This place reminds me of another that was nearby when I lived at 51 Rose Avenue in Venice, the old Castaneda apartments a block off the boardwalk at the Santa Monica end of the beach. Don’t remember the name, but it was on a corner right on the boardwalk and had ice cream and popcorn, shakes and malts and fountain drinks, hamburgers and hotdogs and broasted chicken and pizza by the slice, but no hoagies or tacos. It made me think at the time of carnival concession stands, or stadium concessions, or the little container building in middle school that sold blow pops and sweet tarts and frozen slushie drinks at recess. It also makes me think now of food courts in malls with independent kiosks serving limited menus from larger chains or local restaurants. All of the new bubble tea shops have that kind of feel to me. The inside looks like a tricked out ice cream parlor/study area with nothing really where you expect it to be except the booths. Exotic Sweets has sushi and hibachi on the sign, but no sushi bar or hibachi grill in sight. The menu has sushi rolls, but no nigiri or sashimi. There’s clear soup and miso soup and noodle soup but no ramen or pho. Dim sum and fried rice but no egg rolls. At least the food was okay. Supermarket quality instead of gas station. I suspect everything was instant or prepackaged or frozen but I couldn’t say for sure since I couldn’t actually see a place to prepare anything but bubble tea and rolled ice cream. I guess if you’re a fan of bubble tea and Cali rolls this would work for lunch if you’re in the area, but forty feet away is a good taco place and a half mile down the road is a great one. There’s a Whataburger across the street. China One in the same shopping center. Just not that into bubble tea bar food myself. The art fixtures were nice enough, and there were some interesting fish in the aquarium, but the water wasn’t clear enough to get a good shot.
