Formosa Bento House

Here is a place you go for more quantity than quality. Prices are reasonable.
Also note that this place is more Taiwanese than Japanese.
Get:
Bento Box w/​Fried Pork — Soup, 2 scoops of rice with minced beef on top, 3 types of pickled vegs, and big potion of meat. DO NOT get it with fried chicken (it sucks).
Okay:
Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup — The broth and noodles are good. the beef they put in it is not. Try another meat, perhaps the stewed pork.
Chicken Chives Dumplings — So-​so, didn’t taste bad, just a little bland. Might want to try another type of meat so there is more fat. But they are cheap 12 for $ 6.50.
Avoid:
Fried Chicken.

This is my inaugural Unilocal review and I can’t imagine a better place to start. I left here wanting to bring all of my friends back– tomorrow.
B. and I shared the fried pork chop Taiwanese bento box and the beef noodle soup. So delish. So, so delish. The pickled vegetables are amazing in the rich broth that wasn’t too salty. The fried pork chop was crispy and flavorful without any extra oil weighing it down. On the accompanying rice the small teaspoonful of «meat sauce» was over the moon delish and if you go, don’t forget to add a healthy amount of black bean hot pepper oil. The restaurant is tiny and adorable and extremely casual so I can imagine coming back here everyday in my favorite snuggly sweat pants.

This place is pretty awesome. It’s got a super authentic taste and feel, literally was like I was back in Taiwan. We tried basically all of the vegetable side dishes, which had very generous portions at good prices (about $ 6 – 7). The beef noodle soup (6.50) was also pretty good. The beef was a bit overcooked, but the noodles and soup broth were rich and flavorful.
The bento boxes are HUGE. They come with two scoops of rice, half a salted egg, some veggies, and the meat of your choice. The breaded pork was nice and crispy, though a bit too greasy to eat a full serving at once.
Will definitely be back.

One of the best Bento boxes I’ve ever had.. .I would have never seen this place if it weren’t for the Unilocal reviews and a friend wanting to go try it. I got the pork katsu bento box and omg. .so delicious! The katsu wasn’t overly fried or greasy, but a perfect crisp with wonderful flavor. It was a huge portion so I was able to save some for later — too bad I didn’t think to order more stuff, but because I was so full from my dish, it was probably a good thing I didn’t order anything else :)
ps. parking can be very difficult and the restaurant is small — if you don’t find an immediate space in front of the restaurant, drive around and find a spot further away. You gotta try this place out — even if you can’t eat there, take it to go!

There just aren’t that many Taiwanese eateries in the Peninsula/​SF City areas. What is up with that? I’m from SoCal, and there are soooooo many places like this back home.
Formosa Bento House is a cute little restaurant that serves up comfort dishes like fried chicken or fried pork chop over rice, japanese-​style curry, wonton soup, beef noodle soup, and small dishes (fried tofu, cold pickled cucumbers).
Great spot for lunch if you’re in the area– with easy street parking. The owners are a cute couple (literally a mom-​n-​pop run shop), who treat their patrons with the customary care and warmth you’d expect to find in Taiwan.

This is a cute little place in Redwood city that has a small hole in the wall, family run charm but packs a punch with good, flavorful Taiwanese dishes.
They have a very basic selection of Taiwanese food like fried pork chop and rice, all kinds of noodles such as Beef Noodle Soup & pork chop noodles, and some selection of Japanese bento boxes which are pretty good since they come with TWO cups of rice with yummy things over the rice for you to mix and eat with.
It’s kind of self service but they have hot tea and water, and the waitress that works there (probably also owns the place, takes your orders, cleans up, everything…) is super attentive for somewhere so self service since she came to replace my cold tea with warm tea in a new cup even though I was almost done with my meal.
It was cheap (under $ 20 for both the bf and I with our full on entrees) and they give you peanuts for appetizers to chew on. Awesome little joint!

There is a better name for this place. I don’t know what it should be, but it should definitely include the words «Taiwanese grandpa and grandma experience» in the title somewhere.
Filling those roles are two very friendly elders. The cook cracked a genuine smile to me as he prepared my food, and the service lady was cordial and accommodating.
As with any Chinese family meal, you can’t escape the tradition of the elders stuffing your ass with food. By ass I mean mouth. It’s a rite of passage that you have to adopt or suffer embarrassment – another Chinese cultural norm you must quickly adapt to. You’re bombarded with at least two bowls of rice for their rice plates, and the beef noodle soup was enough to feed three.
If I worked any closer, I would come here daily for their takeout lunches. For their prices, I could be rich within a year. Coincidentally, I think that’s what Grandma wanted all along.

Tiny but clean mom & pop joint that was packed at lunch. Enough seating for 5×4. I loved their little table signs that could be flipped to «Reserved — now placing order» so you can grab a table before ordering at the counter.
Various Taiwanese and Japanese bentos or entrees for $ 5 – 10. I got my usual Taiwanese test-​dish = ground pork rice! For $ 5.95, a decent sized bowl (though a lot of rice filler) but not the best I’ve had in the Bay Area. Tasty nonetheless. We also got an order of the fried tofu — not quite stinky tofu, but this was actually done perfectly. The bento options looked good, but too big for my smaller lunch-​sized appetite! They also serve bubble milk tea but for $ 2.75/cup, I passed.
If you enjoy Taiwanese food, go check this place out and support the super hardworking couple that own and work it!

I really enjoy coming here for comfort food. Living in Redwood CIty is hard because there’s really no good Chinese place to eat. Although this is not an exact substitute for Chinese food since this is a Taiwanese/​Japanese fusion, the food here is nevertheless cheap and tasty. I come here a lot to order their milk tea with tapioca and I have tried their fried chicken bento and their bbq chicken with curry bento. They have different kinds of bento. The one that I ordered includes pickled radish, minced pork, tea marinated egg, and rice. Their milk tea tapioca is $ 3 and their bento is approximately $ 7 – 8. All of the items are good and cheap. I think the best asset at this place is the sweet grandmother at the front register. She makes the whole experience very «homey.» I love talking to her.

I am Taiwanese, and miss the delicious foods back at home. Always on the lookout for authentic Taiwanese food at affordable prices, and i came across this place thanks to Unilocal!
It took a while to convince my hubby to come here because he’s still getting used to the fact that most asian food dishes, the meat used are very fatty and he doesn’t really do too well with that.
However, after coming here, he has been converted :)
I usually get the beef noodle soup, the noodles are perfectly cooked and chewy, the beef used is not fatty and the broth is delicious. Add a little hot sauce and you’re good. $ 6.95 (?)
I normally order the fried tofu too $ 3.75. perfectly fried, piping hot and comes with cilantro and green onions topped with yummy thick soy sauce.
My hubby gets the grilled chicken bento box (formosa) style and loves it. He says the chicken is nicely cooked, not dry at all, has great flavor and not fatty.
We have come here at least 5 times now in the last 3 weeks and are satisfied with our choices each time. (i’ve since tried the wonton noodle soup, the minced pork rice dish) YUM.
I do wish they had MORE dishes to choose from and remind me of home… i.e. STINKY TOFU. oOoooO

If it were solely based on the service, I wouldn’t hesitate giving this place all five stars. The lady here is exceptionally nice!
As for the food, the lady noted that the rice dishes were better than the noodles (at least in her opinion), so we went with the teriyaki fish plate and the teriyaki chicken bowl. We thought both dishes were slightly too bland, and the pickles on the side were oddly greasy and not exactly appetizing. Perhaps we’re simply not used to the Taiwanese version of teriyaki fish and chicken??? The lady also reassured that everything here was made fresh.
The place is quite small in size and definintely not a spot to take your first date. But the prices are very fair, and again, the lady here is wonderful.
SUM: 3 stars for the rice dishes. I’m surely going to try their noodle soup next time… Seems like many reviewers like the beef noodle soup, so that shall be my next order!

OVERALL: 4.1
FOOD: 4.5
SERVICE: 4
AMBIANCE: 4
VALUE: 4
The minute I smelled my co-worker’s Formosa Bento in the breakroom yesterday, I just HAD to have one. Pickled mustard greens? Pickled daikon? Pork w/​shallots? How could I resist? It was like Tiger in a blow-​up Barbie store…(too soon?)
I didn’t go to rehab. I didn’t hold a press conference. I totally caved and gave in to my impulsive bento craving.
Didn’t even have a fighting chance, between ogling the steaming bowls of beef noodle soup & chicken katsu being dished out to other tables and inhaling the tasty smells wafting from the busy kitchen… must. have. bento. goodness. now. or. will. get. UGLY!
Ended up skipping bento (too many decisions, too little blood sugar) and got the «Stewed Pork Noodles», which is clearly a sign the menu writer could’ve used a little poetic help. Just trust your nose and saliva glands – don’t worry about the uninspired naming, IT’S ALL GOOD.
STEWED PORK NOODLES ($ 5.25)
Thick, fresh flour noodles w/​sautéed bean sprouts, chives, & whole tea egg, all topped w/​Soy Star Anise Shallot Pork Number One Deliciousness Deluxe Three Happiness… at least that’s how it SHOULD be named. Even better with the black bean chili hot sauce. Also came w/​tasty complimentary soup, not your typical eggdrop shtuff, but a savory broth full of shallots, scallions, minced celery, & bean sprouts – mmm!
Not too greasy, a CRAP TON of food – totally homestyle Taiwanese! Almost like my Mommy got teleported & morphed into a stout, smiley, middle-​aged man in a hairnet w/​mad cooking skills… will definitely be back!

This is a tough decision. I really like the owner of this place (the service is super nice), and this place is small but clean.
However, after a few trips here, I’m convinced that the food here is not quite there. I really like Taiwanese bentos (especially the ones they sell in train stations!), and they come in a lot of varieties. This place only serve the fried varieties (fried pork chop, fried chicken), which comes with rice, pickles and stir-​fried veggies. The fried meat is usually pretty darn good — what fried food isn’t good? — but the rest is a bit lacking.
I also tried their ground pork rice/​noodles (rou zao fan or ru rou fan). This is a staple of Taiwanese street food and you can literally get it in every corner in Taiwan. Unfortunately, the taste of it doesn’t really compete with the better ones that I have tasted in the US. It’s passable, but doesn’t satisfy my cravings. The same can be said for their beef noodles — it’s pretty decent, but something is lacking. The meat isn’t quite tender enough, and the soup isn’t quite flavourful enough.
Their bubble tea is quite good though.
For some reason, they also serve Japanese style bentos (namely teriyaki items). I haven’t tried them yet, so I don’t know how good they are.
I would come back to this place because it’s a family run business and the lady is really, really nice. But if you’re looking for great Taiwanese bentos, you might have to pass on this place.
Edit: nooo it closed! Last meal was on my birthday apparently :(Why didn’t I have more faith earlier and check back to see when they reopened!

Second time I came to this place.
Dropping a star because I tried the ongoing rave of Beef Noodle Soup that people wrote about here. The noodles definitely weren’t as good as what people said. Noodles weren’t Q (bouncy, a taiwanese feeling) when you take your bite. They do not make their own noodles, therefore the noodles lacked something. The broth tasted like ¼ of taiwan. It did not have the herb taste that you get in Hong Sau Beef Noodles like you get from the streets of Taiwan. Lacked some taste to be honest.
Also tasted Salmon Bento Box, taiwanese style. they did not have the tomato eggs as the side, which was disappointing. No Bai Cai also. All i got from the salmon was terayaki sauce. BLEH… it’s alright, but not as good as i felt from the first visit.
Service is still good… The lady was caring and took time to talk to us.
But i got to say, i’ll probably save a trip by driving to Joy (foster city) instead.

I’m so glad my work is walking distance within this place. I’m going to gobble this place up!
It’s a tiny place. I would call it a hole-​in-​wall but it’s very clean still. I like the system they have going on – if there’s an open table and you still need to order at the counter, you just flip over the card on the table and it says «reserved» meaning that it is now your table. Still, someone could just flip it right back over but it’s all an honor system. Plus the place is small enough where practically everyone can see you doing something shady.
The beef noodle soup is excellent. It’s flavorful, they give you a lot, and it costs a very reasonable $ 7. They even have the pickled stuff and the chili sauces to accompany it. The beef is fairly tender and easy to break apart. The noodles are not the flat, thick kind but the round, thick kind. Freshness all around.
If you don’t want soup, get the Grilled Pork Chop! It’s a LOT and it comes with rice, soup, pickled cabbage, and a marinated egg. I love this with chili sauce.
And of course you can’t end a meal without a fortune cookie. As stereotypical as it is, I still anticipate cracking it open.

I never knew about this place until I randomly decided to Unilocal a «different» place to eat with my girlfriend on her lunch break. That’s when I discovered this hidden gem!
The owner is TOTALLY a Taiwanese auntie, she was so nice when she served us. The entire place has a very cute style décor from the condiments to the little placards on the table that you turn over when you order. Basically, you flip the card over where you’re going to sit (I assume they put this system in to save your seat when it gets busy?) and you go up to the front to order.
I guess this place is kind of like a Del-​Taco of Asian food because they have a Taiwanese menu and a Japanese menu. I ordered the Grilled Pork-​Chop Taiwanese Bento and my girlfriend ordered the Japanese Tofu Curry.
The nice lady served us some tea, and gave us rather good service coming by and asking us if everything was okay. I wish we got some ice cream, but I guess none today haha.
The grilled porkchop was simply perfect. I loved all the side dishes they give you with your lunch like salad, miso soup, etc. My girlfriend’s tofu dish was decent, but I thought the Taiwanese side of the menu probably is a bit better. I wanted to try some of the noodle dishes next time. I assume the fried porkchop is as good as the grilled? Maybe better? The dishes, the tea egg they give you is I feel quite a value as I like variety in a meal as well as portion. The price I felt was fair!
I’m definitely a fan, and I’m definitely going back for lunch again sometime when the holidays are over and I return to work in Redwood City!

Perfectly Taiwanese… but the food is a bit under par. The meats, which are typically the juicy fatty highlights of a meal, were very dry from sitting in the warming drawer all day. It’s a bit disconcerting to watch the chef pull pieces of precooked meat out of a plastic bag and heat it up for you on the flat-​top. It does have the friendliest owner/​cashier ever though; she defaults to Chinese, which tells you about Bento House’s customer base.
A bit pricey for what you get… try Cupertino for better value:
Taiwanese Chicken Bento = $ 7.49

Really wonderful and exemplary service. Cannot say enough about the friendly bilingual lady who served us, who I suppose is probably the owner. She brought everything we could have wanted (including water and tea refills) and then some. Someone in our group asked what samosas are, and she returned with a full round of samosas on the house! Standing. Ovation.
I had a teriyaki salmon bento with one side (scrambled egg with tomato) and steamed rice. Only about $ 8, and most of the non-​salmon bentos cost even less. (See the menu photo by Albert C for other entrée and side choices.) Portion size was good. Everything was cooked just right.
Some of my friends ordered noodle soup instead of bentos. Big bowls (plenty of food), and tasty too.
All the produce is really fresh, plus the sauces are light and seem healthy. Our server told us that the sweet-​and-​sour sauce (served with the egg rolls and samosas) is made from strawberries (sweet) and lemon juice (sour). The teriyaki sauce is much less syrupy than most, which is nice. Fortune cookies came with the check, and if nothing else it’s always kind of fun to compare fortunes. (Add immature suffixes if you must.)
The restaurant only seats a couple dozen people, but take-​out is a viable option too. Tables are small but can be connected. Décor is nice, from the unusual table shapes to the adorably tiny salt and pepper shakers.
food: 4 stars
value: 4.5 stars
service: 5 stars
overall: 4.5 stars (rounding up to 5)
Only real downside is that street parking is metered, but on the bright side it’s pretty cheap (something like 50c per hour, a far cry from the City’s $ 3 per hour).
I wish Cupertino had a Formosa Bento House!
… in bed. (Wait, what?)

I was in the mood for some authentic Taiwanese cuisine so decided to drive up to Redwood City and see what all they hype about Formosa Bento House was about.
It seems Redwood City is a little bit of a hot spot when it comes to ethnic cuisine. I’ve heard rave reviews for this place, Erawan, and Crouching Tiger.
Located in downtown, Formosa Bento House is a very unassuming restaurant space. Seating is ultra casual and so is the serving style: paper cups, napkins, and bowl.
However, none of this matters when compared to the great prices and authentic food. We shared:
Hot and sour soup — At only $ 2.25 for a small, I loved this to start the meal. Absolutely piping hot and very flavorful with bits of mushroom, bamboo shoots and eggs swirling in the tasty broth. This is probably one of the better hot and sour soups I’ve had.
Fried pork chop with sides of napa cabbage and eggplant tofu — a very large bento style box was brought out with generous servings of all items, considering the modest $ 6.75 price. Napa cabbage was simple and healthy and the eggplant tofu ok. I liked the pork chop but asked for some ketchup to dip it in. That’s what I used to do when I was a kid. The pork chop pieces were crunchy, flaky and meaty.
Beef noodle soup — This is the dish I came for. I loved the broth and found the flavor true to its beefy origin. The beef tendons were also soft and flavorful as they should be. I did find the noodles to be a bit thick, but some people like that. I prefer either wider noodles or thinner noodles.
Good news is that the Taiwanese specific menu is coming back as mentioned in Ken K.‘s review. The proprietress actually said it was coming out tomorrow. Darn! Missed it by one day.
Formosa Bento House takes credit cards, but just Visa and Mastercard. No Amex. I’ll definitely have to come back soon to try that new Taiwanese menu. Man, it would be nice to have a place like this near my work.

This is probably the ONLY place in the vicinity that serves Taiwanese style lunch food. It is the RWC version of Southland Taste Restaurant in Cupertino Village, except there’s less selection. Some items are cheaper at (bento boxes) and some are not (ground pork rice — aka cha siu rice @ Formosa). And yeah, Formosa has got some major identity crisis issues with this whole bento box thing, but I digress…
The food has a really home-​made feel to it, something about it seems so much cleaner than Southland. I want to come back to try the other Bento Boxes, if not for the affordable price, for the convenient location and to support the local RWC businesses.
Food Notes:
— Tomato and Egg (side): Generous portion, good, exactly what you’d expect.
— Cabbage (side): Kinda tasteless.
— Bento Box: Good deal, comes w/​2 sides. Fried Porkchop has very little meat, and alot of fat and oil.
— Noodle Soup: Regular thick noodles, broth OK.
— Cha Siu over Rice: Ground pork over rice w/​side of pickled veggies and boiled egg. I prefer this over Southland because it is less fatty, but there is less pork and it is slightly more expensive.
P. S. The owner is sooo genuinely nice, I almost feel guilty for not giving it 5 stars! But what is with this free ice cream people are talking about? I didn’t get free ice cream!