Bubble tea in cocktail form? It’s the drink on everyone’s lips at this fun Surry Hills bar

Taiwan’s most famous export is given the grown-up treatment at Linla, combining aged rum with Earl Grey and English Breakfast teas, black sugar, tapioca pearls, Milo and milk. Serve with crispy chicken, and you’re set.

Asian-Australians are some of the harshest critics of their own food – you should read the squabbles in the “Malaysian Food Lovers Sydney” Facebook group over the “best” laksa in town. As a Taiwanese-Australian, I’ve also been guilty of this.

The Taiwanese diaspora is fairly small in Australia with original spots in Sydney including Cho Dumpling King and Mother Chu’s Taiwanese Gourmet (both in Chinatown), Diamond Cafe in Hurstville and Bao Dao in Chatswood. But there is also a growing modern cohort including Meet Taiwan in Hurstville, Daruma Dumplings Beer House in Strathfield, Ommi Don in Chatswood and Redfern, not to mention Taiwanese-inspired cafes such as Festive Coffee in Ashfield and Ladies & Gentleman Cafe in Marrickville.

Although Linla doesn’t call itself a Taiwanese restaurant, it might be worth adding to the list. The Surry Hills bar was opened a couple of months ago by co-owner Charles Chang, who is Taiwanese and formerly the bar manager for Lotus Dining Group. He also runs Wai’s Omakase (by chef Ha Chuen Wai) next door and Japanese-inspired Moku in Darlinghurst. Linla (which means “cheers” in Taiwanese) is billed as a “modern social dining bar” that began life focused on cocktails, but now has a larger food offering.

We’re initially seated in the very loud rear dining room, but staff graciously accept our request to sit at the bar. Chang has reskinned the former Dead Ringer bar with a silver aluminium top and vertical tiles. There’s plenty of charcoal and concrete-grey colours, softened by low ambient lighting around dark leather bar stools. Very sleek.

Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox.

Nearly every table has ordered the Mi-Bubble cocktail, Linla’s play on Taiwan’s most famous export, bubble tea. Combining aged rum, Earl Grey and English Breakfast teas, black sugar, small tapioca pearls, Milo and milk, it carries a bold blended tea flavour, accented by toasted oak from the rum. The bar was flooded with one-star Google reviews when the drink used to sell out early, so now the team stocks enough Mi-Bubble ingredients so it flows all night. The rest of the cocktail list features other classic Taiwanese flavours including pineapple, peanut, coriander and papaya milk. I would come back just for the drinks.

Food, meanwhile, is described with the dreaded “P” word (“Pan-Asian”) but there’s