Restaurant Review: Blackball
February 21, 2017
Pictured on seemingly everyone’s social media accounts, Taiwan-based dessert chain BlackBall piqued my interest ever since I first viewed the aesthetic images of the dishes it offers. Visiting the chain with high expectations, I ultimately left disappointed due to its small portion size and rather bland taste.
On its website, Blackball portrays itself as a healthier alternative to popular desserts, such as ice c
ream, cakes, and cookies, as the chain specializes in grass jelly, an ingredient believed to hold cooling and medicinal properties. Due to the popularity of its grass jelly desserts, Blackball has opened various locations worldwide, including one in Rowland Heights last year.
Brightly lit and decorated with a trendy green and white color scheme, BlackBall offers various desserts, including smoothies, teas, milk with jelly, shaved ice, jelly based dishes and soups. The dishes range in price from $2.95 to $5.95, with additional costs if customers wish to add extra toppings such as rice balls, jellies, boba and beans.
Although I visited on a Friday afternoon, with my sister, the venue was empty other than another table of two. Walking into the shop, I was greeted by a friendly waitress who eagerly helped us with our order. She recommended the venue’s best selling dessert, the grass jelly with boba, taro balls and sweet potato balls, which is offered for $5.95. The dish provides four heat settings: icy, cool, warm and hot. Although we opted for the cool version, the icy choice is offered with shaved ice. We also ordered the Milk with Grass Jelly, another customer favorite, for $4.25. Within minutes of ordering, the desserts arrived.
The grass jelly came with a creamer for those who wanted additional sweetness and smoothness in the
ir dessert. Without the creamer, the dish was too bland for my taste, especially since it highlighted the starchy flavor in the taro balls. The taro balls, which are similar to mochi, were a bit dull with the creamer vastly overpowering the delicate taste of it. On the other hand, the sweet potato balls were sweeter and weren’t masked by the creamer.
Although I was expecting the grass jelly to taste mundane, all the elements of the dish brought out its naturally fresh, sweet taste. In addition, I was pleasantly surprised by the honey-cloaked boba, as it provided a contrast chewy texture for an otherwise soft dish. Overall, I was content with the taste of the grass jelly dish, but I was disappointed by the rather small portion for almost $6.
On the other hand, the milk with grass jelly left me unsatiated with its mundane flavor. As someone with a sweet tooth, I thought the drink was a bit tasteless, so I added the rest of the creamer to it. Although the consistency was smooth and creamy, the drink tasted merely like milk and grass jelly. Similar to the previous dish, the grass jelly was fresh and sweet, but the milk tasted like ordinary milk from your everyday grocery store. For my taste, I would’ve preferred if condensed milk was added to the drink to combat the plain flavor.
Although the desserts are unique and tasty, I still prefer sweeter treats, such as boba from Half & Half for roughly the same price, as the dishes at Blackball are for those with the acquired taste of mildly flavored traditional Asian desserts.
