Wonderful Dessert & Cafe

This place has been around for ages, and there’s a reason why it’s still around in the midst of all the competition on Irving Street. This is no peasant boba. This is the real deal. All the drinks I’ve had are creamy and delicious. The sweetness level is perfect. The chewiness is perfect. Everything’s consistent. I’ve tried at least a fourth of the menu, but my go to drink would be the almond tapioca drink. And if you’re ever wondering about that massive rice cooker in the corner with brown stains, do yourself a favor, open the lid and inhale. Those tea eggs smell and taste so delicious!

I’ve come to like Wonderful a lot more over time. Compared to the other boba shop fads that come and go (Teaway, Purple Kow, Tpumps, etc), Wonderfuls just seems to be a solid boba shop to go to. The real fruit drinks, solid boba will allow this shop to succeed over time in a city that’s filled with boba shops.

This place has really good fruit smoothies! My favorite here is the papaya smoothie. They actually make it fresh with actual papayas in it, I love that I can actually taste the chunkiness of it. It’s not too sweet and always tastes pretty wholesome. Their pearls/​tapioca are very soft and chewy– not sweet at all. It’s a nice place to come grab a quick drink and maybe some candy!
CA$H ONLY!

First time i’ve been here was back in 2012. I had a taste of my friend’s honey green tea after getting basic Quicklys from across the street. And let me tell you, they give you a GENEROUS amount of boba. My usual for the past 4 years is honey green tea. I go here with my boyfriend, and no dinner date is done unless we make a trip here. I’ve tried their milk tea, and it’s pretty good. My boyfriend’s fave is either Lychee Milk tea, or honeydew milk tea. It use to be this one older lady running the place, but the past year there are a few new hires. Not too shabby, still tastes the same. I appreciate their late hours as well. There is rarely a time I go and the boba is tough. Majority of the time it’s soft and chewy. Seriously perfect. Both bf & I live in Daly City but we’re always up for the drive!!!
Don’t be fooled by the interior, the drinks are great quality. They don’t use any syrups/​pumps like most places. Never had the candy before though, so can’t say much on that.

It’s an okay place. There are plenty of other options in SF, but I just came here because my SF friends kept recommending it. It does give me a reminiscent feeling of Oakland Chinatown where I often frequented, with its handmade signs and cheap prices. I don’t always get boba, but when I got it here, it was actually good.

Been coming here for years and glad things haven’t changed much besides the location. I’ve tried something different from my usuals and decided to get the #7 mint green tea w/​tapioca. Definitely not natural, but a bit weird at first sip. Maybe it’s too many things at once with the tea, mint and tapioca… but I usually go for the honeydew tapioca drink on the white board and the regular milk tea w/​tapioca. The honey dew drink is a bit powdery but I liked the taste of it.
I also tried one of their new drinks they’ve added recently the fresh honeydew and it was exactly how I’ve thought it would be. Decent sized and blended honeydew w/​tapioca! It was quite refreshing as this place finally gets the real fruit on their drinks!
It’s a lot more tapioca than most places that have popped up over the years, and it’s still decent. Nice and chewy and not too overwhelming on flavor. So if you like more tapioca in your drink w/​o paying extra come here.
I’ve yet to try all their new flavors they posted up that aren’t on their white board area. Will be back if I’ve another late night thirst for some tea, fruit smoothie and tapioca.

I really like their jasmine milk tea. I prefer milk tea here than any other place on Irving street. There’s never a line and the prices are decent. They’re also open late (12am) so that’s a plus :)

A hidden gem on boba street aka irving. The place is not well known but has high quality drinks. When the line is too long at itea I come here. This place is the first boba shop in San Francisco.
The place is very old fashioned. They still use written signs and prices. They are better than T pumps and quicklys. The drinks take a while because they are quality drinks. This place is known more for their boba than candy. Would keep coming back.

The Bold Italic calls Wonderful «The OG» of SF boba
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The 20yo+ history behind this store is evident, but I don’t know how much I trust this boba guide because they hail Wonderful’s taro flavor as «unusual» and categorize Tpumps as hipster. Anyways, I digress.
Wonderful is very vintage, from its large «Best Boba in Town» storefront poster to the menu written in neon colored paper. They have a wide variety of Chinese snacks and candy in addition to teas and hot snack food.
My boba go-​to is their $ 3 JASMINE MILK TEA. The tea quality is good and they don’t charge extra for boba, but in my opinion their boba is too chewy. It’s like a workout for the jaw! I’ve seen someone order before with a request for «less boba» lol.
The $ 6 SALT AND PEPPER CHICKEN is my guilty pleasure. So umami! I usually get it spicy; it’s not really spicy but has more flavor. I also love how it comes with basil, though it leaves a bitter aftertaste. Of note, I highly recommend sharing, because I had this for lunch once, and all I could eat for dinner was fruit. First world problems…

I always noticed this place whenever I’m in the area but never tried it until now! Usually I got to T-​pumps but wanted to try something new so I went here! The store was very spacious with 2 tables and a assortment of different types of candy & things like dehydrated plums/​olives on the side of the walls.
The menu had so many things on it that I had a difficult time deciding. After a bit, I decided to try the lychee juice w/​coconut jelly and my boyfriend got the honeydew tapioca. I added boba in mine too (+$ 0.50) because I can’t go to a tapioca shop without actually trying it!
I explored the candy section a little more and noticed a huge rice cooker filled with tea eggs. I was so intrigued. I’ve probably had tea eggs in my face before at other places but never really noticed it. I looked on Unilocal and a lot of people said that it was good so I got one for $ 1.00! The drinks took about 5 – 8 minutes and I sat down with my tea egg. I took my first bite of the tea egg and it was sooo good. You can taste the essence of the tea and the egg was smooth and perfectly boiled.
I drank my lychee drink and it tasted pretty good but it was too sweet. I wish I asked to make it 50% less sweet or my drink would have been perfect! The boba was chewy and sweet which I liked. Coconut jelly made a great addition to the lychee drink. My boyfriends honey dew tapioca drink wasn’t bad either. It didn’t taste like it was pumped full of syrup like other milk tea shops. It wasn’t overly sweet like mine even without the less sweetness modifications.
Overall, I thought this place was ok but I wasn’t really amazed. I would want to come back to try other drinks and fix my sweetness level though. They had lots on their menu to choose from and I want more of the tea eggs! Enjoy and CASH ONLY!

Instead of going to the usual Tpumps for boba, my friend and I decided to check out Wonderful Dessert & Café since it had a large number of reviews on Unilocal.The first thing we notice when we came inside was the fact that this Café really resembled the old school Asian boba shops. After going to trendy places like Tpumps, Sharetea, Quickly (why did I even mention Quickly), you kind of forget the hole in the wall style shop with older people working the counter and traditional flavors for tea.
Intrigued by the Unilocal recommendations, we settled on the oatmeal tapioca (Damn, you know it’s old school when they call boba tapioca). While we waited for our drinks, we checked out the candy/​preserved fruits. It really reminded me of home after seeing all those dried plums, dates, and delicious (un)nutritious snacks.
After about 10 minutes, our drinks were ready. For about $ 3.50, we didn’t get a large serving size, but the oatmeal milk tea was super flavorful-​it tastes very similar to brown rice milk tea. I hope that they have a non milk drink because sometimes milk tea does get overwhelming.
All and all, this was a very good experience. The milk tea didn’t blow me away, but it was a nice change. I’ll come back next time and try their other drinks.
Drink well and prosper,

Wonderful is my favorite place to get boba. I frequently order the green milk tea ($ 2.75) with pearls. The boba is made well so it’s not mushy or hard or super chewy. I love the fact that Wonderful is generous with their boba servings.
This is a cash only place and it’s not really a place where you can grab a drink and sit down to chat since there are only 4 chairs available. Drinks are served quickly and I haven’t had to wait more than 5 minutes for my drink.

Not quite the best tapioca in town, or in the Sunset, or on Irving St. Both times I’ve been here the tapioca has been overcooked and mushy. We all (3 others) weren’t that impressed with the drinks, either. Papaya smoothie was kind of bitter tasting. Classic green milk tea was alright, but again the mushy boba will always be a negative you can’t ignore. I wasn’t unhappy with my avocado smoothie, but I’ve had better — it was above average. Their dried squid is pretty good, but really far too expensive — you can find it for half the price (packaged).
I’ll be trying other places in the area before I come back — I know further south in the Sunset you can get much better (Taraval St).

I tried a lychee drink with boba, and it was ok. The tapioca quality was good, chewy just enough but it didn’t have much flavor. The lychee juice was good, but I wasn’t blown away. I don’t know, maybe I’ve had too many boba drinks lately that my tastebuds are tainted, but this was my initial reaction. It was a-​ok. It’s cute though how they have candy bins all along the side — the regular sour candies on one side, and more ethnic/​specialty candies on the other side.

Cash only — nowhere to sit. I don’t understand why this place has so many high reviews…
I just ordered the tapioca milk tea (a reasonable $ 2.75) because I only had a few dollars on me. The environment didn’t seem especially clean and was relatively hot inside the store. The service was fine — nothing great. Placed my order, handed over the money, and waited for the drink.
The drink was good — but again, nothing amazing. I’m not very picky when it comes to boba and I think this place could have been a lot better for me if the environment was more pleasant. The boba itself was chewy and sweet, and the milk tea was thick and creamy. I don’t know if they do customization here, but I would have loved to do a half sugar on my order. I had a slight stomach ache after from whatever mixture of cream and sugar were in the drink.
Wouldn’t come back here. It’s in an odd area with nothing nearby (except a T Pumps which I would much rather visit), and there’s nowhere to sit down and relax.

Wonderful Dessert & Café sets itself apart from competitors because it makes its fruit drinks from fresh fruit! One of their most popular items is the strawberry smoothie tapioca – I was semi-​full from lunch earlier so I got the strawberry slush without the tapioca. In retrospect, I realize you get more of the great fresh fruit blend this way. My friends commented that they had too many pearls in their drinks, so it makes me think that when the juice is fresh maybe it becomes more valuable than the pearls. However, they also noted that the pearls were good quality and we all thoroughly enjoyed our orders. This is my go-​to boba place in Sunset for now!
Note: cash only.

I was having lunner (the meal between lunch and dinner) nearby and decided to finally try Wonderful Dessert & Café. I’ve read so many good things about their teas, I figured a milk tea would be the perfect dessert.
10. Almond tapioca ($ 3.25), add Grass jelly (+$ 0.50)
After looking through the menu, I decided to try the almond milk tea. At first, I asked for it with no sweetener. But when she asked me if I was sure, I took it back and asked for it 25% sweet. The almond milk was so good! Just the right amount of creaminess and nuttiness. The balls were great too. Chewy and soft. And the grass jelly was silky. But holy cow, was the tea sweet! How was this 75% less syrup?! I could only imagine the cavities forming as you drink this with the sweetness they intended.
Great almond milk tapioca, but they need to dial back the sugar. Maybe next time I’ll get this without any sweetness. I did adore the tea itself. Too bad though, cuz I would have given them 5 stars otherwise.

Dried Snacks:
The only place I’ve found that sells preserved chinese bayberries (yang mei) from my fob childhood favorite snacks memories. Price for nostalgia is steep at ~$ 17 cash dollars for two handfuls.
Teas:
Unfortunately, the tapioca drinks here were far from wonderful. Almond tea was too sweet, matcha milk tea was terribly blended and tasted too powdery, and the avocado milk shake tasted like industrial paint.

Hmm… not too sure about the hype about this place.
With a big banner/​picture saying «Best Tapioca In Town» — that’s a pretty bold statement. This is actually a candy + boba tea mixture shop. Came on Saturday around 1pm and there was no customer in the store.
Everything in the store looks quite old-​fashioned, and a lot of line items on the menu were hand written. But I mean, it’s the quality of the drinks that matters.
Oolong Milk Tea with Tapioca: B.
First, the tapioca. It’s above average, but I definitely wouldn’t say they are the best in town. They are on par with Sharetea and Supercue, and not as good as Boba Guys. Better than Purple Kow maybe. But not the best. It still got the honey taste and it was soft, yea. But no, not the best. For the Oolong Milk Tea itself I was actually a bit disappointed. It’s bland — no tea flavor and maybe slight milk flavor. I think one of the problems was the amount of ice they put in. The drink was ready in 30 seconds so obviously the tea was not freshly brewed. $ 3 for regular size is not that much cheaper than other places neither.
I would say this is one of the better boba shops in this Irving-​Sunset area. So I would probably still come back whenever I am in this area. But overall I am not impressed.

Love this place! Growing up on Judah, this place will always have a special spot in my heart. Sadly, with all the other chain boba spots that have opened up recently, some have forgotten how amazing Wonderfuls tapioca drinks really are!
My go-​to is their original milk tea. Yes, quite boring but their milk tea is so delicious and nothing like any other milk tea I’ve tried. I’ve had their taro, their fruit smoothie tapioca and Thai tea but nothing compares to the original. I think the only reason why I haven’t given it 5 stars is the fact that their candy which im not sure how often they restock it is ridiculously priced. That and the service isn’t amazing. Sometimes im not greeted when I’m at the register, just stared down until I start ordering…
Overall, regardless of the cash only aspect, the average service and overpriced candies, this is still a favorite spot for me. Their sign out front says it l: THE BEST BOBA IN SF!