Boba Quest: The Alley

As part of Boba Quest 🧋, I'm trying and reviewing a new boba shop each week whenever I have time.

After nearly seven years of conducting boba reviews, I have built up a decent ability to predict if the boba will be good or not. I will always get a drink so I'm not merely judging a book by its cover, but it's rare that I'm surprised.

The Alley in Montreal genuinely surprised me with its excellent boba tea. From the very first sip, I could tell this wasn't merely good boba, it was fantastic.

(Admittedly, I mostly picked this place because the anonymous Montrealer had declared it the king of Montreal boba...so it's really on me for being shocked at how good it was.)

Just two blocks over from my previous review, The Alley is right next to the Green Line's Guy–Concordia station. There used to be a New York City location that opened in 2019, but best I can tell, it's since closed down.

I ordered the Passionnément Deerioca (the menu was in French!), which is what they call their brown sugar milk tea with boba. I was not asked about my preferred sugar or ice levels.

• Boba: 4/4 just perfection. Nicely sweet and exactly the correct chewiness. My first thought was that I had clearly forgotten how good boba could be and should probably downgrade some other places' scores.
• Tea: 4/4 excellent; it melded smoothly with the boba without overpowering it.
• Bonus: 1/1 the atmosphere in the store was really nice (there's even a tree inside!), I would've stuck around for longer if I had the time. I appreciated the deer iconography, I was initially quite impressed at how Canadian it all seemed (spoiler: it is not).

Total: 9/10. For those keeping track, The Alley is the fourth boba shop to earn a complete score. Whenever I'm next in Montreal, I'll make sure to visit again to see if it can earn the coveted tenth point for consistency.

About those deer...

The Alley is a Taiwanese chain, and the deer are also Taiwanese and endangered. TIL that Taiwan has deer; my sources tell me that they're even on the currency in Taiwan.

I'm slightly disappointed that the deer theme wasn't a Canadian thing, but I can't complain with boba this good. 🇨🇦