Sweeting

Years ago, at a food conference, I heard a woman talking about her experience guiding a group of renowned Chinese chefs on their first visit to the U.S., introducing them to the best American foods and restaurants. They ate raw oysters on the west coast, thick rare steaks in cattle country, pungent farm cheeses in the east, and intricate, finely wrought restaurant meals everywhere. I was envious hearing where they had gone and what they had tasted. However, as the group moved across the country, the chefs became increasingly subdued and less enthusiastic. By the time they got to New York, they finally rebelled, refusing to go anywhere but Chinatown. The appeal of beautifully composed salads, of huge hunks of protein, of unusual flavors and textures was lost on them; they longed for the comforting and the familiar, and ate Chinese food for the rest of the trip.

While I think a chef should be open to experiencing all the foods of the world, I’ve also learned you can’t fight your upbringing–and what’s commonplace in one culture is often strange in another. Sweeting on South U (formerly Sweetology, and before that, MoMo Tea) recently introduced my husband and me to bubble tea. Of course the beverage has been around for a few decades, but we hadn’t taken much notice; it seemed a kid’s drink. An Observer colleague, though, had noted that Sweeting was serving meals along with their drinks, as well as a whole series of Hong Kong desserts, and wondered what might be interesting. As dyed-in-the-wool adventurers, at least where food is concerned, we agreed to investigate.

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Let’s just say right off that my husband likes his beverages unadorned–gin martini extra dry, coffee black, tea without sugar or milk. The look on his face as he chewed the giant boba (black tapioca) spheres in my British Taro FrosTea (get the wordplay?–it’s an icy milk-tea smoothie) was best described as perplexed. He had already declared his own beverage, an iced lychee green tea, adorned with soaked basil seeds (both jelly-like and crackly), too sweet, though I found it refreshing. “I’m putting these drinks in the absurd category,” he announced. Actually, we were both giggling helplessly.

Around us, Asian students were happily sipping and chewing beverages that simply bewildered us. We were as lost as we’d ever been roaming the world but rather delighted with the slight sense of disorientation and strangeness. Isn’t that the fun of travel? Well, that’s how we measured our series of lunches at Sweeting–foreign travel at home, with flavors and textures both strange and compelling, unsettling and attractive.

Sweeting does have plain hot coffee and traditional teas, along with fruit smoothies and lemonades. We didn’t try either of those latter two options, though I imagine they’re straightforward unless you choose to add in any of the optional solids–boba, sago (tiny starch pearls), basil seeds, raisins, custard, or jellies of fruit, coffee, grass, or aiyu (the seeds of a fig-like fruit). Teas make up most of the choices and range far afield, in cold and hot versions, from the basics already mentioned; most are sweetened, but that can be adjusted.

“British style milk tea” begins with a tea stirred or shaken with such flavorings as rose or coconut or almond and includes non-dairy creamer, plus any of the add-ins desired; in all cases the taste of the creamer comes through distinctly. “Original style milk tea” uses fresh dairy. Most of the iced flavored and oolong teas have fruity components. Quite frankly, the number of options is dizzying, and I usually asked for recommendations in making combinations. My husband favored only unadorned coffee and gold oolong tea. I tended toward the chilled fruit-flavored teas, maybe with a few basil seeds tossed in, over any of the milk teas, hot or cold.

Lunch at Sweeting can mean consuming an inordinate amount of liquid, especially if you order an entree and dessert combo along with a beverage. Most of the desserts are essentially fleshed-out versions of the drinks, without tea but with a few more solids. Our mango and sweet balls dessert, for instance, was fresh fruit slices and chewy tapioca balls in a frothy soup of blended ice and fruit. Papaya and grass jelly (made from a mint-like plant tasting much as the name suggests) followed the same template. In a third option, icy-cold scoops of funky durian (a pungent tropical fruit) and black sticky rice nestled together in a bowl of milky broth, while another dessert combined starchy taro balls, soft peanuts, and flannel-red beans in a thin brown-sugar syrup. “I’m not going to use the word ‘like’ for these desserts,” my husband decided. “I’m going to say ‘surprising.'” And I imagine the mountain of desserts we didn’t try, featuring more untried ingredients–toddy palm, sago, purple sweet potato, lotus seed–would have continued to surprise us.

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The one area where we could find our own way was in the short list of Asian entrees the kitchen offers. A big bowl of spicy pork dumpling soup, a savory broth crowded with cilantro and ten fried pouches, added to our liquid overload in a happily delicious way. Oddly, the tonkatsu ramen at another lunch, though crammed with noodles, succulent pork belly, and other treats, suffered from an insipid broth. Tough, dry meat marred our order of tofu pork belly, and half a cup of chopped dried red chilies decorated our spicy chicken on rice (fine if we avoided actually consuming a pepper), suggesting consistency and technique aren’t yet the kitchen’s strong suit. Probably the best entree we ordered was the Beijing noodles, thin wheat strands topped with ground pork in an intense dark sauce and shredded cucumber–addictive. A handful of other soups and rice dishes round out the menu.

We were often the only Westerners in Sweeting and the oldest by more than a few decades. The Hong Kong pop shimmying out of the speakers wasn’t our typical cup of tea, either, but it, along with the posters covering the walls, kept us entertained while we waited for our lunch.

Are we converts to bubble tea and Asian desserts? Probably not. But we had fun visiting a foreign land, and we never complain about that.

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213-3300

Mon.-Thurs. 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m., Fri. 11 a.m.-11:30 p.m., Sat. noon-11:30 p.m., Sun. noon-10:30 p.m.

Beverages $1.75-$4.48, add-ins 35c each, desserts $4.25-$8.55, entrees $7.50-$11.95