What the fuck is Brighten Park... Is it the sister band to Linkin Park? Does anyone really it call it Brighten Park... But in the end, it doesn't even matter. To me it's still the goddamn Loehmann's Plaza even though Loehmann's has been shuttered many many moons ago and now, it haunts a Lidl. This strip mall has gone through a change for the times. New facade, shops and restaurants are popping up in this once dead mall. The biggest surprise is that EAT-alone-no is still open, there must be a lot of lonely losers eating alone in here. But the newest addition is another ubiquitous ramen joint that has gone viral across the metro Atlanta landscape faster than the VID. It's almost as common as the crappy pizzeria and slutty Chino hole in the walls that are found in every shithole town across 'Murica. Don't get me wrong, they are a vital service, may even be considered essential businesses, to the masses... Their slop is some of the best hangover grub to be had to absorb all the toxic shit you inhaled the night before.
Remember, when the plebes were hyping up Pao Pao Ramen Factory over at Toco Hills and it turned out to be a total dud... Well, the same slobs are not cheerleadering this new ramen joint with the same fervor. Now, it's the Pouch's chance to check it out before the Yelptards surround this joint like a cancer. Shit, it turns out there was no reason to bumrush this place... It was deader than Keith Richards... Oh, wait, he's not dead yet, how the fuck is that blimey bloke not dead yet? It's absolutely baffling... What's more baffling is that no one has even heard of this ramen and poke chain. I see on their horrendous website that they are sprinkled throughout the east coast. A few locations in Rochester and Buffalo. A couple in Chicago and Chattanooga, another in a shithole town in Maryland and Michigan, and then a new one in Atlanta, naturally. I'm not sick of quality ramen by any means, but poke has been a joke since the first poke dump opened in this one horse town. Let's face it, poke anywhere outside of Hawaii is total garbage. Another FOC that has been appropriated by some clueless roundeyes... Wait, what's FOC you ask? Well, it's Food Of Color, of course... Cuisine by people of color. Poke found state side is basically a fucking low rent sushi bowl, a sort of faux chirashi. And now, I have to get one, the challenge has been accepted.
I think we all know how this story is gonna end... So, let's just get it over with. What's that? Why does the Pouch torture itself when it knows it's gonna be shit food? Because I made a promise to my one reader to report all that's fit to eat and puke. Let's go, weeee!
Cosplay size bubble tea display out front is always a good sign that it will taste like plastic.
Matcha Red Bean Milk Tea, $3.75 small. Pleasantly surprised that they offered red bean instead of the generic tapioca pearls. The dull green slime color was a tell-tale giveaway that it will have that artificial powder taste. Sure enough, it was watery and flavorless... But the red bean was acceptable. Maybe some of their other ultra sweet HFCS teas will be better just like at Starbucks... But I ain't gonna find out because I ain't paying money for me to be disappointed and then crying myself to sleep, again.
Tonkotsu Ramen, pork, pork bone broth, $12.99. Oh fuck, look at that will y'all... Absolutely no finesse in plating this crap in a bowl. Shit, did it come out of a slushie machine? I hope there's whiskey and coke in there. Ok, let's taste the "tonkotsu" pork bone broth... Slurp slurp... Eh, no collagen, while it looked creamy there was not much flavor in this watery version. Did Sandra Lee make this because it tasted like semi-homemade... No wonder Fredo, errr, Andrew Cuomo dumped that old washed up hag. The ramen noodle themselves were overcooked, soggy and tasted like Chinese egg noodles instead of the springy wheat noodles that is expected in a proper bowl of ramen. The chashu was all trimmings, all fat and no belly meat. The couple slices of fish cakes and menma were standard store bought issued. The soy egg was spot on... Seriously, how can they do the egg so right but the rest of the ramen so wrong. I could overlook the sad solid ingredients but the tonkotsu broth was so underwhelming and forgettable that it rendered the entire bowl a fugazi... And I ain't talking about the 80's punk band. I'm a patient boy, I wait, I wait, I wait, I wait for my bowl of ramen to arrive... My time is like water down a drain like where this bowl of horse piss is ending in.
POKEmazing, lettuce, spicy tuna, salmon, cucumber, cream cheese, avocado, edmame, corn, carrot, cherry tomato, "spciy" mayo, Thai sweet chilli, eel sauce, seaweed salad, fried garlic, $11.49. Holy shit, did a vegan just shit in a box and handed it to me for disposal? Seriously, what the fuck is that? The only thing that was recognizable was the wakame seaweed... Wait, should I be smoking it before eating this bucket of warm hamster vomit? Look at that white strip of cream cheese... Did it come out of a bubble gum tape container? I still couldn't figure out if I should be mixing this all together or did it do it by itself already? This shit tasted so bad... You couldn't identify anything with each bite, it was like eating a spoonful of raw sewage waste straight from the pipe. Maybe that strip of cream cheese was suppose to be toilet paper so you can wipe yourself afterwards. They should change the name of this to Pandora's Hairy Box... Because it looked and smelled like cursed old fish. Don't ask to smell my fingers... I will throw up on your lap dog.
COVID or not, I ain't ever gonna sugar coat anything but this franchise was so bland and forgettable that I don't see them lasting that long. You never want to see any place fail so miserably and unloved like a red-headed stepchild but you know it's bad when the Yelp page has more pictures from the business owner than the Yelpers themselves... How did it score 4 stars? Wait, it's Yelp, nevermind. There is literally a PR picture of a staff member drizzling romaine lettuce in the air like it was fromunda cheese. Wait, maybe that was a picture from EAT-alone-no next door.
Flush.
2484 Briarcliff Rd NE, #32
2484 Briarcliff Rd NE, #32
Atlanta, GA 30329
https://www.taichibubbletea.com/
