Saturday, November 20, 2010

Half Time Tea Bar

Half Time Tea Bar
Shop 17, Market Square, Cnr Mains Rd and McCullough St, Sunnybank



I'm close to exhausting the supply of Market Square eateries that I haven't been to. I was meeting my uni friend (soon to be just 'friend' since we're BOTH GRADUATING FROM UNI, YAY!) for dinner and he wanted to go somewhere I could blog. Which was super nice because most of my dining companions find my blogging habit to be a nuisance especially when they're craving food from a restaurant and I insist on going somewhere new instead.



Half Time Tea Bar is located next to the very popular and thoroughly-stocked Yuen's Market (an Asian grocery store). It's in a busy stretch of Market Square and like most of the eateries there, seems to target students.

The restaurant itself has a young, contemporary style that reminds me of shopping center cafes. On a side note, they had some artworks on display on the wall (not sure if they're on sale or purely decorative) but I really liked those paintings! Kudos to the artists.



The menu at Half Time offers all the usual, popular Asian street/homely dishes. By that I mean combinations of noodles, rice, soups, entrees and so on. There are also actual dishes you can order and share if you don't feel like ordering individual serves.


Jasmine milk tea and melon milk tea with pearls

We ordered drinks first. I chose a jasmine milk tea with reduced sugar. It was still pretty sweet but not too bad. Jasmine in milk tea form is nice and refreshing.

My friend asked the waitress for the 'best looking' drink they had (he was trying to get a good photo for me). It was hilarious because she so obviously didn't know what the heck he was on about and ended up just pointing to a random one. Evidence of the fact that she was bluffing it is that the drinks all come in those plastic bubble tea cups with the plastic lid so they basically look the same. This was the melon tea with pearls and I tried some... tasted like melon-flavored milk lollies.

Crispy chicken and rice set meal

My friend ordered a crispy chicken and rice set meal. It came with a soup too. He seemed to enjoy the food though I personally thought the serving size might be a bit small for most guys.

I wasn't feeling that hungry so I ordered spring rolls and chicken and corn soup.

Spring rolls

The spring rolls were 'normal'. Like nothing that exceeded expectations. But having said that I did order them because they were what I was in the mood for so I did enjoy them.

Chicken and corn soup (it came as one big bowl but I ladled some out into a small bowl before I remembered to take a photo)

I liked the chicken and corn soup because it seemed 'plentiful' rather than those ones that are just basically egg white and liquid thickened with starch. Chicken and corn soups is one of my favorite soups because its so homely and comforting.

I think Half Time is a good option for having a cheap, reliable and wholesome meal at Sunnybank. I wouldn't say that it stood out more than its neighboring competitors. The environment is nice but really noisy and we thought the staff were nice.

4 comments:

  1. they do trad asian breakky in the morning, im not sure if it's everyday but def sun (mayb it's a weekend thing? im not sure coz i went on a sun) but yea u get the porridge and those buns and soy milk and also that oily crispy strip of yummy bread thing you use to dip into the soy. should give it a try if u can b bothered waking up early!

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  2. @mochi, it's an every day thing - they have a specials board with breakfast items - not that I've tried the special deals, choosing what you want is so cheap anyway!

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  3. If you want the good breakfast items there, you had better get there somewhat early in the morning (i.e. not later than 11am?) since the items sell out pretty fast. I recall that I heard the pancake beef roll and vegetarian pancake egg are very nice.

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  4. Hi Bonnie...

    Haven't heard from you in a while! I'm cool with getting up early in the morning (especially for a good feed) but the trouble is making my slothy friends do similar ;).

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