Taiwanese Food and Best Bubble Tea in Town: Nos Thes et Cafes

There's a tiny hole-in-the-wall on St-Mathieu street, near Concordia University. It is a Taiwanese tea shop, marked by their sign on the sidewalk. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but I swear: they have the best bubble tea on the island, and their food is fantastic too. Everything is under 10$!

As their name suggests, they offer specialty coffees and different teas. They seem to be all loose leaf, none of that bag business around here. I haven't tried the hot drinks, but I think I will, now that it's October and cold winds and frosty mornings are coming around. One thing I know is that their bubble tea is AMAZING.

Lemon and kiwi

O tried the lemon flavor, and I had the kiwi. These aren't milk bubble teas, but rather flavored drinks with a good tea taste to them. I wasn't sure if they used real fruit juices or commercial syrup for these, but whatever. Other places use the horrible powders. These were very tasty, and not sickeningly sweet like you find everywhere else.

Their tapioca bubbles were lightly sweet and had the perfect texture.

Oh, this place has unusual flavors. I remember things like grapefruit, so you might want to ask them which are the milky teas, if those are your thing.

M had the taro bubble tea. I've had this before. They use real taro, yes, REAL TARO. Little bits of it floating around in your drink. Delicious. A must have if you even remotely like taro. Mmmm.

For food, M got the popcorn chicken combo. Mind you, this isn't American popcorn chicken -- they just gave it that name because it was vaguely similar and also very tasty. Comes with green salad, a bit of pancake, rice, and julienned carrot and potato salad. 

I had the Zhajiang noodles. It's regular, machine-rolled noodles with various toppings and a sauce made with fermented bean paste and ground pork. This was a real treat, it's been a really long time since I had this dish anywhere. 

O had the beef noodle soup. The noodles looked really big and exotic! I stole a few spoonfuls of broth and it was so flavourful. My Taiwanese friend (J) who introduced us to this restaurant swears by this dish, so I've really got to try it now!

This was a good experience. The food was served by an Asian grandmother-like lady, and everything tasted like home cooking. It's a fantastic and quiet place to hang out, and it doesn't cost you much at all either! I'm definitely coming back.

2160 St-Mathieu,
Montreal, H3H 2J4
(514) 931-4074