Tea Station has arrived in East County! Many of you may be familiar with Tea Station in Kearny Mesa or Mira Mesa, but they just opened a new location near SDSU off El Cajon Blvd. about a month ago. Anh and I got a chance to try them out a few weeks ago to see how they compared to their brother and sister. It is tucked away on the side of the Big 5 off of El Cajon and College. The restaurant itself is hard to see but they do have a big sign near the intersection that was easy to spot.
The inside was about half the size of the Kearny Mesa location that we frequent the most. They have the same to go counter with the register facing out so people can line up and order their drinks. Inside can maybe fit 30 people or so. You can tell they just opened because they were still working through some kinks. Oh and our waitress’ name tag labeled “trainee” also gave it away.
Of course we had to order a tea so we went with the regular green milk tea with boba, 1/2 sugar. Pretty much tasted the same as the other locations. We like Tea Station teas because you can actually taste the tea in it as opposed to other boba places where it seems a little lost in the over sweetened mixture. We asked if they offered a discounted drink if we got food like the other Tea Station in Kearny Mesa, but our waitress seemed to not know about it and said they do not offer that at this location. Maybe they will in the future? Hope so. Super side tangent. About 45 minutes into our meal a really loud guy came into the place with a girl and sat down on the table behind us. He proceeds to flirt with the waitress while he seemingly is on a first date. This is what the conversation sounded like:
Guy: “I told you I’d be back!”
Manager: (Looks awkwardly at him and smiles.)
Guy: “So what type of food is this? Korean, Japanese?”
Trainee: “This is Taiwanese.”
Guy: “Oh I’ve been to China before! Do you have that 1000 year old egg here? That was reaaaaally good!”
Trainee: “No, I don’t think so. We have a tea soaked egg though I think.”
Guy: “Darn, I reaaaaally liked that 1000 year old egg when I traveled all over China. That was so great. Well, what do you recommend? What kind of hot teas are good here?”
Trainee: “Hmmm….I like the ….”
The conversation goes on and on and I was laughing so hard inside, I think I may have spit some laughter juice out. I told you it was a super side tangent.
Anyways, I was excited to try the food! Our food that is. I got the Beef Stew with Green Tea Noodles. The soup tasted better than the Kearny Mesa version. It just seemed fresher, had deeper flavors, the meat was more tender, and there just was more time and care put into it. I would get this many more times and if they made it like this each time it would be hard for me to get anything else.
Anh got the Tea Flavored Picked Ground Pork. This dish was good, but didn’t match up to the Kearny Mesa version. It was heavy handed with the salt and was too much to handle, even with rice. The other side dishes were nice though and they do seem to change them up so you get to try different things.
Service was slower than normal and I think a lot of it was due to them being so new. Anh and I will certainly go back to try them once they are more firmly on their feet.
Tea Station
6061 El Cajon Blvd., Ste. 4
San Diego, CA 92115
www.teastationusa.com
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