Thea Tea Shop
December 4, 2015 I recently visited Adelaide for work. Inevitably my time was scheduled to be indoors eating catered food, but I set aside an extra half-day at the end to stroll the Adelaide Botanic Garden and lunch at Thea Tea Shop. This cafe has conceptual counterparts in most Australian capital cities , serving mock meat meals and bubble tea to cityworkers at lunchtime. Their paper menu comes with a pencil to tick off and place your order, spanning a couple of dozen tea flavours with optional pearls or jelly, about eight self-contained rice or noodle dishes and a scattering of snacks. The food is very vegan-friendly but lacks obvious gluten-free options; some drinks contain milk or honey. My crispy hainan style rice ($11) featured a crunchy-crumbed gluten cutlet, ball, salad of corn, cabbage and mushrooms, and a battered ball begging to be dipped into the dish of salty-soy sauce. I liked that my dine-in passionfruit tea ($3.90) with jelly ($0.50) was served in a reusable cup; it...