The wife and I had never heard of T4 before relocating to the East Bay from Los Angeles. However, craving some late night Asian food to compliment our bourbon while staying at a nearby hotel in San Ramon while our home was undergoing renovations, we decided to give T4 a chance because it is a fast-food tea and snack shop from Taiwan.
And as only people that have been to San Ramon know, the closest thing to Asian food you can get is Asian Zing sauce from Buffalo Wild Wings or that nasty fast-food Chinese food at Orient Express where the bitchy Asian lady yells at you. Seriously, why is that woman so fucking angry?
So, for all the TL;DR millennials out there, just think of T4 as a "blue-colored" version of two other similar chains, Lollicup and Quickly, but with fewer food options.
Now, for the NPR crowd, back to my regular review:
At first I thought T4 was some sort of Terminator-themed café... But it turns out the "T" stands for "tea" and the "4" stands for their "four" managerial strategies: Fresh, Fashion, Favor, Flavor... Seriously, that bullshit was taken verbatim from their website. After all, we all know how much fashion should go into a cup of tea... a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup and a little bit of "ooh-la-la"!
And as if the lost-in-translation nonsense could not get any worse, I saw their "Grand Opening" flyer with two "fashionable" models that looked like flight attendants with the following motto above their heads in the most glorious EngRish ever:
"Tea For U. Taiwan For U."
Wow... just wow... Are they using Google Translate?
Anyways... the wife and I try not to drink sugary drinks that will give you diabetes after just a few slurps and we are definitely not a fan of those empty calorie tapioca balls (boba) because the only empty calories we swallow are shots of alcohol. And since the bourbon was waiting for us back at the hotel, our trip to T4 was strictly a food run.
We ended up ordering the basil popcorn chicken ($4.25) and deep-fried squid ($4.50), which for San Ramon, are priced very reasonably. The food was typical deep-fried Asian food and it was fried very well and was tasty, tasty, tasty, tasty (T4, get it?).
The only issue though was the ordering process. They really need to hire people that can speak English since the dorky Asian guy (DAG) taking our order was really frustrating.
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Conversation Transcript:
DAG: What would you like to order?
Me: I would like the basil popcorn chicken.
DAG: Spicy?
Me: Sure, spicy.
DAG: Spicy or SSSPICY?
Me: I want it hot, so... okay SSSPICY [sarcastic tone]!
DAG: So spicy spicy spicy?
Me: ... [thought to myself] "DGAFWTFOMFGGTFOSRLSYFUFU!"
DAG: That's it?
Me: Oh, I also want the deep fried squid.
DAG: Spicy?
Me: Well, I think I want this to be medium spicy in case it is too hot.
DAG: So no spicy?
Me: NO! Spicy spicy.
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At the end of all this, we found out later that there were levels to the spiciness. It turned out that DAG inputted Level 3 Spicy for our basil popcorn chicken and Level 2 Spicy for our deep-fried chicken. So... Level 3 was indeed spicy but it was not next-day-sorry-butthole-spicy. And, Level 2 was definitely medium spicy.
Now back to T4 where the 4 means Fresh Fashion Favor Flavor:
So, was the food fresh?
Yes, the chicken and squid tasted fresh.
Was the food fashionable?
I guess the food looked a little sexy.
Was the food favorable?
Yes, it was the perfect snack to accompany a good alcoholic drink (which T4 does not offer).
Was the food flavorful?
Yes, it was indeed tasty.
Despite all the ordering frustrations, the food was good and I am a fan... or maybe that was the bourbon talking... read more