Bubble Tea Shop In Philippines Sells French Fries Topped With Boba

The Pearl Fajardo/Facebook

Boba looks questionable enough when it’s incorporated into tea, but now a shop is selling it as a topping for their fries and it’s all sorts of wrong. 

There’s already a whole host of things available for us to put on top of chips, like cheese, curry sauce, gravy, bacon, ketchup, pulled pork and pepperoni – in fact, most things go well with the potato-based dish.

But we have to draw the line somewhere, and that somewhere is boba.

Before I get into the details of the shop’s questionable new addition to their menu, we should discuss what the slimy balls of boba actually are.

The gluten-free pearls are made of tapioca starch that is then combined in an industrial mixer with brown sugar syrup, water, potassium sorbate and guar gum to produce a damp, caramel-coloured powder.

The result is mostly flavourless, chewy, black bubbles which are most often seen at the bottom of bubble tea drinks.

All in all, boba doesn’t really come across as a mouth-watering treat, and certainly not something you’d want on top of some hot, crispy, salty fries. At least, not in my opinion.

The Pearl Fajardo/Facebook

It’s not even like it looks appetising. It makes me think of frogspawn, to be honest.

The Pearl Fajard bubble tea shop in the Philippines clearly doesn’t agree with me, however, as it has opted to ruin a delicious-looking portion fries with boba.

The shop shared pictures of the unusual dish on Facebook, showing the gooey black balls piled on top of the golden chips. Combined with a bubble tea drink, the order is called a ‘triple treat’.

Unsurprisingly, the meal doesn’t appear to have gone down too well with other social media users, who expressed their opinions in the comments of The Pearl Fajardo’s post.

A number of people shared concerns about the boba making the chips soggy, mushy and chewy, while another pointed out that the chip’s best friend, ketchup, would not make a good dip when combined with the pearls.

One Facebook user wrote:

You think its yummy? No its not. Lol.

While another commented:

Way to ruin fries

This isn’t the first time the pearls have caused outrage as earlier this year a restaurant in Taiwan started serving boba-topped pizza.

I know a lot of people love boba tea, but I think the bubble-filled drink is where boba’s journey should end. There’s just no need to experiment any further.

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Emily Brown

Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.