Saint's Alp Teahouse

LTH,

Was in Chinatown tonight and noticed a new shop in the lower Phoenix space, Saint's Alp Teahouse. I popped in for a menu, and a brief look around, bright colors, youthful staff, seems focused on Bubble Tea type drinks and light meals/snacks.




Enjoy,
Gary

Saint's Alp Teahouse
2131 S Archer Ave
Chicago, IL 60616
312-842-1886

What would be cool, but which (to the best of my knowledge) does not exist (at least in this part of the world), would be an Asian tearoom that actually served a few hundred of the thousands of varieties of Asian tea...with good food.

David "Always asking too much" Hammond

David Hammond wrote:What would be cool, but which (to the best of my knowledge) does not exist (at least in this part of the world), would be an Asian tearoom that actually served a few hundred of the thousands of varieties of Asian tea...with good food.

David "Always asking too much" Hammond

I've always believed that somewhere in Chinatown, located behind a nondescript door, exists a tearoom like those I experienced in China (well Hong Kong, actually). It's probably located right next to the opium den.

This is great news for me. I checked out the website too look at their food offerings and they look pretty damn tasty. The crispy squid w/ salty spices looks appealing as do the deep fried squid kebobs, but what really caught my eye are the deep fried tako balls, which is basically minced up octopus with scallions, ginger, seasoning and such in a meatball form which is deep fried. I read in the news somewhere that these little fritters are making a huge push in the US, especially in California, where they are becoming as much a part of daytime snacking as the taco (no relation) has anyone had any of these? Are they worthy of the hype? Ill be headed down to Saint's tonight to get a firsthand experience of this newest food craze.

Hi...

There's a Saint's Alp Teahouse in New York on 3rd Ave in the Village. It's a franchise based chain; according to their website, there are 40 teahouses throughout the world, tho' most appear to be in Hong Kong and China. The only ones in the U.S. are the New York branch and the one opening up here.

Website:

http://www.saints-alp.com.hk/

Lillafury[/url]

the NYU store used to be my one of my fave haunts - we liked the tree stump furniture. however, their products, specifically, the boba, is just plain BLAH. i would pop in for the sweetened brick toast tho. the entire concept of "importing the concept of the Taiwanese boba tea stand into HK" - verbatim translation - is highly offensive. as if a chained boba shop - think Quickly - isn't BAD enough, let's filter it through a Cantonese strainer ...

is this next?


along w/ rou zhong serviced by GFS?


will be meeting a cohort from Kowloon for Saturday brunch, perfect place to swing by for the visitor's amusement?

totally cool find by GWIV tho. I parked right across the street this PM but didn't notice.

Gwiv, you get around town !! They just unveiled their sign and windows several days ago.

I am surprised that it took so long for one of the boba tea shops to open a franchise here in Chicago. Chicago's small population of Chinese and Asians was probably a deterrent.

I personally don't really like the boba teas from any of the powdered boba tea franchises that I have been to, such as, Quickly, 168, St. Alps. They just taste so artificial. The snacks are usually just okay - fishballs and snacks from the frozen food aisle fried or drenched in some sauce. These restaurants tend to appeal to a younger, hipper Asian crowd - young HKers, Taiwanese, and others with a generous stipend from mom and pop who are running a business back in Asia. The style is very Japanese, the colors are vibrant, and the staff is young.

St. Alps will probably give Joy Yee a run for their money. But IMHO I think that Joy Yee has already gotten a great foothold on the Chicagoland market and St. Alps will be the one challenged. (I also am not a fan of Joy Yee's food. However, I do appreciate their fruit slushes every so often.)

In regards to a hidden tea house in a back room somewhere, eh . . . . I don't think so. Not enough wealthy, privileged, and educated Chinese patriarchs and matriarchs to support such a "frivolity." At least, not yet - seen a couple of Ferraris scooting about the neighborhood driven by young Chinese. Give it a few more years. Most of the patriarchs/matriarchs are still very hands-on in their self-built businesses and too busy to enjoy the luxury and expense of expensive teas.

I just tried this place last night and the drinks seem to be in line with what I expected from Saint's Alp. However, I ordered one of the fruit drinks while my friend got a milk tea and they told us that they ran out of milk tea. How the hell do they run out of milk tea? It's the backbone of their menu.

Also, don't be fooled into getting their "ramen" because it is absolutely terrible and misleading. Even if it were the instant ramen it would've tasted better than what I got. The noodles they use aren't even real (fresh or insant) ramen. They use a Chinese style rehydrated dried shrimp noodles that do not resemble the texture or flavor of ramen in any way.

My mom and I had an early lunch at Saints Alp on Saturday. I had the lemon black tea since it was pretty cold. It was just what I needed and expected. I love that the Hong Kong style tea doesn't need any additional sweetening.

We ordered the seafood salad rolls, short ribs, dan dan mein, and seafood noodle casserole. The first three items were on the special menu for dine-in only. The seafood salad rolls were a disappointment - they're just not my thing, but my mom enjoyed it. It kind of looks like a seafood coleslaw coated with panko breadcrumbs and deep fried. The short ribs can be prepared in 2-3 different ways. They were fine and a steal at only $3.95! The noodles in the dan dan mein were not as nice or spicy as Katy's, but they were ok especially for only $1.25! I was pretty full since we couldn't take any of the specials home w/us so I only tried a little of the seafood noodle casserole, which I found to be pretty good.

Most of their food are youth-oriented, which means they tend to be on the sweet side a bit and a little hybrid of traditional and modern chinese. Their offerings are definitely NOT traditional Chinese food as far as I'm concerned. I'm not sure why, but their not-so-large portion and corresponding price, milk teas, and relatively frequently changing specials (I've seen new items popping up every 3-4 months) menu keeps me coming back probably once a month when I don't feel like traditional Chinese, and needing a nice warm cup of milk tea, and have some munchie asian food.

I was gutted to see both Xi'an Cuisine (temporarily) and Saint's Alp dark yesterday, but found the latter relocated to Chinatown Square.

It's now at 2159 S. China Place (Yelp says 2157).

http://www.yelp.com/biz/saints-alp-teah ... et-chicago

I don't love all of the food but the old room was bright and casual and good for business meetings and the tea drinks are (and continue to be) excellent.

This (st alps) is still alive? 7 years is like 50 in boba tea shop years