Tokyo Bubble Tea’s Sakura-Inspired Milk Teas & Bentos

May 8, 2015

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It’s Sakura Season in Japan and Tokyo Bubble Tea has some cherry blossom-inspired dishes to help bring Sakura Season to you here in Manila!

I previously wrote about Tokyo Bubble Tea years ago and how my default order is always Chicken Teriyaki Doria (favorite!), but I was invited to try their new Sakura Bento Trays, and I am so happy to find something new to like at Tokyo Bubble Tea.

It’s been a while since I last dined at Tokyo Bubble Tea. The restaurant is somewhere to get nice, casual dining Japanese food, and I really liked their bubble teas. When I dine at Tokyo Bubble tea, I am not expecting an authentic Japanese meal, but rather a solid, mid-priced, but nevertheless delicious Japanese meal catered to the local palate.

SAKURA MENU

The Sakura Menu will be available at Tokyo Bubble Tea for a limited time starting from April 15. There are two kinds of special sakura-inspired items – Sakura Bento Trays and Sakura JCC Milk Teas.

After all this talk of Sakura, you might be wondering what it is. Sakura is the Japanese word for cherry blossom, and right now, around April – May, is when they are in bloom. The Japanese love sakura – not only do they eat the cherries, they also use the leaves and flowers to flavor food and drinks.

SAKURA BENTO TRAYS

There are 3 variants of the Sakura Bento Trays:

Sakura Soy Ginger Fish (P328)
Sakura Chicken Katsu (P368)
Sakura Ebi Furai with Hamburg (P368)

Each bento tray comes with a main course, miso soup, fried rice, Sakura salad and Sakura maki. We ordered the Chicken Katsu Sakura Bento and the Ebi Furai with Hamburg Sakura Bento. And just FYI, the Sakura bentos take 10-15 minutes to prepare.

This is the Chicken Katsu Sakura Bento (P368):

I liked the Miso Soup – they were generous with the tofu and the wakame (green seaweed).

The Sakura Salad was pretty! The dressing is a Sakura-flavored dressing, and yes, it’s pink (actually, almost orange)! The dressing has a slightly floral note and is a little bit saltier, and reminds me a little bit of applesauce. I like it. The salad has lettuce, some onions, sliced mangoes and kani.

The Sakura Maki were addictive because I like California Maki-type makis! The pink mayo is Sakura mayo. I also appreciate that the wasabi they had was easy to dissolve in the soy sauce. Don’t forget to try the pickled ginger (beni shoga) – it’s to help you cleanse your palate when you try the different foods, and also for pantanggal-umay.

The Fried Rice was a Japanese-style chahan. It was okay and my only complaint was that it was a bit loose and difficult to eat with chopsticks.

The Chicken Katsu had a crisp coating. Like traditional katsus, it was not salted. You are supposed to eat it with the mushroom sauce and get the saltiness and additional flavor from the mushroom sauce. I was surprised that they put a lot of shiitake mushrooms with the sauce, it’s great that they don’t scrimp on it The chicken meat was soft and juicy.

Here’s the Ebi Furai with Hamburg (P388):

The fried shrimp are juicy and are paired with a tartar sauce. Squeeze that wedge of lemon on top of them! We found the burger a bit dry, but I liked the sweet onions that were put on top. I think the onions are their version of caramelized onions, but they are so sweet they are like onion jam. But I liked them a lot and couldn’t stop asking for some more onions from J’s bento.

SAKURA JCC MILK TEAS

There are 3 variants of the Sakura JCC Milk Teas (M- P145; L-P155):

Sakura Royal Milk Tea
Sakura Strawberry Milk Tea
Sakura Taro Milk Tea

We ordered the Sakura Royal Milk Tea and the Sakura Strawberry Milk Tea.

The drinks come in these tall glasses with the pink Sakura cheesecake cream on top, sprinkled with dried cherries. The cheesecake cream is like thick, liquid cheesecake! It’s sweet, slightly salty, tangy and cheesy, with a slight sakura flavor!

Unlike other drink shops with “cream” on top of their drinks, I find Tokyo Bubble Tea’s Sakura JCC Milk Teas better because I get something good with every sip. Not only do they put a lot of bubble (sago), the drinks themselves are not runny. With the drinks of other brands, once I start drinking and eating a lot of the “cream”, or when the “cream” starts mixing with the tea, the whole drink becomes tasteless and watery. I did not have that problem here. In fact, even after I got to the bottom of the glass, there was still a thick layer of cheesecake cream!

I also like the bubbles (sago) here because they are soft but chewy, and they put in 2 sizes – big sago and small sago. I like the bubble sago, and having 2 sizes just makes it better for me somehow

I liked the Sakura Strawberry Milk Tea the best. This is the one I am ordering when I go back! The Sakura Royal Milk Tea isn’t bad at all, but I find that the Strawberry flavor goes with the Sakura flavor so much better.

SUMMARY

These Sakura-flavored bentos and drinks are only available for a limited time, try them before they’re gone! It’s rare to find Sakura-flavored anything here in Manila, so try them out while you can!

My best recommendation is the Sakura Strawberry Milk Tea!

Also try their Sakura Bento Trays – you get a variety of food for only P300+. Better yet, save some money because you can get the Sakura Milk Teas for only P89 (M) or P99 (L) when you order them with a Sakura Bento Tray.

You also get to Pick-a-Prize and win some Tokyo Bubble Tea merchandise when you pair your Sakura Bento with Sakura Milk Tea.

Here’s a pic of their cute mascots (you can win these plush dolls from the Pick-A-Prize):