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| - Boy, looks sure can be deceiving...
Walking into Jackie Bee, you might think you're in a new modern style cafe, rather than a boba shop. Located in the Charleston Festival plaza, this new spot is open, appears clean and is decked out with decent looking furniture and several flat screen TV's. 6 of those TV's are home to the menu which features several boba drinks and a decent amount of food options, including bento boxes.
After standing around and checking out the menu for a few minutes, the girl behind the counter asked if we had been there before. We had not, so she said they had some suggestions of popular items...which ended up just being two things, the Chrysanthemum Milk Tea and the Ice-Cream Ball Coffee Jelly Milk Tea. Both seemed pretty straight forward, but she didn't bother to explain anything in anyway or offer any other help. I was also disappointed that she just offered the people in front of us a 10% discount for them just opening, but didn't mention the same deal to us. She was nice enough, but the counter service is basically nonexistent for the most part.
I ended up ordering an Oolong Milk Tea with boba and a KungPao Chicken bento box. The bento box is priced just under $9 and includes meat, a side of greens and fried rice. Going off the flavors and textures alone, nothing appeared to be freshly made. The fried rice had virtually no flavor on its own and seemed more like something you'd get out of the freezer. Unfortunately, the chicken was just as bad and had this awful flavor that tasted like burnt soy sauce. Overall it was just a really bad plate of food and I ended up not finishing it. Thankfully my drink was much better and even half price since I ordered a combo meal. The milk tea was flavorful, not overly sweet, and the boba was very decent. A little chewy, but not soggy or slimy.
My biggest issue with the drinks here is their regular teas. Our 6 year old son has quite possibly the simplest drink order you could make. He gets a plain ole' black iced tea with boba. No sweetener, no flavors, nothing...just tea and boba. When I asked the girl if they offered a tea like that, she said yes and punched his order in. Yet when we got his drink, it had this extremely strong orange flavor and was really sweet. When I took it back and asked if this was right, she said it was and that this was there house tea, but because I ordered unsweetened that's how it tastes. I was confused as she just told me the tea was plain and unsweetened only 5 minutes before that. She offered a generic apology and basically sent me on my way. I didn't bother wasting anymore money on ordering another drink.
Another strange thing about this place is their neighboring business, the PVP Zone. I'm not sure if the two are co-owned or if they are just partnering up to generate business for each other, but there is a door inside that goes between the two and people were shuffling in and out constantly. The worst part was this particular guy that I had not seen the whole time during my visit until close to the end. He came in from next door and walked back behind the counter to talk to one of the Jackie Bee employees. While that employee was making a drink in a blender, this guy was standing right next to him constantly running his fingers through his hair. I was too far away to see if anything might be coming off the dudes head, but had I seen that when I walked in, I woulda walked right back out. They let at least 2 other people from next door walk behind the counter and just hang out besides him too. With customers drinks being made in that same area, I think the owners or managers should be paying a lot more attention to who's "hanging out" here.
Even with the several boba spots in town, I've been waiting to check out Jackie Bee since I seen the sign a few months ago. Sadly, this was a super disappointing visit and even though the boba was decent enough, I'm not sure I'd come back anytime soon. There's way too many better choices for boba alone, and the food didn't add anything worthwhile. 1.5 stars.
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