While many people know and love Chinese food, there is a difference between Chinese food and Taiwanese food. There isn't a huge difference but there are certain dishes that are unique to Taiwan, so it was interesting to see this place pop up where it was all about Taiwanese food. Plus it was on my street (although it's much closer to the edge of Bushwick) so I felt I had to check it out. My mom was in town so I figured she was a good judge of whether or not this place was good.
We went after checking out an open house near by on a Friday and the place was jammed packed....with tons of young hipsters. Not that I am surprised but it was a bit disappointing to see that is wasn't the type of place that had more Asians in it given the uniqueness of the food. The menu has the "best of" Taiwanese food on there like O-a jian (oyster pancake), stinky tofu, zhajian mian (my favorite Chinse noodle dish), so we were pretty excited to try a bunch of stuff. Unfortunately, it's been a while since I visited, so I'm a little fuzzy all the dishes we got but I remember getting the o-a jian ($12), pea shoot tops ($11), clams and basil ($14) and the zhajian mian ($16). These are all dishes that I normally love and while they weren't terrible here they just felt, well too hipster for me. It didn't taste traditional or authentic - it's like they were prettied up for the audience. I've had the o-a jian in a night market in Taiwan and it's delicious and the one here was fine but it just didn't wow me in any way. We had the same sentiment for all the other dishes. I'm sure I'm being super judge-y and harsh because it's not in some dingy basement of a mall in Flushing or Chinatown but my mom and I walked out feeling kind of meh about it. But I will say that if this encourages others to check out and see Taiwanese food as a separate and different cuisine as Chinese food, I'm all for it. All in all, the pricing is affordable and the crowd is young and fun so if you're looking for a different cuisine in East Williamsburg, I'd still recommend it but I personally am not running back to it asap.
Photo Credit: Yelp
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