Editor’s Note: Dining Duo is a pair of food lovers who enjoy dining out and sampling the local cuisine of the Mid-South. To ensure unbiased reviews and to maintain anonymity, their identities are hidden behind their favorite comic book heroes.
Passion Fragrance Pearl Milk Tea
9120 Millbranch Road, South Haven
(662) 548-1756
4 prisoners of war
As much as I love burgers, Mexican food, and chicken tenders, you can’t eat those foods all the time and live a long and healthy life. When someone mentions the word “healthy,” I usually wrinkle my brow and grumble because it usually means they want to go out to some fancy restaurant that serves salads, cucumber sandwiches, and smoothies.
But this time, I chose to try something completely different. When I Googled DeSoto County restaurants (or maybe DeSoto County sandwiches), after a few pages, I stumbled upon Passion Tea Bubble Tea at Mill Branch in downtown Old South Haven. I was in the mood for something light, like an ethnic sandwich, and I wanted to pair it with some fruity drink.
I had no idea what cachapa was, but it had meat and cheese in it and I was fine with that. When I looked up what cachapa was, I found out it was a thin pancake made with ground corn, sugar, and cheese. It’s basically a sweet pancake sandwich and is a popular dish in Venezuela and Colombia.
I convinced Live Wire to try it with me. She ordered a cachapa with turkey and cheese ($8.98) and a strawberry mango smoothie ($5.98). The super badass thought the cachapa was OK. Different, but not her favorite. “The pancakes were too sweet,” she said. “And there was more cheese than meat. The meat was only a thin slice. It could have been more.” Although filling, she thought the cachapa was a little pricey and was unlikely to order it again. “You might want to try it,” she said. “But for me, it’s not an ideal lunch. If there was more meat, maybe I would like it more.” The strawberry mango smoothie, on the other hand, was really good. While she could taste the strawberries, Livewire thought it didn’t have a traditional strawberry flavor. Maybe that was because the mango overpowered the strawberry flavor. “It was a different strawberry flavor,” she said. “I could taste the mango, and maybe that’s why it had a different strawberry flavor.” But overall, she thought the smoothie was very refreshing.
I ordered the cachapa with cheese and the grape sorbet. You can tell the cachapa is made with love and care. They are huge. They look like thick fluffy pancake shaped tacos that are folded up, but they are soft. It tastes like a pancake. It is stuffed with cheese and is actually quite filling. I love cheese and I believe it is Venezuelan cheese, but the cachapa itself was a little too sweet for me. The pancake was very sweet and I think if I had ordered it with ham it would have overpowered the flavor of the meat. The sorbet was refreshing on a hot day. It was sweet and icy and definitely had a grape flavor, but not a grape soda flavor or grape Italian ice flavor. It was more of a grape berry flavor. I enjoyed it, though, and it was better than drinking soda. Would I order the cachapa again? Probably not. It was good, but I wish it was more like a sandwich. Now on the other hand, yes I would definitely go back to try another flavor, especially on days with temperatures around 90 degrees.
We both gave Passion Bubble Tea a 4, but the cachapas are definitely an acquired taste. We’d probably stick with the regular sandwiches. We do recommend trying the smoothies, though. They’re a little pricey, but this is a nice mom-and-pop shop that’s worth supporting.
4 out of 5 prisoners of war
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