The rating may seem a bit extreme, but it's just because of my review system.To be honest, I really don't like bullying tiny neighborhood joints that have done nothing wrong (that have done nothing wrong). I think this place deserves the rating.Baskets is a delightful little cafe that is very clean as well. The bathrooms are mostly well kept and the space is mostly clean. The first time I visited, the food took forever to arrive, but it was really good. In the end, they brought us some free fruit vinegar to help with the digestion (of course, it tasted horrible because it was vinegar, but it was a nice thing to do). The next times I visited, the food arrived in almost no time. The drinks were excellent and were served in quite large portions too. Eventually the service got so fast I could come here on a quick visit, and the staff would know exactly what I wanted to eat and drink (with some off-by-one mistakes). The food always tastes excellent too. The drinks are very good too.Of course, there is no plating. But when they charge this type of price, I can't blame them.I was very saddened to hear that this place would close. I sincerely enjoyed my experiences here. The new restaurant here sucks.Overall Score: 50/100
Garrett McGowan
Every menu item we've had has been quite tasty. The chicken fried rice is my favorite on the greater Eastside.
Claire Xie
The food was pretty good, especially the specialty pancakes. Can't say the same about the service.
Annie An
It was my forth times visited this restaurant. They have mediocre quality, not too impressive but also not too bad. It’s not my favorite Taiwanese restaurant but it’s ok to try it once a while.
Adam S.
Horrible service. Waited 45 minutes and still no main dishes. This restaurant has severe capacity problem. Seems there is only one chef. Two servers are serving 30 guests. Will not come again!
Eva M.
First, this place is closing on 11/10/2019. So, I'm not sure why I'm writing a review. :P I guess I'm opinionated and writing it anyway. It's a Wed night, 7pm, 3 tables and a grubhub order. Not busy. One server. And maybe even only one cook in the kitchen. Our main dishes came out fast enough, but when we added the wheel cake, they took forever. "Like": Spicy Bean Sauce Fish Fillet - Flash fried fish fillets are covered in a spicy bean sauce. "Ok": Ginger and scallion steamed fish fillet and tofu - Why is there so much oil? For that matter, why is there so much broth? Otherwise, it was "Ok". "Have had better": Pan Fried Pork Bun - Plenty of filling but the bottom is not crispy enough. Took them off the pan too soon. Wheel Cake - Per previous comment, I think they were rushing to get this to us. Under cooked, not crispy on the outside, with the batter insufficiently cooked, the filling is mixed with the batter instead of a nice bite of red bean. Unfortunate. "Different, not in a good way": Pork Intestines with vermicelli noodles - Back when I traveled to Taipei a lot for work, one of my favorite things to do is go to the street stalls to eat squid or shrimp vermicelli in a rich brown broth. I have yet to find the equivalent in the U.S. The broth in their version is gritty, partly from the garlic, but still not quite right. The intestines are fine. The best way to eat them is actually deep fried without batter taking advantage of the fat inside. What a waste.
Kassandra Wrinkle
Authentic Taiwan restaurant with a good variety of food and drinks.
Cizhen Wu
Food was great. But the wait time was a bit long. The service was no more than ok. When we walked in, there were only few tables but the servers were like, oh, we are so busy right now. I had no idea about that.... giving a 3 star for food only.
I walked over here while waiting for my tires to get changed. The interior was cute, my fiancée almost lost her marbles fawning over the teacup wall. Soft piano music soothes you as waitresses with iPads take your order. The baked pork buns came in an order of six. They were filled with ground meat and flavored with scallion and ginger. The spring rolls were thick and doughy, more like egg rolls. The peach smoothie was sweet and refreshing on a muggy day. Heavy snacks for two ran about $20. I would come here again for snacks and relaxation, though I'd be curious to try a more substantial meal as well.
Ryan Guest
Happened upon this place as I was starving and popped in for lunch... I was pleasantly surprised! The place is spacious and quiet. I had lunch combo with General Tso's Chicken with soup. The soup was just OK, but chicken phenomenal. This dish often comes breaded and fried and hurts your stomach 10 minutes later... not so here - the sauce was delicious and chicken nicely cooked. Delicious!
Jennifer Y.
Updating to 5 stars because I came back and had a great experience. The service was much faster, and the servers were really kind, I think they're really taking feedback into account. The food was fantastic, as always. Another recommendation is roasted tea duck. Love the concept of a laid back cafe with jazz music, a wall full of teacups, and people studying or eating full meals. However, maybe this place is a little bit too laid back - the service is incredibly SLOW. Not because it's crowded, it's often quite empty, but because the servers here are often messing around or having conversation/gossiping with one another. I honestly really like the food here, but I don't like waiting around over an hour for it. Once my mother and my sister came for lunch and each ordered a dish. After over an hour, my sisters dish never came so she spent the whole meal watching my mom eat and they ended up asking to take my sisters dish togo. Another time my family came and we were the only ones in the restaurant, but we had to ask multiple times about getting another plate because they miscounted, certain dishes we ordered, and the drinks we ordered. We didn't even end up getting some of the drinks we ordered until after we finished eating our meal. Slow service aside though, the food here is great. The ambience of the cafe is awesome, I would love to study here sometime. My favorite dishes are the steamed fish with ginger and tofu, shredded pork w/bamboo, roasted beef pancake roll. Their Okinawa milk tea is also so good AND you can adjust the sugar levels. This place also sells Taiwanese wheel cakes!! They're quite hard to find here in the US. Come if you have a lot of time to sit back and enjoy your meal!! Sometimes they have live piano TIP: if you also love the food here but don't want to deal with the slow service, call in on the phone and order to go and ask for It to be ready as soon as possible. They told me 20 minutes for 3 dishes at the time that I called, and when I got there, they panicked since they weren't done yet and super speedily got it to me in 5 extra minutes. Honestly much better than waiting an hour!
Joseph C. Chiang
Chicken steaks are fabulous, imakawayaki is like exactly what I had back in Taiwan. Service is friendly and kind, overall environment is amazingly good! I will definitely visit again after all.
chen wang
It is the first time that I have given feedback on a restaurant due to my extreme dissatisfaction with it. First of all, six of us arrived at this restaurant around twelve o'clock, where there was only one table of guests. When we went in and requested to order our meal, the guests arrived after us beat ordered before us (they speaking in English). When I requested (in a quite polite manner) the waiter to serve us as soon as possible, she shouted back at us quite impolitely and asked us to wait for some more time.
The rating may seem a bit extreme, but it's just because of my review system.To be honest, I really don't like bullying tiny neighborhood joints that have done nothing wrong (that have done nothing wrong). I think this place deserves the rating.Baskets is a delightful little cafe that is very clean as well. The bathrooms are mostly well kept and the space is mostly clean. The first time I visited, the food took forever to arrive, but it was really good. In the end, they brought us some free fruit vinegar to help with the digestion (of course, it tasted horrible because it was vinegar, but it was a nice thing to do). The next times I visited, the food arrived in almost no time. The drinks were excellent and were served in quite large portions too. Eventually the service got so fast I could come here on a quick visit, and the staff would know exactly what I wanted to eat and drink (with some off-by-one mistakes). The food always tastes excellent too. The drinks are very good too.Of course, there is no plating. But when they charge this type of price, I can't blame them.I was very saddened to hear that this place would close. I sincerely enjoyed my experiences here. The new restaurant here sucks.Overall Score: 50/100
Every menu item we've had has been quite tasty. The chicken fried rice is my favorite on the greater Eastside.
The food was pretty good, especially the specialty pancakes. Can't say the same about the service.
It was my forth times visited this restaurant. They have mediocre quality, not too impressive but also not too bad. It’s not my favorite Taiwanese restaurant but it’s ok to try it once a while.
Horrible service. Waited 45 minutes and still no main dishes. This restaurant has severe capacity problem. Seems there is only one chef. Two servers are serving 30 guests. Will not come again!
First, this place is closing on 11/10/2019. So, I'm not sure why I'm writing a review. :P I guess I'm opinionated and writing it anyway. It's a Wed night, 7pm, 3 tables and a grubhub order. Not busy. One server. And maybe even only one cook in the kitchen. Our main dishes came out fast enough, but when we added the wheel cake, they took forever. "Like": Spicy Bean Sauce Fish Fillet - Flash fried fish fillets are covered in a spicy bean sauce. "Ok": Ginger and scallion steamed fish fillet and tofu - Why is there so much oil? For that matter, why is there so much broth? Otherwise, it was "Ok". "Have had better": Pan Fried Pork Bun - Plenty of filling but the bottom is not crispy enough. Took them off the pan too soon. Wheel Cake - Per previous comment, I think they were rushing to get this to us. Under cooked, not crispy on the outside, with the batter insufficiently cooked, the filling is mixed with the batter instead of a nice bite of red bean. Unfortunate. "Different, not in a good way": Pork Intestines with vermicelli noodles - Back when I traveled to Taipei a lot for work, one of my favorite things to do is go to the street stalls to eat squid or shrimp vermicelli in a rich brown broth. I have yet to find the equivalent in the U.S. The broth in their version is gritty, partly from the garlic, but still not quite right. The intestines are fine. The best way to eat them is actually deep fried without batter taking advantage of the fat inside. What a waste.
Authentic Taiwan restaurant with a good variety of food and drinks.
Food was great. But the wait time was a bit long. The service was no more than ok. When we walked in, there were only few tables but the servers were like, oh, we are so busy right now. I had no idea about that.... giving a 3 star for food only.
Always good food and wonderful staff
Food is good, but service is flat.
Restaurantji Recommends
I walked over here while waiting for my tires to get changed. The interior was cute, my fiancée almost lost her marbles fawning over the teacup wall. Soft piano music soothes you as waitresses with iPads take your order. The baked pork buns came in an order of six. They were filled with ground meat and flavored with scallion and ginger. The spring rolls were thick and doughy, more like egg rolls. The peach smoothie was sweet and refreshing on a muggy day. Heavy snacks for two ran about $20. I would come here again for snacks and relaxation, though I'd be curious to try a more substantial meal as well.
Happened upon this place as I was starving and popped in for lunch... I was pleasantly surprised! The place is spacious and quiet. I had lunch combo with General Tso's Chicken with soup. The soup was just OK, but chicken phenomenal. This dish often comes breaded and fried and hurts your stomach 10 minutes later... not so here - the sauce was delicious and chicken nicely cooked. Delicious!
Updating to 5 stars because I came back and had a great experience. The service was much faster, and the servers were really kind, I think they're really taking feedback into account. The food was fantastic, as always. Another recommendation is roasted tea duck. Love the concept of a laid back cafe with jazz music, a wall full of teacups, and people studying or eating full meals. However, maybe this place is a little bit too laid back - the service is incredibly SLOW. Not because it's crowded, it's often quite empty, but because the servers here are often messing around or having conversation/gossiping with one another. I honestly really like the food here, but I don't like waiting around over an hour for it. Once my mother and my sister came for lunch and each ordered a dish. After over an hour, my sisters dish never came so she spent the whole meal watching my mom eat and they ended up asking to take my sisters dish togo. Another time my family came and we were the only ones in the restaurant, but we had to ask multiple times about getting another plate because they miscounted, certain dishes we ordered, and the drinks we ordered. We didn't even end up getting some of the drinks we ordered until after we finished eating our meal. Slow service aside though, the food here is great. The ambience of the cafe is awesome, I would love to study here sometime. My favorite dishes are the steamed fish with ginger and tofu, shredded pork w/bamboo, roasted beef pancake roll. Their Okinawa milk tea is also so good AND you can adjust the sugar levels. This place also sells Taiwanese wheel cakes!! They're quite hard to find here in the US. Come if you have a lot of time to sit back and enjoy your meal!! Sometimes they have live piano TIP: if you also love the food here but don't want to deal with the slow service, call in on the phone and order to go and ask for It to be ready as soon as possible. They told me 20 minutes for 3 dishes at the time that I called, and when I got there, they panicked since they weren't done yet and super speedily got it to me in 5 extra minutes. Honestly much better than waiting an hour!
Chicken steaks are fabulous, imakawayaki is like exactly what I had back in Taiwan. Service is friendly and kind, overall environment is amazingly good! I will definitely visit again after all.
It is the first time that I have given feedback on a restaurant due to my extreme dissatisfaction with it. First of all, six of us arrived at this restaurant around twelve o'clock, where there was only one table of guests. When we went in and requested to order our meal, the guests arrived after us beat ordered before us (they speaking in English). When I requested (in a quite polite manner) the waiter to serve us as soon as possible, she shouted back at us quite impolitely and asked us to wait for some more time.