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At Irvine’s new Hello Kitty Grand Cafe Bow Room, I’m not sure which is more consumed: the delicate tea-service bites or megabytes of cellphone and camera data. Each morsel is served on a three-tier serving platter with minimalistic precision, posed just right for a photo, then delivered to one’s mouth after careful National Geographic-like documentation. I can almost hear the British-accented narrator in my head: “Here we see an Instagrammer in his natural state: arriving like a caterpillar, leaving like a butterfly.” The instinct to prove you were actually here is at least half of the experience.
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And here I am, checking into the new 30-seat Bow Room, with my husky, Jim Gaffigan-like dadbod, Japanese-made mirrorless camera in one hand and mini egg salad cone resembling a savory blunt in the other. The tea tray is a good mix of sweet and savory. My favorite was the bow-topped raspberry macaron filled with fresh berries, which I chased with a cup of fresh-brewed Earl Grey. That macaron, by the way, is worth fighting over.
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Tea service is $55 per person and has several reservations available per day. As a booze writer, I went into the Bow Room elated knowing OC Weekly’s 2017 Best Bartender Emily Delicce helped to craft the cocktail menu. Seeing some of her R+D drinks from the past reach full bloom, such as the Hello Kit-Tea, is akin to seeing a movie after reading the book.
Using yuzu, jasmine tea, Suntory Toki, Depaz syrup and cream, Hello Kit-Tea is like an Irish coffee if you’re a cocktail-drinking panda bear. Under the foam lies a whiskey-filled, Keroppi-colored delight that’s served with a matcha macaron and an aromatic dollop of fresh, warm jasmine tea leaves. Dip the macaron into the cream just as any true drunken panda would.
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You can almost taste the smoky flame of Hello Kitty’s crush in Dear Daniel, a Rayu Mezcal and El Jimador Tequila drink that looks more like a sundae than a cocktail. “Dear Daniel? This is more like DAMN, Daniel,” I say to my server, making her laugh politely. Salted coconut foam with candied beads top the pastel-blue masterpiece. Eat the foam with the steel straw, sip the drink, then go back to the foam for a few scoops. Is it possible to have a crush on a drink?
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Lastly, I tried the 1974, a cocktail crafted for Hello Kitty’s birth year. Chilled with a clear Hello Kitty ice cube, you get a choice of old fashioned or negroni. I requested, “Whichever one is pinker”—a regrettable sentence, I admit—but the blend of gin, Luxardo Bitter Bianco and Cocchi Rosa is possibly the purest essence of Hello Kitty: minimal, kawaii and, most important, topped with a bow.
Hello Kitty Grand Cafe & Bow Room at the Irvine Spectrum, 860 Spectrum Center Dr., Irvine; www.sanrio.com/pages/hellokittycafe-grand. Reservations required.
Greg Nagel has been writing about beer since 2011, is an avid homebrewer of wine, cider, and beer, is a certified Cicerone Beer Server, level 1 WSET in Wine, a podcaster with the Four Brewers Show, and runs a yearly beer festival called Firkfest happening on June 29th in Anaheim!