X O Taste

Amazing food and service overall! So bummed it’s closed now…

I liked the food okay, fried dishes were too salty and oily. But I’m giving 4 stars for the wonderful customer service. The owner kept checking on us to see if everything was to our satisfaction and was more than willing to change one menu that none of us liked. Very attentive service and friendly. Our stir-​fry Chinese broccoli and crispy beef was delish! I would def come again for family dinner out.

Really good Chinese Menu. Traditional dishes not the more Americanized versions of various things.
Service was great.
Food was exceptional.
I love hot and sour soup which was just the right mix and spicy and sour.
Overall the food was authentic. I really enjoyed the Kung Po Beef, everyone at the table (whole family) really enjoyed the food they were served.
This was a great experience. Cost was reasonable — family of 5 eating out for less than 100 dollars makes it a double bargain!
I highly recommend XO Taste. Very traditional cooking and dishes. Wonderful wait staff.
I wish I could go more than 5 stars…

This restaurant is really underrated. It is always empty when I go there, which is great because we get served quickly.
Yesterday I went there with my dad during a storm. We got Roasted Duck and Beef with Chinese Broccoli along with the usual Hot and Sour Soups. During our meal, the power went out, so we just kept eating. The waitstaff was nice, as always, but the guy brought over a candle for a romantic evening in the dark… I was with my dad.
But anyways, the food is always as good if not better than your typical Chinese joint. If you need somewhere to go for dinner, choose XO Taste, you won’t be disappointed.

Best in our area. Had the crispy beef, excellent.
Prices might be expensive for some, portions could be bigger, more bang of your dollar
Will return

Every time I am in the area, I make it a point to come and eat here. The food is really authentic and makes me feel at home. The staff is super friendly and the price is very reasonable.
If you’re looking for real Chinese food, this is the place. Give this place a try, if you haven’t already. So much better than the fast food Chinese we have in Frederick.
Thumbs up to delicious, fresh cooked, made to order, authentic, and good portion for the price food.

Food is still great as always. You pay a little more money than your typical fast food Chinese places, but it’s not really a fast food joint but more of a dine-​in/​sit down restaurant (take out is available though). However, it’s worth it for the good portion sizes, and most importantly, the quality you can taste. Additionally, there are cuisine choices on the menu you can’t find at many other places. A definite recommend. Enjoy!

This is the first time I have tried X O Taste since it’s new Management.
I ordered the Szechuan Beef and Hot and Sour Soup.
Most Szechuan Beef I order from other restaurants contain long think strips of beef in a heavy, gloppy sauce.
At X O, the beef came in thin slices, very tender and very flavorful. The sauce was almost a beef broth consistency and added to the flavor of the dish.
There was more meat than vegetables, which was very welcome and the balance of flavors of Hot Peppers, Ginger ad Garlic were quite good.
The lunchtime serving size was really a dinner portion.
The Hot and Sour soup was quite good.
Great flavor balance, with a thin base. (Not the over thickened version some restaurants serve)
In reading other reviews, it seems that the BBQ is the thing to try.
I will do this on my next visit to X O.
A very nice experience

Frog legs!

Everything was very good, but the tea was really hot
I hope that we come back it was really nice

ok, i’ll give them props for making pretty decent food in a small town where fresh and quality ingredients may not be as readily accessible as in other metropolises like NYC. but the service really drags which pulls the ratings down.
example 1: we were two tables of 8 – 10 pax each, ordering about 8 dishes separately for each table, and our orders were put in at the same time. now, whether we know each other or not, you would think the two tables putting in an order at the same time would get maybe a dish or two to start, with the rest coming out intermittently in general. but no, our other table got ALL of their dishes out first, and for the 15 minutes of time, we were just staring at our other family members eating their food, while our stomachs remained empty. THEN our food started to come out. weird? EVEN weirder is that a cold appetizer we ordered – the only prepping of which required opening the packages and maybe slicing up the ready-​made products – wasn’t the first plate out. like, clueless much?
example 2: the waiter brought our fried rice to the table. i asked him for bowls, he asked me how many. i motioned the round for the table (um, hello?), he had to ask again, «yeah, how many?» so i proceeded to demonstrate 1:1 correspondence in counting (a skill mastered by preschoolers) with an exaggerated motion. i guess NOW he got the idea. really?
the whole time this manager/​owner-​looking gentleman was staring at space. from when we were looking confusedly at the specials posted on the walls, to all this ineffective arrangement of food roll-​out. never for once he came to rescue, nor did he come to ask how was our food. he did say «thank you for coming» at the end, which… really wasn’t helping anyone.
conclusion: food is decent, pricing is alright, but with that kind of service and management fails… i mean, maybe it’s a small town thing, but there’s still a lot of room for some serious improvement.

We came on a cold, snowy day starving because we didn’t have a chance to eat a late breakfast. We were greeted by an empty dining room, and we were somewhat worried that this restaurant might not have been good. But, once the food arrived, our experience improved a bit. X O Taste serves Cantonese style food — complete with Cantonese BBQ and noodles. Despite the empty dining room, our food came out piping hot and delicious. Prices were very reasonable, and the location is very close to the interstate.

I was there once when helping a friend moving to that area. The food was relatively good and authentic. It appeared to be clean inside the restaurant. The manager was nice. I’d like to visit this restaurant again if I happen to visit my friend again there.

Best Chinese food in Montgomery county!

X O Taste serves pretty good and cheap food during their lunch. Since they’re known for their BBQ stuff, I usually order them for my lunch special. For $ 7 you can order 2 BBQ of your choosing — Duck, Chicken, Pig (sweet, red color) or Pork (crunchy, salty with more fat and skin).
My favorite is their Pork since I love the fat and crunchy part to go with my meat. Their Pig is also good and goes well with their sauce. Their duck’s just ok and the chicken I’m not a fan of. Their BBQ is 4 stars worthy.
However, their other dishes’re just ok. Nothing stood out for me and especially not their Pork Chop. That thing’s way too salty, I wouldn’t order it again. I only go here strictly for the Chinese BBQ.

Ick.

Read some of the reviews and had to check it out myself. We ordered the seafood pan fried noodle, deep fried squid, soy sauce chicken, Chinese watercress, wonton soup, and lobster with scallions. Here are my thoughts:
Service: Exceptionally well; the waiters and waitresses were very attentive and pleasant.
Food: I can’t complain, the chicken was moist with just enough sauce to keep you wanting more; not too salty. The seafood pan fried noodle was a bit bland but because I tend to go easy on the sodium intake, this was perfect for me. The squid and shrimp on the plate were huge! The wonton soup would have to be the star of the meal, it was the best I’ve had in a long time. The wontons were huge, plentiful, and soft though not mushy, the meat filling was fresh, the broth was delicious. There was a good balance in taste and texture. Overall, the food was good.
Cleanliness: I am a major germaphobe and although I’m not sure if it was because of the time when I was there but the place looked clean and open. Very spacious and bright, better use of space than the last restaurant.
Overall rating would be a B… only reason is I had asked for soy milk for my kids, which was on the menu, and was told that they didn’t have it. It’s not good for a restaurant to note that they have something and be out of it… but it’s not a good enough reason to not go back. X O Taste, I will be back. :-)

After two couples of friend’s gave X O Taste excited thumbs up in emails, this was my first choice for dinner last night, and I’m very glad. Nice dinner-​style (paper) napkins, extremely friendly and quick service, and a large metal thermos-​style pot of very hot tea, made choosing from the extraordinary menu less daunting. When a dish that made my nose go up like an infield fly, and I was told that it was Seafood With Lotus’ Root In XO Sauce, I knew that we had one of our choices. If a restaurant named «X O» has a dish that smells so good and that has XO sauce, I’m going to try it!
With Hong-​Kong style dishes as the house speciality, I had a feeling that the wonton soup would not be the usual ball of tasteless mystery meat wrapped in thick chewy noodle in a small ball of canned chicken soup, and I sure was right! Two supple-​wrapped wontons with enough fresh-​tasting big-​pieced shrimp two warrant eating in two bites in a mild, garlic-​laced broth. Nice! Speaking of dumplings, the pan-​fried dumplings appetizer weren’t tough or soggy, and the tender meat filling stayed in the wrapper instead of slipping out.
The Sweet & Sour Rib Hong Kong Style had slices of bone-​in rib with the usual pineapple in a fruity, not too sweet and slightly sour sauce with a little bit of heat that even flavored the green pepper pieces. With no batter, they don’t kill the rest of your meal like the usual Chinese sweet and sour dishes you find in most restaurants.
Oh, yeah. The Seafood With Lotus’ Root In XO Sauce is funky. Wikipedia get’s it right when they describe XO sauce as «Developed in the 1980s in Hong Kong for Cantonese cuisine, it is made of roughly chopped dried seafoods including scallops, dried fish and shrimp and cooked with chili peppers, onions, garlic and oil,» and it’s the real deal at X O Taste. When you couple a sauce like that with more dried seafood and what seemed to be jellyfish (we love cold jellyfish appetizer, so we’ll try it here the next time that we go) or or very tender cuttlefish tentacle, you get a dish that takes a few bites for your mouth to get accustomed to, and it’s not for most Western tastes, but we cleaned it up and ended up taking home a little bit of leftover Sweet and Sour Rib.
We’ll be back soon, preferably with another couple or two so that we can sample more dishes, including some of the casseroles and congees. They now take credit cards, by the way.
Did I mention that the food wasn’t as salty or oily as most Chinese restaurants? I will!

I am so happy there is a solid Cantonese-​style restaurant in this area now!
* Roasted pork: Delicious, crispy skin, with the perfect proportion of fat. The meat was correctly spiced on the inside with that slight sweetness that makes this dish a mainstay in my life. [♥]
* Roasted duck: Good, but I’ve had better. The portion we received was on the super fatty & bony side.
* Steamed fish with soy sauce and scallions: Pretty standard dish, nicely done.
* Beef Ho Fun with XO Sauce: Definitely had to try a dish with their XO sauce! This classic dish did not disappoint. Chewy noodles and tender beef float my boat any day.
Interestingly enough, even though the restaurant is called XO Taste, they don’t provide the XO sauce as a side condiment for free. They provide the standard hot chili sauce, but I spotted freshly sliced green hot peppers at the service station that seem to be available if you ask for them.
Service was phenomenal! Almost reminds me of the fancy pants Chinese restaurants back in Hong Kong. (I wish they improved the décor; we spotted a sound system with an old generation iPod docked up near the ceiling with the wiring hanging around. Providing nice… scenery…) It might be because they’re still new, but the servers will actually pour your tea for you, frequently refill your water, and make room on your table for more dishes to come instead of blankly stare at you and watch you try to awkwardly re-​fengshui your plates so they can drop the food off. They’ll even change your plate for you if they see you’ve accumulated too many bones! So awesome.
I’LL BE BACK. FOR MORE. FOR SURE~

update: The manager remembers me and offered the free dish as promised!
**a comment my friend made that I didn’t notice. The couple of times he’s been to the place, he noticed there’s no background music. I don’t care either way but he mentioned he was able to hear the entire conversation from the kitchen and from other tables.