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A popular street food from Hong Kong has finally made its way to Houston, thanks to the arrival of Bubble Egg, Space City’s newest destination for egg waffles.
The shop quietly arrived at 9188 Bellaire Boulevard last week, bringing gai daan zai, also known as bubble waffles, to a sleek new spot inside the Welcome Shopping Center in Chinatown. The predominantly white and pale wood interior offers communal seating, a small lounge area, and several stools positioned by the window, right in front of all the action.
Inside the restaurant, waffle stations are set up to make the egg waffles, bubble waffles, egg puffs, egg cakes, or whatever you want to call them. The process is very similar to how you would make a traditional waffle. Batter is poured into a bubble waffle maker which has two bubble egg mold hot plates. Once the batter is poured, the plates are closed and left to cook about five minutes. At some point during the process, the waffle maker is flipped over. The wow moment happens when the waffle maker is opened to reveal the golden egg waffle.
While egg waffles were traditionally eaten by themselves, Bubble Egg capitalizes on the trend of serving the waffles like big ice cream cones. “We’re like an Asian Baskin Robbins,” the staff says. The cones are filled with ice cream and toppings in creative combinations like the Go Bananas (bananas, pecans, caramel sauce) or the Bubble Oreo (Oreo crumbles, rainbow mochi, and condensed milk.)
Each cone can also be customized by waffle flavor (matcha, regular, or chocolate), and a variety of ice creams and toppings. Then, ice cream and toppings ranging from fresh fruit to mochi, Kit Kat bars and whipped cream. Ice cream flavors here are pretty standard, with a couple of unusual flavors such as banana pudding, eskimo kiss and green tea. Also on offer is a menu of fresh fruit mocktails as well as a selection of green and black teas in flavors like strawberry, passionfruit, mango and lychee.
Bubble Egg is now open from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday and Friday and Saturday from 12 p.m. to 11 p.m., Sundays from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m.
