Max Bloom's Cafe Noir

“It was a dark and stormy night, when SHE walked through my door. Legs as long as the Mississippi and eyes sharp enough to cut glass. She strutted right up to me with tear-stained cheeks and told me that I was the only one that could help her. Help her with what? Help her find Max Bloom. I didn’t know if I should tell her that I am Max Bloom. Who did she think she was coming to see if not Max Bloom? Was she planning on asking the dry cleaner downstairs for help but accidently made her way up here? Then I wondered if she was illiterate, because it says my name on the door of my office. Then I realized... this woman was very, very, dumb.”

Behold! Mecca!

Max Bloom’s Café Noir in Fullerton is PERFECT. This is the most awesome place I have ever discovered.

Coffee shop? Yeah, it’s a coffee shop. But it’s so much more!

Along with coffee, they serve vintage sodas, snacks, and root beer floats!

They also have “an eclectic selection of DVDs and CDs for sale.”

AND the décor is fantastic: old style movie posters everywhere.

BUT THE BEST PART is that there is something going on (FOR FREE) almost every night.

Monday: Actor and/or French poet open mic

Tuesday: Movie night

Wednesday: Open mic

Thursday: Open mic

Friday: Comedy open mic

We caught the comedy open mic night. It was awesome! Nothing but funny (and not funny) geeks stretching their comedy muscles in a warm, comfortable environment. 

That’s right, comfortable! I will be here a lot.

This is what Heaven looks like.

Tranquil Tea Lounge

“Yes, yes, step right in! Good to see you. Now, what’s ailing you? Is it a young lady’s heart you desire? Or maybe it is luck you crave? Perhaps you’d like to sleep less and work more? I have a potion for every ailment and an elixir for every wish. All you have to do is choose one by sight and smell, only!”

Choose wisely.

Tranquil Tea Lounge in Fullerton boasts an entire wall of colorful, scentiful, loose-leaf teas. That’s fun. Flavors ranging from Mardi Gras to blueberry muffin. Grab some blindfolds and you have yourself a party game!

Selecting your tea is the most fun part. After that, the experience has nowhere to go but down. Oh, wait, except for the tea pots and glasses, they’re adorable!

The eatery area is not very comfortable or private. Also, their use of Papyrus is frustrating.

But, picking out the tea is fu-u-un.

Boba: The Quest for Perfection (Cha for Tea, Long Beach)

I visited Cha for Tea in Long Beach where I got blended Thai Tea because they didn’t have my favorite flavor: chocolate. It was way too sweet. And way too icy. The bobas were perfect, though.

The customer service is fantastic. All of the girls working were very helpful and friendly.

They had samples of tea at the register along with way too many things to read and look at.

There is no lounge area. Just wooden tables and chairs with a confusing number system.

1/5 bobas. 

P.S. The name of your business doesn’t make sense.

The Library: A Coffee Shop

I don't know these people.

Do you like hot beverages? What about books?

I stumbled upon a way-cool geek-friendly coffee shop in Long Beach: The Library.

Think of the kind of coffee shop you see in movies and TV shows. Central Perk, anyone? Those sort of lounge-coffee shops don’t really exist, right? In the real world we have stark, always-the-same, Starbucks. Not so fast, Mr. Negative.

This place is so comfortable and cozy. I browsed through books, made 2 new friends, and enjoyed a delicious soy chai tea latte. If I had the foresight to have brought my laptop, I may have been inspired to write a novel – who knows. It’s just THAT awesome of a place.

If you’re a nerd without the courage to ask a someone on a real date and instead asks him or her to ‘coffee’. This is where you should take that person to get said coffee. Your guest will, for sure, agree to a second date to see what other amazing hidden places you know about.

One draw-back: parking. Isn’t that just Long Beach in general, though?

Galco's

There it is! That green soda is Mr. Q. Cucumber!

Now, I’m not a soda drinker, but when I heard about this place I HAD to go.

Galco’s is a soda/candy/beer shop in Los Angeles. Not just any soda/candy/beer: hard-to-find/independent/disappearing soda/candy/beer.

The main event, though, is the SODA. The owner of the shop is crazy in-love with soda. He hunts down independent brewers like a soda bounty hunter then makes them an offer they can’t refuse. He carries around 500 different kinds of the sugary beverage.

"Take us with you."

What are the stipulations to becoming a member of this carbonation carnival? You must be in a glass bottle. Plastic is the enemy. AND, you should be made with real cane sugar. Not all of the beverages carried here have rejected the corn syrup model. But, most are sweetened with nature’s sugar: sugar. Take that diabetes.

The prices are extremely reasonable. Most bottles are around a dollar. That’s less than a stupid old PLASTIC (yuck) bottle of coke from a vending machine.

This place is so fun. I felt like a kid in a soda/candy/beer store. We may have ended up spending $60 on glass bottles of carbonated sugar water… But now we have a Noah’s arc of root beer in the fridge.

Best/strangest flavor? Mr. Q. Cucumber. AMAZING. Buy it. Drink it. LOVE it.

Boba: The Quest for Perfection (Lollicup, Fullerton)

While making the funny happen at the Improv Cup in Fullerton this weekend, I became parched. Luckily, there is an awesome boba shop right around the corner from the theatre!

Lollicup in Fullerton:

This place has plenty of relaxing space. It’s really open and airy. There is a shelf full of board games, two hilariously confusing Japanese video games, and a few sets of couches.

The quality of the boba was spot-on. My tea was delicious: Really smooth and mild, not too sweet.

I also enjoyed some tofu. SO GOOD.

There is no sign out front. It just says “Coffee and Tea” in tiny letters. Also, one entire wall of the store is windows. When it’s dark outside, who knows what might be watching! Creepy.

4/5 bobas.

Boba: The Quest for Perfection (Lollicup, Orange)

It’s been a few years since I quit my addiction to Boba drinks. I think it’s time to start it back up.

If you don’t know what boba is, firstly, what kind of geek are you? Secondly, it’s tapioca. You know the little chewy balls in tapioca pudding? That’s the tapioca. Bobas are larger, slightly sweet, black balls (yeah, I know) that the Taiwanese started throwing into their tea.

 A few years ago boba shops started popping up all over the place (but mostly in Irvine). The two chains I’m most familiar with are Tapioca Express and Lollicup.

The idea behind Boba Shops is to provide, not only a delectable variety of milk and bubble teas, bobas with a balanced chewy consistency, and affordable prices, but to create a geek-friendly hang out zone. This usually consists of been bag chairs, couches and free wifi.

I am now officially kicking off my hunt for the best boba shop in OC!

First up: Lollicup in Orange. 

It's time to buy a new menu board.

This shop was a mess. Papers were taped up everywhere announcing different sales or new products. The kitchen looked in shambles. The menu board had new prices taped on top of old ones and some things crossed out. A 1999 Christina Aguilera concert was on the flat screen (someone asked if it could be changed, it couldn’t be). There were old cups and snacks from guests long-gone that were still out. The store is also really narrow and doesn’t provide a comfortable lounge area. Plus, there was only one dude working when, clearly, there needed to be at least two. Orders were pilling up on him.

"I'm unimpressive."

The quality of the tea was so-so. My chocolate snow bubble (like a slushy) was pretty icy. The bobas were over-cooked, and thus, slimy.

The location does offer free wifi. The state of the place might have been because of someone calling out sick. And, this was my first boba drink in a long time.

I give Lollicup in Orange 1/5 bobas.