Bobalicious

Back before they remodeled a bit, when they still sold frozen yogurt, my first visit there didn’t give me quite the best impression. The bubble tea was very poor quality and there were only 2 or 3 flavors of frozen yogurt to try at a time. On top of that, I was a bit appalled at the interior design. different color/​size polk-​a-​dots all over the walls. Lately, since they remodeled, started selling phở, bahn mi, and other foods, and got rid of their frozen yogurt, I reconsidered returning to try their food/​drinks again. I heard their bubble tea now is pretty decent, but I haven’t tried it yet.
Bahn Mi: For a total of $ 6.15 (after tax), the combination bahn mi isn’t really worth the price. For one, the sandwich itself is pretty small. I’ve had much larger bahn mi sandwiches in California and Chicago for only $ 3 – 4. The bread was overly crunchy, so much that the gums in my mouth hurt a bit after I finished the sandwich. The dried shredded pork was a bit overpowering in the sandwich, and I kept tasting just that instead of getting to experience the rest of what was in the sandwich. On a good note, I was surprised to see a piece of asian sausage in there (a good surprise). I might try some more bahn mi from here another time, but that’s only because there’s barely any options for bahn mi in Iowa City. It’s better than nothing.
Atmosphere: The environment doesn’t seem too welcoming since it’s a pretty cramped place and everyone is close to each other. I went once with a big group (at least 10 or 12 of us) and they were able to move tables together to accommodate all of us together, so that was a plus. So the walls … this is what breaks it for me in terms of the atmosphere… they still have polk-​a-​dots all over the walls! But this time, they allow people to write or draw things on post-​its and stick those post its all over the wall (on top of the polk-​a-​dots). I do believe it’s a good concept. I’ve been to restaurants that encourage interaction with the guests like this (ie. taking polaroid pictures of the guests and posting that up, letting guests write messages on little pebbles and laying them under glass tables where you eat, etc), but the presentation of the idea has to be executed well. At Bobalicious, I feel that this detracts from the restaurant since there are so many colors on the walls. The presentation is not good, it’s messy, and the cramped post-​its just make you feel uncomfortable. Simply, it’s not very professional.

The phở was pretty good, a lot better than I’d expect from a place that essentially has the market cornered. The dining room set-​up is interesting but doesn’t really encourage you to sit down and eat in. Next time, I think I’m going to phone ahead for take-​out and I suggest you to do the same.

I’m a fan of Bobalicious, but they recently changed their dining room which significantly cut back on seating. So if you want to sit down for a bowl of phở, be prepared to wait on the weekends or plan to do takeout.
Food has been great and consistent, I’m a lover of the phở and fried spring rolls. The Bahn Mi was okay but served on french bread which was weird. The Boba drink is tasty and my friends like the noodles with shrimp bowl.
I’ll keep coming back here but I wish they’d get a bigger space!

Phở is a downright awesome comfort food as fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Bobalicious does a decent job for what it has in resources and space to create a little piece of Vietnamese heaven in the middle of Iowa. Decent menu and the boba tea is not half bad. Simply the spot to be for a bowl of Phở. It’s a Phở-​king no brainer. Need gas too? A BP is directly attached to the restaurant to fill up for the drive home.

Delicious phở, fresh spring rolls, and fantastic Vietnamese coffee made for the perfect lunch. The service was very good considering the small size of their kitchen/​staff. Will have to save room for the bubble tea next time!

This is a good boba place. They have a lot of flavors. The place is kind of ghetto looking but I think it is cute. It has a lot of post I notes on the wall.
A bought banh mi and yeah… it is not so. It is cut in a way so it is super small. There isn’t a lot of meat in mine. The bread wasn’t right and they toasted the bread. I like it not toasted. These people are Vietnamese but they don’t know how to make this? I hadn’t tried the Phở but what I can see they do skimp on the meat.
Go here for the boba. I liked mine a lot. As for the food, now I hadn’t ate anything else but it does not look like what my mom (lol!) r my church makes (my church make the auth. Sheet. Kid you not!)

Didn’t know what to expect with the Boba Tea but it was FANTASTIC! I tried the coconut with jelly bubbles in it. We went there for the Banh Mi (sandwich) and weren’t disappointed. The bread was the best we’ve found yet for Vietnamese Banh Mi (we’ve been searching high and low from Wisconsin to Iowa… so far.)

Bobalicious is first and foremost a boba place.
In this realm, they do an amazing job. You won’t find another place in town with as many flavor options or as good of a product. It’s consistently awesome every time — avocado, especially.
Some recent reviewers have criticized this tiny boba place with a kitchen about as big as the gas station bathroom next door because they don’t make good phở. That’s like criticizing Java House because their scones are no good. You’re missing the point of the joint. The food is completely secondary to the boba.
But, having said that, I’ve had good experiences with what I’ve tried from the food menu. I found the banh mi to be quite tasty, if not mindblowing — It’s worth a try if only because it’s the lone banh mi option in town. The egg rolls are good, too. I think it’s impressive that they’re able to serve food at all with such limited space.

I really wanted to like this place. It’s incredibly important for me to encourage the development of more ethnic restaurants. I’m hoping some of these reviews will help the owners to change the food.
Let me say that I eat a lot of Vietnamese food. We find Vietnamese food all over the country so I can say with confidence what is good and bad Vietnamese food.
Other reviewers on this post have already nailed the problems with the food so I won’t reiterate all the problems. But pay attention to the critiques. The banh-​mi is terrible. See L.D.‘s description. It’s completely accurate.
For the phở, it’s just plain not phở. I’ve never never had a person ask me if I wanted sugar with my phở. I was a little surprised. But once I tasted the phở, I couldn’t imagine adding any MORE sugar to the phở. It’s so sweet that I added ice water to it just to make it kind-​of edible. I wanted to add some Siracha to it but it turned out to be cheap chili-​sauce. Come on, Siracha is not that expensive.
The spring rolls (Goi Cuon) are just plain rice paper, noodles, one shrimp, and some lettuce. Pretty disappointing.
Finally, the boba drinks are deadly sugary. It’s way too sweet. I don’t get what it is with the taste-​buds at Bobalicious. Everything is too sweet and sugary when it’s not supposed to be.
Please make some changes and so we can really have a good Vietnamese food place here in Iowa City.

This joint is in a nondescript building which ajoins a BP gas station. I gave this joint 2 stars because the food is really mediocre. Its one of two vietnamese joints town. People should rate reatuaramts based on food quality and not because it is one of the few ethnic restaurants in town. C’mon how will the restaurant know it needs to improve the food quality if people are giving mercy reviews?
Lets start with the banh mi. It sucks. I think the reviewers who gave this joint thumbs up for the banh mi have never really had banh mi. You have to go to the West Coast for that. First of all… real banh mi sandwiches are served on a Vietnamese French baguette. The sandwich I got was served on a regular baguette which was cut in half or thirds to make my sanwich. The Vietnamese French baguette is flaky and crisp on the outside but soft on the inside. There is nothing else like it. The carrots were not pickled and I did not taste pickled daikon radishes. The pickled veggies are key to making a good banh mi sandwich. There were no fresh cilantro and the fresh cucumber was sliced in large chunks instead of the long thin elegant slices which makes for easier biting and chewing on a baguette. Maybe this is something the restaurant owners make to eat at home but it is not restaurant or deli quality.
The phở is mediocre. For one thing, the owners are really skimpy with the meat. I got a large phở with meatballs and eye of round. The meatballs are cut in half to visually fool you that there is more than what they actually gave you. There was hardly any eye of round!!! I was surprised a large bowl was more than $ 9. The beef and pork here in Iowa is cheaper than the West Coast. That’s why it doesn’t make sense to be skimpy except if the owners are skimpy themselves. I was given a large bowl with ample broth and noodles. I was not given any fresh Thai basil or fresh thin sliced jalapeño peppers.
I am glad there are phở restaurants in Iowa City but there needs to be improvements in the quality of the food. Please no more mercy reviews. It only gives the restaurant owners an excuse to not provide quality food.

Green tea boba was a little too sweet but my friend’s thai iced tea was delicious

They forgot to put extra eye round in my soup but the lady found it out shortly after they brought the food to my table, which is nice. Food is good and affordable!!!

They make a seriously great Banh-​Mi. You are asked for spicy or not, I thought it was great, but I have yet to pick a favorite from the three places now serving it in town — Here, Mekong, and Three Samurai all do very good versions IMO. Have yet to try the Phở.

Bobalicious has all the hallmarks ofa hole in the wall dive that the locals don’t want to share. Its not much to look at, but the food is fantastic and cheap to boot. $ 20 had my wife and I splitting a bubble tea (made with fresh avocado), a huge bowl of Phở, and spicy chicken. Everything was fantastic. Genuine comfort food with umami to spare.
Noting some comments about the service — It’s not fast food, but the staff was courteous, attentive and friendly.
Well bee sure to be back.

We discovered Bobalicious this past week after a strong desire for Bubble Tea overwhelmed us. Three trips later over a span of 10 days and we’re hooked!
It’s been sad that any time we wanted Phở or true legit bubble tea, we basically had to go to KC or Chicago, but no longer my friend, cause this place is the real deal.
The Phở here is seriously good. The choices include meatballs, round steak or both. The addition of Chicken would be appreciated, but both other options are good and they’re limited by space so we’ll forgive them. The Banh Mi — Vietnamese Subs, are incredible with a number of different options ranging from Chinese sausage to slow roasted pork and beef — melt in your mouth good with tons of Cilantro. Get your Sriracha sauce on with this bad boy and you’ve got yourself a meal to talk about!
The food is some of the best we’ve had since being in Seattle where a couple Vietnamese places were super authentic (and one got shut down for serving cat… but I digress), but the best part of this place is the Bubble Tea they serve up. No less than 30 flavors are at your disposal and they’ll make you any combination you like — Winning! We’ve ranged from Strawberry Taro to Avocado Coconut to some of the more exotic renditions including Aloe and Carrot. All were excellent and the choice of «Boba» the tapioca bubble or mochi (delicious rice candy w/​powdered sugar) is yours and does nothing but make the whole experience exponentialy more awesome! They use real fruit in the tea and blend everything (vs. Places in Chicago that just pour it over ice).
Service has always been good to us x 3, with our average trips for sitting down lasting around 45 minutes from in to out and the average when it’s go has been around 10 – 15 minutes.
You won’t be sorry checking this place out be it for lunch, dinner or a delicious treat in between!

Want to give them 4 stars, but the service is extremely slow. Ordered a couple of Banh Mi sandwiches and a boba drink to go and took well over 20 minutes.
Speed aside, the sandwiches were pretty solid and the boba drink hit the spot. The sandwiches were layered with braised meat and standard Vietnamese veggies. The sour apple boba drink was well made.
Price is fine, and the place looks like a fun place for college kids to go to and grab a bite to eat. They could probably make a killing if they were open super late like for teens (over 21!) after a night of drinking… nothing takes care of you like Phở.
I’ll definitely hit this spot up again when I’m back in Iowa, but probably gonna try to call in an order if I’m carrying out.
dmo out

Alright, so since my last review, Bobalicious has started offering more food options and hired some employees.
Notably, the service has gotten much faster. I really like the pork shoulder vermicelli dish. The flavor of the pork is really good and it tastes like what I’ve had in CA. So major +s for that
The phở is standard. I like it and it’s comprable to the phở at MeKong but it’s cheaper, so I like that. It comes with all the regular fixings.
I think my first experience with the banh mi was a fluke and since then my sandwiches have had a lot more meat.
The Vietnamese spring rolls are also pretty good.
Basically, this is the only place in town with Vietnamese food. The food is tasty and the prices are reasonable. The only major drawbacks are sometimes you’re going to be waiting a while for your food and there’s pretty limited seating.

This place would probably get three stars just for the fact that it exists in Iowa. It can be a bit hard to miss since it’s attached to the mini-​mart of the BP gas station. I’ve been here a number of times now and I’ve generally been pretty impressed. I have yet to try any of their food items, but I’ve tried three of their boba teas (regular milk tea, mango, and taro) and I’ve more or less enjoyed all of them. You can order the drinks hot, iced, or blended. The drinks come out to around $ 3.70 with tax, which is pretty reasonable for what you get.
My favorites so far have been the blended mango and the iced milk tea. The consistency of the boba wasn’t quite right the first one or two times I came, but it’s gotten much better since. I haven’t been here for an actual meal yet, but the Banh Mi sandwiches look pretty good as do the phở and vermicelli. The service is always very friendly too, you feel like they truly appreciate your business here. Definitely worth a visit of you’re around the Iowa City area!

Don’t let the name of the restaurant fool you. this place serves Banh Mi, Phở, and a few rice dishes. to my knowledge, this is the only place in Iowa City/​Cedar Rapids that serves Banh Mi (a Vietnamese sub sandwich, for those that aren’t Linspired). So for under $ 5, you can get one with your selection of meats. They don’t have chicken, but i dig the slow cooked pork one. in fact, i think that’s the only one i would recommend. the fact that they even have it kicks ass. The phở is decent for Iowa, but it does come with the right side veggies that include jalapenos. They don’t have anything like phở «Dac Biet» but when they do… oh man.
Don’t let the BP gas station fool you, you have to look twice… its just to the left. heck, i found accidentally it by going to the gas station.
props to the owners for starting this little hole in the wall, and for juggling the variety of dishes that i consider to be my comfort food. you’ll have to ask someone else about the quality of boba as i surprisingly don’t have a craving for that. i had their vietnamese coffee which was really good.

This stylish «hole in the wall» place was great for a meal! The boba tea was great! We ordered the milk tea blended, and at first it was extremely watered down… but they were quick to re-​do them and they were perfect! The phở wasn’t the best I’ve ever had, but definitely better than Mekong! It was pretty good, I just felt like the broth could have a little more flavor. I’m excited to see future additions to the menu, and can’t wait to go back again!