Madison is something but a desert wasteland. Bakeries abound. It’s boom times for chocolatiers. And with spring’s arrival, ice cream stores throughout the isthmus have begun slinging their first scoops.
But when Arom Wichitchu looked for goodies traditional to his local Thailand, he found the city rising briefly.
That changed six months ago when Wichitchu, the proprietor of Sa Bai Thong, changed his approach by using his enterprise partners, sister-in-regulation Taratip Buchli and Maihoua Xiong. Their goal becomes simple: build something to fill the space.
“At some point, we had been wondering, oh, we did no longer see any dessert, Asian dessert around,” Wichitchu stated. “We did now not see (the one’s varieties of) cakes round right here loads. And then we think this should be something that would be superb for people to have and try to discover and flavor it.”
Enter Bambu opened in mid-April at Hilldale Shopping Center.
The first storefront in Wisconsin, Bambu (550 N. Midvale Blvd.), is a small line of national franchises making Southeast Asian dessert liquids, coffees, and teas. Menu gadgets include Vietnamese espresso, smoothies, milk teas, mochi, and waffles made with chewy, aromatic pandan jelly.
The celebrity at Bambu is the Vietnamese dessert chè.
Chè is a dessert class that encompasses puddings and iced liquids. Bambu focuses on the latter. Like tapioca pearls in bubble tea, chè begins with layers of colorful jellies flavored with Southeast Asian botanicals, including pandan, sweetened beans, or tapioca. Some iterations are scattered with syrup-soaked basil seeds, fleshy coconut meat, or a culmination like a jackfruit or longan, tropical fruit like lychee. The drink is completed with a coconut milk or water blanket and topped with shaved ice.
The result is a banquet for the senses: lush and colorful in appearance and flavor, with springy, chewy textures from the jellies. The beverage is meant to be admired. Briefly, Wichitchu stated, then quickly mixed to meld the syrupy layers with the coconut topping.
The beverages at Bambu benefit from the freshness in their ingredients: The boba and jellies, prepared in-house every day, are flavorful and aromatic but not overly sentimental. Young coconuts are broken down by hand earlier than every day’s carrier, Wichitchu stated, and the ensuing milk and waters have a rich, toasty, high quality. Flavors are balanced and brilliant, and though the chè is filling, they don’t experience weightiness or overwhelming.