cafe hopping again: Vida Coffee

Not too long ago, I mentioned realizing that some of the cafes that I visited two, three years ago are no longer in operation today. I didn't fully explore this notion in that post, and honestly I don't really have much to say on the topic. I'm sure it must be hard to keep a business open. That's all, I guess.

On the flipside, there are new cafes opening in Boston. I'm visiting one of them today, Vida Coffee. It has 4.7 stars on Google Maps with 63 reviews. It's quite high compared to some of my favorites: Cicada at 4.4 with 693 reviews (to be fair, the place is open in the evenings as a nice dinner place, and I hear the food is not that good) and 1369 Coffee House at 4.4 with 753 reviews. One of my favorites, Tilde, sits at 4.9 stars with 140, so I guess you can do better. Anyways, my point is that the star rating is quite high.

Vida is Spanish/Portuguese for life. It is located in the suburbs of Cambridge, next to a Chinese restaurant. This establishment, to my surprise, is also Chinese (you can tell by the Fantuan ads plastered to the storefront). The inside looks more like a boba shop than a cafe: it is very brightly lit, and there are a row of homogeneous tiny tables and chairs which look at first glance to be of a light wood, but is actually just a vinyl wrap over what appears to be metal. Thankfully, the speakers are playing famous classical music pieces instead of kpop.

Their menu is also a confusing mixture of cultures. It features your standard coffee drinks at lowkey slightly cheaper prices than the Boston coffee shop average. They offer Hong Kong style milk tea (which I honestly should have tried because I really like these, though the Sipping Room in Fenway basically only offers HK milk tea and I found that very underwhelming), hojicha, and plenty of matcha drinks. On their food menu, it says that they are the home to the original Bolo Bao sandwich. A lofty claim for a place that opened in May of this year. Anyways, one can get bolo bao breakfast sandwiches here (bolo bao, or pineapple bun, is a Hong Kong bakery classic which does not include any pineapple, but instead gets its name from the way the bun resembles the skin of a pineapple). They also offer egg waffle puffs, like any boba store should.

I ordered their signature Vida sunrise bolo deluxe. It is a bolo bun sandwich with cheese, egg, ham, bacon, and cucumber. Modulo the cucumber, it is very much like a Dunkin breakfast sandwich. The lovely bolo isn't really present in the flavors (because bacon and American cheese is very overpowering), providing only a sweet aftertaste. I have strong associations of cucumber and lox bagels, and I didn't find the crunch it provided working well with this sandwich.

For my drink, I ordered the whipped coffee. It's literally just a Greek frappe. You take equal parts instant coffee and water, blend until fluffy, then add ice, water, and milk. I really should have known this before ordering (because what else would whipped coffee be?), but I really was not expecting to get a Greek frappe at an Asian coffee shop. It's a little bit different from the frappe I get at the Greek bar/coffee shop, and I believe this is due to the difference in the milk available in Germany vs. the US (I also believe there is a higher proportion of milk in this drink), but otherwise I guess it's pretty authentic? I honestly don't really like the way Greek frappes taste (as opposed to regular coffee or espresso drinks), so I won't say more about it other than that.

Honestly, I realize that this post is a whole lot of hate. I had high expectations given the Google Maps ratings, and I'll admit that my expectations for coffee shops in general has risen quite a bit after starting this cafe-hopping journey. I'll also say that I have something against the vibes of a boba shop; it's too corporate to me.

It might also seem like I hate fusion. I don't hate fusion. I love being overwhelmed by an unexpected blend of flavors, when they work well together, that is. What I don't like is mimicry. When I went to China, there was a free breakfast buffet at our hotel. They served pastries. You know, the nice flaky croissant-like pastries. I put some of them on my plate, and when I bit into them, I was unpleasantly surprised with the texture of a bun not-unlike bolo. It was very disappointing and it deepened my distaste for what I call mimicries of cuisine (think shitty sushi). Well I suppose I can appreciate these things on its own (Panda Express hits sometimes) but my point is that you don't get it when you're expecting the original. But then, to me it's not "fusion" anymore, it's something else entirely.

To conclude, I genuinely don't think I tried the right items to give a faithful review of this place, but at the same time I wouldn't recommend it. I personally didn't like the items that I got, nor did I like the vibes of this place. I have a feeling that their matcha and HK milk tea would not be that good (just gut instincts of a gourmand), but of course, I might be wrong.

anyways hit the like and subscribe if u enjoy food and until next time, ciao ciao~