Ellen C.
Yelp
Love the overall chill vibe here - the mom and pop shop is definitely an endearing place, it's more of a restaurant vibe though, as in I've never seen anyone bunker down and study/work from here.
As others have mentioned, prices are good. Portion sizes tend to be a little on the larger size, but the only ones that are REALLY big are the fried rice items. The others you could probably finish a sitting but will just leave pretty full. The quality of the food itself is hit or miss, some things really representative of Taiwan and others missing the mark a bit. But all in all VERY happy this place exists and has lasted this long.
- Beef noodle soup: From what we've had here, this is their signature dish. The beef in the dish is exceptionally tender, falls apart in your mouth, type of meat, and is amazingly flavor. Every bite you can taste the love and time spent in marinating and cooking the beef. The noodles are fine in the broth and are a good accompaniment, and the broth has some spice and kick to it, but isn't the star of the dish. It's the beef. *drool*
- Popcorn chicken: This is a quintessential Taiwanese street food, and while we didn't get it with white pepper and hot pepper, since some of our party can't take heat, the meat was a little overly fried and could've used some meatier chunks and the crust on the popcorn chicken wasn't entirely like the kind in Taiwan although it was very crispy and not greasy.
- Fried pork chop w/ noodle soup: Also a quintessential street food, the pork chop is similarly prepared to the popcorn chicken. It's a good amount of food, the pork chop is fried to perfection and was just enough, stayed moist, but could've used some more seasoning and flavor. The dish itself isn't exactly pulled together all that well with the noodles and the bok choy in their own soupy dish (tasted like bouillon chicken soup) and the pork chop, mustard greens, and (cold) boiled egg on the side. I would've liked it better if it had all been assembled better.
- Pork chop over rice: This is similar to the noodle dish but instead of noodles in broth, it was rice with some ru rou (braised ground pork and sauce) on it. There should be some more pork sauce on the rice, it turned out to be a little dry.
- Shaved ice: The fruity shaved ice was pretty good, plenty of syrup and condensed milk, and was pretty traditional. Fresh slices of strawberry (and mango when in season), but I miss the snow ice that so many places have now in Taiwan. It's creamier, but I guess this tastes slightly healthier?
- Fan tuan: I'm not a huge fan of it here, the rice was hard and it was in a strange shape. The fried cruller inside also tasted a bit stale, so this would be on my list of do not recommends.
They've also got a huge variety of milk teas and teas (no fruit smoothies) and is a solid place to go for some Taiwanese food in Evanston, especially if you're looking for a delicious bowl of beef noodle soup to warm you up on a fall/winter evening.