flea at laff #12: dough/thirstea.

snack: passionfruit with cocoa nibs donut
drink: kumquat lemon bubble tea

if you've been following along at home, you'll remember that back round the beginning of may i visited the brooklyn flea & had myself a tasty snack-drink combo from brooklyn bangers. if you haven't read said post yet, please click through & enhance my web traffic, you lazy cheapskate. anywho, i started that particular post by mentioning how i was a regular champion when it comes to sleeping in. a few weeks back, i went for the gold & after a friday evening where i'd stupidly stayed up til 3am watching episodes of workaholics, the following day i slept in until just before 3pm. it was epic but unfortunately, it also meant that if i wanted to head out to the flea, i had to get my ass in gear & head up to ft greene quicklike before the flea closed at 5pm.

it was the first saturday after the launch of the brooklyn flea's new child, the smorgasburg food market, which takes place up in williamsburg at the same time as my beloved ft greene flea. i'd visited the debut of smorgasburg for fucked in park slope on that previous weekend & found that it has most of the same food vendors plus a whole bunch of other ones. PLUS, there's none of the flea market junk. it's just food & food-related products. as i rode the subway up to ft greene, i wondered if the ft greene flea would be ruined & i'd have a brand new reason to hate williamsburg. as it turned out, when i arrived just after 4pm, there weren't as many people as i was used to seeing but there was still a good enough amount of activity for that late in the day. many of the same vendors were still there. everything seemed to be just fine.

since it was technically breakfast time for me, i assembled a breakfast-like snack-drink combo. i started at the booth for dough, a clinton hill bakery that's been getting raves for their uniquely-flavored donuts since they opened last december. here in nyc, there's been a sort of fancy donut revival over the past few years, with places like doughnut plant opening a locale in the hotel chelsea & tina fey declaring that she'd get down & dirty with a donut from greenpoint's peter pan donuts. i was excited to finally try something from dough, as their donuts we're rumored to be light & fluffy & quite tasty, with flavors like "chai cream" & "dulce de leche."

i went for the passionfruit with cocoa nibs donut, as it promised to combine two of my favorite things: glaze & chocolate. at only $2 a donut, it's well worth it, as it's somewhere in the neighborhood of six inches across. in fact, it was almost too much for me, as while the donut itself was quite light & fluffy, the sweetness of the passionfruit was pretty strong. the occasional crunch from the cocoa nibs was a nice touch but ultimately, they were a non-factor in the overall taste of the donut. i mostly enjoyed it but it might be a bit much for those who aren't big on sweets. if you're like me & it's the first thing you've eaten that morning, chances are you'll probably have a slight stomachache afterwards. since i ran into the same stomachache issue earlier this summer when i had a chocolate-mousse-filled cookie for breakfast, i guess you can call me a slow learner...or a moron, if you so choose, jerk.

for my beverage, i visited the booth for thirstea, a shop on east 10th st in the village that's been around since the summer of 2009. on this particular saturday, they were offering a few different bubble teas & even though they were $5 a cup, i decided to throw caution to the wind & get the kumquat lemon bubble tea. as someone who had not previously sampled bubble tea, this was a big step for me. i know. i'm WAY late to the game when it comes to bubble teas but when it comes to my food & drink, consistency is a major factor. stuff floating in my drink is a big turnoff & bubble tea inherently has tapioca balls floating around in it.

the tea itself was a little watery but ultimately fine, as it was fruity & not overly sweet. to be honest, i couldn't really taste any kumquat though. as i expected, it was an adventure every time that i sucked a tapioca ball up through the oversized bubble tea straw. tapioca balls that have been floating in iced tea are sorta-firm/sorta-slimy & i just can't get down with that. i tried my damnedest to appreciate whatever it is that makes them fun to have in your drink & i even let a few dozen of them slither down my throat but in the end i just finished the tea & left a small pile of tapioca balls on the bottom of the cup. i don't blame thirstea. for all i know, it may have been the pinnacle of bubble teas. even if that's the case, i don't think i'll be getting another bubble tea from anywhere any time soon.