Crave Boba

Rebooted in the mid-2010s from prior tenant Coffee Zone, the drink and dessert shop known as Crave or Crave Boba occupies a corner spot in the Garden Grove Shopping Plaza, and has outlasted trendier neighbors (notably including TocoToco and sadly departed Black Pearl Tea House). As its exterior signage flags, this is a one-stop shop for acai bowls, boba tea, coffee, and desserts: The current menu includes milk snow, taiyaki, waffles, 10 flavors of ice cream, milkshakes, and smoothies in addition to fruit teas, milk teas, frappes, and coffee drinks. Prices range from $5 to $9 across most drinks, with individual taiyaki at $3 each, acai bowls at $13, and milk snows at $16.

Our experience at Crave was pretty limited but positive. We ordered a Thai Brulee ($8) from the “best sellers” menu, and a Peachee Punch ($7) from the fruit tea menu, noticing a sign on the counter warning guests to be patient as only one person was working. There were actually two people behind the counter – a 1:1 ratio with guests on a Sunday morning – and drinks took just under 10 minutes to serve. Neither was remarkable, but the Thai Brulee had a higher than average level of cream and milk, yet didn’t include any of the boba shown on Crave’s TV-based menu. On the other hand, the Peachee Punch included several full lychees at the bottom of its cup of peach- and lychee-flavored tea, in addition to a fair amount of lychee jelly.