After my birthday dinner at Bistro Sakana, we decided to continue the evening and go for bubble tea. We were all in the mood for something new so Lucy suggested Corner 23. She had bubble tea there the other day and said that it was pretty good. Corner 23 is a new-ish Taiwanese eatery that opened at the corner of …you guessed it! West 23rd and Cambie in Vancouver.
I decided to try the malt milk tea with pudding chunks. I have to say that I was pretty disappointed with this. It didn’t taste milky at all and had cereal-like chunks floating around. The pudding was actually kind of interesting but since I didn’t like the milk tea itself, I wasn’t able to actually enjoy the pudding. This was the first time in a while but I didn’t even finish my drink!
Lucy had a pudding milk tea with pudding chunks. She had the same thing a few days earlier and said that one tasted way better. The pudding milk tea was overly sweet and also had a strange consistency to it.
Samantha had a strawberry milk tea. She had ordered this initially because she thought it was made with fresh strawberries but it was actually made with strawberry powder. It was too sweet for her taste although she said someone who enjoyed really sweet drinks may have liked it more.
Jenkins had a lychee green tea slush with half coconut jelly and half pearls. He also noted that the lychee slush was quite sweet and the lychee flavour was a bit artificial tasting.
The one saving grace about Corner 23 was that their drink straws are individually wrapped. It drives me nuts when people touch all the straws in a bucket before finally selecting the one they want. I think more places should have individually wrapped straws…although I suppose this may not be as good for the environment. Perhaps they can wrap it with paper similar to what is at MacDonald’s and Starbucks. 
The four of us wondered if the spotty quality of the bubble tea was because it was late at night and everyone was just eager to go home. Or perhaps the regular bubble tea maker didn’t work the night shift. For whatever reason, I think it will be quite a while before I try the bubble tea here again. The service was also really slow. It took about half an hour for our drinks to come and the restaurant wasn’t even busy! The servers were quite polite and nice though. I did go back a couple of weeks later to try their food and I have to say that was pretty tasty. Check back later to see my food review on Corner 23.
Details:
4008 Cambie St, Vancouver
Tel: 604-709-9788
Summary:
Food: 
Service: 
Really impressed with the dim sum at Red Star today 
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Ooh, that brings back memories of the one time I tried that malted drink with pudding. First time I didn’t finish a drink either! And it sounded so promising!
Hi firefly|zephyr…did you try the malted drink at Corner 23 too? Oddly enough, I normally like malted bubble tea but the one at Corner 23 just wasn’t too my liking.
Corner 23 has some of the worst bubble tea in town. I’m a total bubble tea addict so I’ve tried a lot of bubble tea places. But, I must say that Corner 23 is completely below my expectations.
1st BBT: Japanese Green Tea Ice Cream with Coconut Jelly
I wanted to go to Dragonball for my favorite drink but it was closed so we went to Corner. It didn’t taste very green tea, and the coconut jelly had the texture of RUBBER. Also, I got RED BEAN on the bottom of my drink, so it made my drink even worse. Why the heck was there red bean?
2nd BBT: Peach Green Tea with Pearls
Peach syrup flavor was off. The tea was not strong/concentrated enough so the whole drink was extremely bland. The pearls were so mushy that I just know they overcooked it.
Obviously, I’m never having their bubble tea again.
P.S: They do have pretty good food though, but their bubble tea is horrible.
Hi jjoongiel0ve – glad to hear I wasn’t the only one with a bad bbt experience at Corner 23. I do agree that the food is not bad though.
The best Bubble Tea around is from Richmond Public Market. (Peanuts) It’s a bit of a hidden gem. I’ve been going there for a good 10 years now and I almost don’t want to tell people because it will get even more busy. Very extensive menu, you can even get avocado!
Hi Tampopo – I used to go to Peanuts all the time when I was in high school and my mom would buy groceries from the public market.