Taiwan Cafe 2

Went by this place today for lunch and it looks like it’s closed or out of business.

This was plan B after Tapioca House was randomly closed yesterday. Only had drinks and the boba milk tea here is ok… good milk tea flavor but have definitely had better. Even though there was no one in line when we walked in, the staff here tried to rush us to place an order while we were still trying to read the menu.
The good thing about this place is that drinks are pretty cheap. Tea drinks and smoothies are $ 2.50 for a small or $ 3 for a large, with boba being an 50 cent upcharge. This place will forever be my plan B for boba in the Richardson area

If you’re going to eat lunch here, then do it before 12, when the food still has a whisper of freshness about it. I got here at about 2 today, and the food was cool and rubbery– ick. I am granting 3 stars instead of the 1 or 2 I would have rated this lunch had I not been here before at its 11 – 12 hour best– I suspected this scenario would play out, given my late arrival. Confirmed :-/

Meh… disappointed. Did not satisfy my craving for authentic Taiwanese, just my wallet.
Food was barely warm and some of my food was dry like it had been sitting out for awhile, some was overly greasy.
Extra star only for the prices-​pretty big portions plus complimentary soup with your meal (if you like soup)

cheap, cash only taiwanese food.
for lunch it reminds me of an asian luby’s. just point and choose what you think looks yummy. the eggplant and scrambled eggs are solid.
also known for their taiwanese breakfast. sometimes the dumplings/​pancacke/​doughnut stick thingy can be cold or not as crispy as desired.
i still ate it though — still tasted alright to me!
once again, this place is dirt cheap.

It is open on Sunday. Milk tea is very good and cheap, 75 cent with meal purchase.

I’d give it 5 stars, but the dismal breakfast they serve loses a star.
They open on weekdays from 11am to ~9pm and on weekends from 9:30am.
The weekday lunches are amazing. They serve a wide variety of home-​cooked Taiwanese foods. Some of the things here are very similar to what my mama used to make. You get 3 choices with a side of rice for $ 6, no tax. Oh, and CASH ONLY and self-​serve if you dine in (you grab your own water, napkins, etc). For someone who came from the San Gabriel vicinity in California and has high standards– this lunch is pretty damn good.
I was hoping the breakfast would be as great. I woke up, bleary-​eyed with about 5 hours of sleep, and drove on over to the store, craving nostalgic Taiwanese breakfast. They give you a list to fill out what you want. I bought a salty rice roll, green onion pancake, 2 fried donuts (Youtiao), and a sweet & warm soy milk for about $ 6.75 (What can I say, I was hungry).
The donut (youtiao), which you normally dip into the soy milk, tasted… flat. It was fried, but it didn’t have any of the crispyness to it. It tasted thick, oily, and flat, instead of airy and light.
The green onion pancake was worse. Normally, the pancake is flaky and tears apart crispily. This wasn’t so. The pancake I received was ‘bready’ and I could hardly taste any of the green onion.
The soymilk was alright. Nothing to write home about. I was pretty full by this point, so I just grabbed a to –go box and took my rice roll to go. Maybe that will taste better when I eat it later.
All in all, this place is a fantastic lunch stop. For breakfast though– feel free to sleep in. Unless you want to eat their dumplings, which I haven’t had a chance to try out.

Not as good as the original Taiwan Café in Plano, but my friends weren’t willing to drive the extra fifteen minutes which is their loss.
Not everyone can be as awesome as me.

Bought lunch from them 3 times or more a week. Always have good choices and different dishes daily. Good food and price.

Very good and authentic Taiwanese food! YUM!
It’s cafeteria style, so just LOOK AND POINT and you’ll get a fantastic meal with rice and «3 sides». Beware, the chinese meats, like chicken, frequently are cut with the bones still in the meat. That really increases the deliciousness of the flavors, so don’t just assume that you’re chowing down on a food-​processed nugget.
And plan on getting a ‘to go’ container for all the food that you get for less than $ 7!
TIP: Strange but true: This Taiwan Café 2 is in the very same parking lot as a resturant called Taiwan Café. (Different owners, and VERY different quality of food IMO) And THIS PLACE has their front door ‘facing North’. Their sign is mostly written in Chinese, so you’ll have to look for the English on their sign that says: TW2.
They also have wonderful BING (Shaved Ice dessert… with your choice of toppings, including pudding, boba, red beans, green beens (like a lentil), jellys, fruits, etc. etc.)
Aaaaaaaaaaand… if you like an authentic Chinese Breakfast — they do that on the weekends.

CASH ONLY!!!
4 stars because this place is so darn cheap. A wide variety of food for $ 6? I’ll take it! I was literally shocked at how cheap a meal was. The food wasn’t amazing or anything, but whatever it was $ 6; do you even have room to complain? They also have free soup that was pretty good!

This place is delicious!!! I’m only in Dallas for two weeks out of the year but I manage to come here around three times during those two weeks.
I also suggest that you grab some bubble tea with your meal bc it’s around $ 1.25 or $ 1.50 if you buy it together (hello?! that is so cheap!)
My favorite is the basil chicken — it’s a bit sweet if you like it that way.
Only complaint: the food can get a little cold sometimes, even if I came at noon.

I had to come for some authentic Taiwanese food, and I found it here, thanks to the great reviews of other Unilocalers!
They’ve got the 3 items + rice, with a lot of choices like giant meatball, pig feet cooked in soy sauce, string beans, spicy eggplant (my favorite!), spicy tofu, roasted fatty pork, marinated cucumber, and many more.
They also have various noodle soups, like beef or fried chicken pieces. They make their own noodles, and the taste is much better than dried noodles. For those who like white meat, beware that the fried chicken filet that comes with the noodle soup is actually a filet of dark meat.
The best are the scallion pancake dipped in egg and the green onion box. Fresh made with multiple layers of doughy goodness.
Their steamed dumplings and steamed soup dumplings taste homemade too and come with ginger soy sauce and spicy sauce.
I was too full for dessert, but I took home some shaved ice with taro, barley, mung bean, red bean and a generous helping of condensed milk.
For anyone who cares, there’s a filtered water machine so you’re not drinking tap with your meal. This place is terrific, and the tables and setting are new and clean.
I liked this place so much that I tried to come back the next day, but my family wanted something else, but dammit, I’ll be back as soon as I can sneak away!
BTW, like everyone said, hit the TC2 and don’t get distracted by the Taiwan Café around the corner.

yummy yumm yummy!!! Love TC2’s Taiwanese breakfast! This is the place to go if you’re in the Dallas area! (so if you read my other reviews, you see that i make it a point to find my taiwanese breakfast fix in every city. Now if only someone would bring it to Austin…)
TC2 has all my favs:
Green onion pie (with the option of adding egg!)
Chinese donut (fried dough stick… seriously this one is hard to translate)
Beef sandwich/​pocket
Sweet soy milk (I like it cold)
Chive/​leek dumplings
Rice roll
This is seriously the best thing ever after a night out. Forget hangover brunches, go to TC2 and get some taiwanese breakfast :)
Now, I’ve never had the non-​breakfast food at TC2, but I have had the food at the original Taiwan Café (Plano location), which was very good! And, about half of our large group ordered lunch and alllll of theirs looked delicious!!!
Also, I like the «cafeteria style» set up they have. That way, if you don’t actually know the name or you want to try out something new, all you have to do is look, decide something looks yummy, point and ENJOY! Plus, you can still order other stuff off the menu.

TC2 is the original Taiwan Café… but better– with more open seats on weekends & modern décor :)
What I love about the place:
1) AUTHENTIC: satisfies the craving for taiwanese-​style chinese food… (AKA– it’s NOT anything CLOSE to Panda Express or cheap chinese mall food… think boba milk tea/​coffee, beef noodle soup, sweet basil chicken, onion pancake, taiwanese breakfast with soy milk & yio-​tiao– not going to translate b/​c it sounds nasty in English)
2) VARIETY: if you’re gonna do the 3 dish + rice combo (which comes with complimentary soup)– you have a hodge podge of different dishes to choose from… in addition to their whole menu
3) VALUE: it’s easy on the wallet but good for a hungry man-​stomach. my fiancé-​recently-​turned-​husband can fill up here for merely $ 6 No Credit Cards accepted, so bring Cash Monays. :)
but what keeps me coming back is the DELICIOUS taiwanese style shaved ice… which is not something you can find just anywhere– and the portion is huge… a HUGE MOUND of ice & condensed milk (optional) and syrup… with a whole variety of traditional toppings to choose from… of red bean, green bean, peanuts, oatmeal, pudding, boba, rice balls, sticky rice, etc)
and if you’re wondering, their bubbles/​pearls/​bobass are always the perfect chewiness– not undercooked & hard in the middle… and not overcooked & too mushy. for boba-​lovers, you know what i’m talking about.

TC2
This place is the bomb. Extremely quick and convenient of you want some easy take home. This place is owned by the same family that brought you Taiwan café in Plano on 15^th st and also Taiwan Café that became the sit down restaurant across the street (which they later sold).
Since it was reopened by the same original family they have returned this places quality and value to the high expectations we are use to at TC in Plano. If many of you have been in this area for a while, you will have noticed that a lot of restaurants have opened in this location, and have closed soon thereafter.
Great variety of food and free soup with every meal. Don’t be afraid to order off the menu either the beef noodle soups and dumplings or steamed buns are great choices as well.
There is something very inherently Taiwanese about this joint that I enjoy. You know minus the dirtyness, the extreme haggling at shops, and extreme hair styles of Taiwan. Don’t worry i’m Taiwanese and my hair style is plenty weird, plus my wife don’t think so but I’m a haggling pro.

Well, I finally tried their food. Obviously. I still love their scallion pancake with egg, but I make a better one at home.
Their food — the authentic stuff tastes bland and like crap. I’m one of those more-​than-​aware you need to spice your own food at Taiwanese restaurants, but no. Just no. Some of their food, the more tolerable stuff, is saccharine sweet, horrible candy-​like sauces. Generally aweful.
Service has improved immensely since the first time I went there. They lack self-​serve tea, their water is not purified.

They have some hot dishes pre-​prepared, where you point to what you want — cafeteria style. Those are protected by a plastic shield (like at Subway). However, some guy was in line in front of me, hanging on to the plastic shield and hovering over it, talking to the server… right over the food. She didn’t ask him to step back. Gross.
The interior is more spacious and updated than the sister location in Plano, but the surface of the table was sticky with some dried food stains from the last customers. Ugh. There’s a bottled water dispenser… but when you taste it, you can tell they refill it with tap water, which tastes like stale water from a pipe that hasn’t been turned on in a while.
For $ 5.50, you get a big bowl of noodles or a big bowl of noodle soup with the flavor and oiliness one would expect for $ 5.50. With so many other more appealing choices nearby, it’s unlikely I would return, and I definitely wouldn’t be able to drag my husband back.

With a common name like mine, I’m no stranger to the pitfalls of sharing a name with others. Therefore, do not confused Taiwan Café 2 with the similarly named Taiwan Café in the same plaza. This new-​ish place next door to Maxim’s is a good value, good taste Taiwanese café. It’s casual, where you order at the counter and then grab your own utensils and water. They have a selection of noodles and rice plates for $ 6, and the serving size is BIG. We ordered a beef noodle soup, which was tasty but not spicy (we were asked if we wanted spicy or not spicy), which I was fine with, and there was a good amount of beef and a TON of chewy noodles. Yum. We also ordered the fried chicken fillet rice plate, which came with a fried egg, vegetables, and some potato salad. Not being a mayo fan, I could have done without the potato salad, especially since the rest of the plate was more than enough food.
I was also happy to note that they have Taiwanese snacks like green onion pancakes and dumplings on the menu. The chive pancakes were the most delicious that I’ve had in Dallas, albeit a little bit on the salty/​greasy side. I was satisfied with the other dishes we ate, however; nothing else was overly salty or greasy, and they don’t put MSG in their food. They also have a selection of hot foods at the counter which looked good too.
The owners are super nice and seem to be on friendly terms with all the customers. I will be coming back next time I feel the urge for some Taiwanese food.

Taiwan Café 2 is now opened… from the same people/​owner of the orginal place then to plano and now 2^nd location… cash only but it’s worth is
Bento around 6 with 3 picks
Shave ice @ 3 with 3 or 4 picks (forgot)
3.5 stars… right next to maxim