Asia seems to have a fascination with scatalogically-themed things. From the dessert restaurant in Taiwan and Japan (with a location in NYC), to now Burger King China's latest cold beverage, the PooPoo* Smoothie.
Smoothies are great. A blend of ice, various fruits and juices creates a cold, flavorful burst of taste in the mouth with each sip. One would expect that having a terrible name like PooPoo* wouldn't affect the overall taste of the smoothie, and in fact, it doesn't. The PooPoo* Smoothie is delicious.
Keep in mind that this unfortunate name is only the English name of the beverage. In Chinese the beverage is called something along the lines of "mango ice smoothie with blow up pearls cold beverage." Which fits the smoothie very well.
The PooPoo* Smoothie is pretty much like a Taiwanese Boba Tea. It's a mango flavored slushie with what tastes like lychee flavored "pulp pearls" on the bottom of the cup. It's topped off with a swirl of soft serve vanilla ice cream. I asked for chocolate but the staff didn't get the joke.
The smoothie is, as I've stated above, delicious. The mango flavour works very well with the vanilla. The tartness and sweetness of the mango gives complexity to the vanilla ice cream. Drinking the "pearls" is also kind of fun. It's an unexpected texture that gives a surprise when they explode. Of course there's always the fear of just swallowing them.
I'm not exactly sure what the pearls are made out of. It feels like eating a piece of pulp. The staff at hand in Burger King didn't know. They also didn't know that their newest smoothie's name is related to poop.
Burger King's move into China has been vastly different from KFC's and McDonald's. Setting itself up as a more modern and upscale fast food joint, Burger King also charges a little bit more for it's food. Every Burger King restaurant in China has a very modern feel to it, which may be due to the use of chrome and blacks in the restaurant design.
On top of having more premium-feeling restaurants, Burger King's Chinese translations of its menu have usually been top notch. This also applies to the English translations of its China-only menu items, which makes the naming choice for the PooPoo* Smoothie weird. Then again, it is PooPoo* and not just PooPoo.
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Eric is a Beijing based writer and all around FAT man. You can contact him @FatAsianTechie@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @FatAsianTechie