HI-Tea — Restaurant in Calgary

I judge the quality of a bubble tea shop based on how they make a traditional bubble tea and Hi Tea is at the top of the list for me. If there’s one thing I always look for in milky bubble teas, it’s the quality of the tea and how it’s brewed. Hi Tea, IMO, does it the best in town. Sometimes the milk overpowers the tea flavours but here, the tea is instead complimented by the milk, which I find to be when bubble tea is at its best. I’ve known the owners of Hing Wah Imports since I was a child. Back then, they haven’t started their bubble tea joint yet, but when they did, it maintained a reason for me to visit Chinatown after I stopped attending Chinese school. My go-to is always oolong milk tea with grass jelly. The grass jelly here is also top notch, supple and silky with a hint of brown sugar flavour, it’s a great alternative to tapioca pearls if you’re looking for something lighter. Actually, I recommend all of Hi Tea’s toppings! They have great coffee jelly, which you don’t find in many shops. They’re a bit slower than some of the other shops around, but I don’t mind the wait, because I know that’s how they get the strong tea flavours. Sometimes you can’t...

I've always passed by this place and heard good things about it, and I finally tried it today. I wanted an on the go snack for walking around on a sunny day that's filling and delicious paired with milk tea so I thought popcorn chicken would be perfect! And I'm glad this place had exactly what I was looking for! To our luck the special was popcorn chicken and milk tea for only $11! Value- wise, this was such a steal! I got salt and pepper popcorn chicken with the half-sweet taiwanese milk tea with pearls. The chicken was perfectly seasoned and crispy on the outside and nice and juicy in the inside just the way I like it😊! The milk tea was fragrant and delicious and I'm also looking forward to trying the other items on the menu! Small hole in the wall places in Chinatown like this may be easy to miss since it's surrounded by bigger tea shops/restaurants so I encourage you to definitely try them and continue to support them. We had a wonderful experience and the lady who helped us was so nice and friendly too. Will definitely be coming...

Love the drinks but service is....wait.. what service? Ordered an egg waffle and when it was "ready" only half of it was crispy and the other half didn't form at all - essentially only had half an egg waffle. They proceeded to bag it up for me. When I asked if that's how it was suppose to turn out they told me yes it's just missing the top half. They offered to remake it. But at that point I had waited long enough for everything to be ready and was in a rush to head home. So I offered to take it but at a discount - definitely not paying $5.50+GST for a botched waffle. Right at that moment the owner walked in and before she got the full story she turned to me and said "Yes yes... 5.50+GST, You want it?". You took a look at this mess and for a second time still tried to sell it to me for full price?? I told her I had already paid and she then agreed to give me a discount and handed me 80 cents..... 80 cents....... Especially insulting that they threw in an extra nickle to round it up thinking it would make...