, and provide an update.
I get my drink while I wait for my popcorn shrimp at Popeye's. The layout of the service area is a little weird. I've had some problem getting someone to take my order (if they're too busy working on someone else's order or in the back).
The drinks are good as usual (how could you really mess up an black iced tea?).
I'm giving three stars because I once ordered a drink... a woman behind me in line ordered a red bean cake... and employee was so surprised that someone actually liked the red bean cake! But the customer wanted her red bean cake heated. The employee went back to warm the red bean cake! She totally passed over my order and didn't start it until she had served the red bean cake.
Hello!?
I love tap-x. I don't go to this place often, honestly even though I live like right down the street from it--- well..WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY down the street, I have to say that this place isn't so bad. It's a small area but it kinda shares the same room as Popeye's. Good drinks. More white people come here than Asians, I think.
There is the hotttttest girl there that I couldn't stop staring at, I don't know if she still works there but this was like 4 months ago. I want to go there again to see if she works there.... Ahhhh maybe I'll swing by tomorrow or something. She is so cute. Why am I thinking about her now? I'm writing a review on TAP-X, not the co-worker!!!
EDIT** 1/29/2008
Oh my goodness gracious.... I just ate here today because people are remodeling my house and i have no access to the food in my freakin' kitchen.. and since I ate too much Pho noodles recently, I decided to go to Tap'X and give them some business. I ordered the calamari stuff... and I felt like I was eating pure fat...
NOT OCTOPUS. Come on.. I don't remember seafood ever having to taste like pure fried fat...
I'm scared I might end up with a billion little bits of cellulite on my face tomorrow.
And their drinks weren't so good either, and the service not so good..
2 STARS GONE.
I have been here three times now and like this place as it is larger than the Milpitas location. On my first visit, I ordered milk tea with pearl and Beijing noodle. Both were very good. On my latest visit (which was this afternoon), I ordered the crispy chicken and milk tea combo. Yes, both of them were very good. The only downside is that the lady did not add more ice to my milk tea. It would have definitely help me to feel colder, especially on a warm afternoon.
This place can be totally addicting. But that was BEFORE I began a no dairy diet. My favorite was the iced carmel machiatto with large pearls...yummy!
Yeah, it would be nice if they opened earlier then 11, but then I think they probably stay open kinda late.
The owner is super nice and will often begin your usual order once you walk in the door. I had one icky tapioca experience where the pearls were kinda "al dente". When I mentioned it the next time I went it, she said that she had just changed suppliers and I never had another problem.
But be warned that it's in a strange location between a Popeye's and the ghetto Michaels on El Camino. Tapioca Express and Popeye's are connected through a doorway and the fried greasy smell can be a little off-putting.
I don't think I could give a Tapioca Express fewer than four stars unless something was really wrong with it. Once I've got it in my head that I want a Snow Bubble... well, I can barely focus on anything else until I get it. Hooked on the Almond Snow Bubble, but this time I asked if they could mix Almond and Chocolate. I'm a genius, it was to die for. Mmmmmm...
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this place is relatively new I think, a more "white-ish" take on the more "Asian" one in Mt. View.
not a full menu of food items that the original one offers, they are trying to be more like a Starbucks probably?
pearls are regular, drinks are regular, food is average, no specialty menu ~~ thus the 3 stars, fine with me if I just want to grab a quick milk tea.
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I've had great experiences at this Tapioca Express! It's only walking distance from my house so I love the location. The co-owner is a girl who always remembers my favorite order- ginger milk tea! It's always clean in there, and not filled with a ton of teenagers.
Owanda G. is correct in that there is one girl behind the counter who never smiles. I still like the place though.
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I've been to a fair amount of Tapexes, and I'll have to say that this is my favorite one. It's clean, not very busy, and it's usually a good place to go for some peace and quiet with your pearl drink. :) It's also right down the street from the Sunnyvale Library, yay!
Their teas are standard Tapex teas, except that they don't put as much sugar as other locations do - which I like. The green teas especially seem much more refreshing on a hot day. (I suppose I could request less or no sugar from the other Tapexes, but blah, I think I'll just go to this one if I can. :P)
I haven't had all their snacks, but they seem to have the standard selection - crispy chicken, calamari, tofu, a curry dish or two. The chicken's decent and addictive.
They also serve Shanghai Dumplings (aka Xiao Long Bao, aka Soup Dumplings, aka Some People's Religion) and I have to say that they're not bad, for what I was expecting. I just wish they had spoons to give you instead of just chopsticks, because once you bite into the dumplings and the soup leaks.. well, you want to be able to catch it. Alas, most of the soup from the first dumpling dribbled back into the Popeye's chicken container, and for the rest I felt like a huge pig for plopping them all into my mouth whole.
Oh, and as for Popeye's.. this Tapex is next to and connected to Popeye's through a door. The only reason I didn't give five stars is sometimes the fried chicken smell seeps into the room.
Next to Popeye's Chicken with a pass through door between them. At the Civic Square Center. Not too busy.
I must be old school because I don't remember all of the choices you get today. Let alone the snacks you can order, to eat.
Drinks:
jelly juice
tea
milk tea
flavored tea
flavored milk
color icy
snow bubble
italian soda
coffee
iced coffee
hot drinks
With flavors like kiwi, passion fruit, plum, brazilian coffee, finland, kumquat, starfruit and yogurt green tea.
I like this one because it's connected to Popeye's so it's convenient for me to pop in and get a drink while I'm waiting for my order. I also like that they will upgrade your drink to a bigger size for only 50 cents more compared to 99 cents at the other Tapioca Express in the area.
Only downside to going there is that the girl behind the counter always looks so miserable. Maybe she's having a bad day?
This place closed early, didn't have pearl balls, and is not in a great location. A close walk from the park but not so comforting to sit in the place and relax. Didn't have that typical greasy smell (from the fried chicken balls) and overly crowded 'young' atmosphere as the other tapioca places are like!
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