Chef Wu Chinese Restaurant

If you like paying premium for mediocrity, this is the place for you!!! Poor service, average food, high price point. $ 45 for Chinese breakfast for 2 people. Not worth coming.

Four friends and I trekked from SF to check this place out after one local friend recommended it to us while another had told me that it was on her «to-​eat» list. The place is essentially only open for brunch/​lunch, and their picture menu highlights all the tasty possibilities that led to our «LET’S ORDER EVERYTHING» attitude. Here’s the rundown of our noms (and please excuse my terrible pinyin)…
Chinese donut: 3/​5, a little overly greasy and not as fluffy on the inside as I would like. I’ve had much worse, but a little disappointing.
Sweet soy milk: 4/​5, could be just a little sweeter but very good
Sweet rice milk: ⁴⁄₅ just for simply offering this since I find it so rarely and it was my favorite drink growing up, could use more roasted peanuts to give it a richer flavor
Green onion pancake with egg: 2/​5, actually a little lackluster and came out only warm instead of hot
Sesame flatbread with beef and scallions: 3/​5, the tsao bing is solid but could be a bit fluffier on the inside, and I wish they used more hoisin sauce
Hand-​pulled pancake: 5/​5, this is worth coming back for, hot with great crisp and pull/​texture
Pan fried pork buns: 2/​5, the dough is different from the typical fluffy steamed bun dough where I’ve had most sung jien bao, this had more of a mealy/​gritty texture, almost like griddle cake, and the filling is also underseasoned
Stuffed chive box: 3/​5, only ok, the dough is neither chewy nor crispy, just sorta floppy… the filling was ok
Rice roll: 2/​5, they seem to use at least some glutinous rice (???) which makes the rice sorta sticky in an unexpectedly bad way, and there is not enough chinese donut, pork sung, OR daikon (didn’t even taste it). This was a major disappointment.
Boiled wontons with chili oil: 3/​5, same filling as the pan fried buns, not tiny and a bit more flavorful given the chili oil but still lacking that porky flavor I was looking for
Fried crispy tofu: 4/​5, very solid, actually just wished there was more per order!
Spicy beef noodle soup: 3/​5, the noodles have minimal bite (Q), and the soup seems to be seasoned with szechuan peppercorns and somewhat oily but otherwise lacks depth of flavor and heat from chilis, also not that generous with the beef
Pork chop rice: ⁵⁄₅: perfectly seasoned and fried pork chop, and their braised pork over rice is also spot on
Fish and meat vermicelli noodle soup: 5/​5, this is a somewhat different take on ruo gung mien, lighter and without the black vinegar flavor that I think is classic. Still, this is an excellent noodle soup, rich and complex in flavor.
Pickled cucumber: 4/​5, as sweet as I would like but could use a little chili pepper in the vinegar marinade
Sesame-​garlic marinaded seaweed: 5/​5, no making out after you eat this!
I hope that was helpful, as we spent $ 125 to give you this thorough breakdown. It’s a bit of a trek, but I may be back just for the ruo geng and mi jiang…

Taiwanese breakfast, where?!
So happy to have discovered this place, because I really needed to get my sweet soy milk fixings. With its super authentic dishes like beef noodle soup, shau bing you tiau’s, and chua bing’s, I’m definitely eager to come back here for breakfast.
RECOMMENDED — EVERYTHING! (just kidding, I can’t possible have tried everything already.)
— beef noodle soup
–chua bing
–shau bing you tiau
— pork over rice
— soy milk
SO-SO’s
— xiao long bao’s: weren’t that great
TLDR:
— cheaper than most Taiwanese places in the bay area, but also smaller portions. Don’t expect to have that many leftovers.
— they kept it really authentic (or maybe efficient?) with the food checkoff list in chinese and english as the go-​to way to order
— cash only

This is probably the place I patron the most for Taiwanese soy milk and chinese donuts. Their squid/​pork soup is really too

Pretty good food. The restaurant definitely reminded me restaurants in a small town in Taiwan… Will come back next time in the area…

Chef Wu satisfies my Taiwanese breakfast craving with its very authentic flavors. That being said, it’s not the best I’ve ever had. But not bad. It’ll do the trick, especially since I haven’t found any other Taiwanese breakfast places in the area.
Beef noodle soup: packed with tastiness, but also a tad greasier than I like.
Pork over rice: standard comforting stuff, can’t go wrong.
You tiao in sesame bread: the sesame bread was good, the you tiao seemed stale. No bueno.
When I went, it seemed like maybe half the staff spoke English. Maybe. I was the only person at my table who spoke a pinch of Chinese (like, really a pinch – I wouldn’t even consider myself conversational – it’s more like «Chinglish») so our server had to keep calling over a different server to help translate. Ugh. But at least ordering was easy: they give you a piece of paper with the menu on it and you identify your order by writing in how many orders of each item you want. Then you give it to them. Made even easier by the full color menu they also give you that has both English and Chinese on it.
The one weird thing though… we asked for water several times while we were there. By the time we left, we still didn’t have water. I can’t tell if it’s because the service was lacking, or if they just… didn’t have any ice water…

this place is CASH ONLY! And price is also very high! It specializes in Taiwanese food! But I feel a lot of food are overpriced! And their noodle soup is too oily! The best I love is beef pancake and fried pork cutlet

Food is decent, a solid 3.5. But good luck if you’re trying to order over the phone without a menu available. They will only understand NUMBERS, ok? Not English, not Cantonese, definitely not telepathy.
I tried to order pan-​fried pork buns and that somehow ended up into pork chop rice. Either one would’ve been fine in a normal circumstance but I was ordering so items that could be eaten with hands only since a bunch of us were sharing and didn’t have easy access to utensils, let alone a table. My brother and husband ended up eating out of the takeout container, cheek to cheek, instead.
If you do manage to order successfully over the phone, even large orders only take them about 15 minutes to prepare.

If you are true Taiwanese then you better come. This is home to you for food.
They don’t have 臭豆腐 or food like 豬血糕。but close enough!
The environment make you feel like your in southern Taiwan. Great food and flavoring here. Even the service is like Taiwan (in a good way)

If you want that authentic, nostalgic Taiwanese breakfast experience, come here! Chef Wu has about everything you’ve dreamed of in your perfect Taiwanese morning lol. Personally, as a Taiwanesa who doesn’t even like sesame flat bread or Chinese donut (big big part of a Taiwanese breakfast), I am still able to enjoy myself here.
I got to try the following items:
(6) Sweet rice milk — which I kind grew up with. I like it enough where it does satisfy my sweet rice milk fix. However, it doesn’t quite taste like how it’s supposed to taste. A bit too thick and not for the right reason; I could tell they have too much starch in it
(10) Flour pancake with egg and Chinese donut — what a self-​explanatory name (to think the Chinese name for this item took me YEARS to finally know what it is). Good but I don’t like how the Chinese donut is soggy and devalued the overall taste of this item.
(25) Spicy wonton (with peanuts) — a bit too sweet for my liking of this particular dish (also, I don’t like peanuts. But that’s not the restaurant’s fault)
(50) Sliced pork ear — this is one of those dishes where the home made version and restaurant versions will forever taste different. The pork ears here taste like the home version (wow I’ve never had that experience)
It is only after writing this review I realize how average the food actually was compared to my fond memory of my experience dining here. Wow, drafting reviews really does make one reflect objectively of a place and clearly separating the satisfaction from the actual taste of the food, the ambience, and service respectively.
As a matter of fact, Chef Wu offers a familiar menu that makes me really comfortable and the breakfast foods that may not have necessarily wow-​ed me but satisfied my fleeting crave for a heartwarming breakfast feast. And that’s why I’m giving this place 4 stars
Overall, I WOULD still come back to dine again because of 2 factors:
1. There are still many things I want to try on the menu
2. There honestly aren’t that many restaurants in the [Bay] Area that offers this specific type of cuisine

Very traditional Taiwanese style store. For those who miss authentic experience, here is the place you are looking for. The food, the flavor, background music, decoration. You feel like home here.
I like 37. Squid rice noodle soup, 26. Fried Crispy Tofu, 49. Chilled Bean Curd, 50. Sliced Pork Ear, and 21. Rice roll. For most people eat larger portion meal, you might feel the dish is too small. But this is the place I willing to order more dish and to try more flavors. This is part of Taiwanese culture as well. You always order your own noodle soup or rice plate, and share small appetizer/​dish with two three friends.
By the way, they serve hot tea!!! The store don’t open on Mon and Tues. And they only open from 10−3pm on Wed-​Sun. The owner has a very great work-​life balance so they can keep the quality high. Yum yum!
Try it!

Decent: de·cent
dēs ()nt/​
adjective
1. conforming with generally accepted standards of respectable or moral behavior.
«the good name of such a decent and innocent person»
2. of an acceptable standard; satisfactory.
«find me a decent cup of coffee»
synonyms: satisfactory, reasonable, fair, acceptable, adequate, sufficient, ample;
Décor: Simple, clean, minimal.
Eats:
Sweet hot soymilk — Delicious, fresh, hot, and not too sweet.
Shao Bing (Flatbred w/​sesame on top) — Dry, chewy, ugh. Ours definitely looked MUCH worse compared to other tables…
You tiao (Chinese donut) — Typically eaten with the hot soymilk (sweet or salty), stuffed in different forms of rice (noodles, etc.), or cut up in pieces and dipped in soy and hot sauce. Also dry and chewy like our shao bing. Disappointing and only saved by dunking profusely in the delicious soymilk!
Xiao long bao — Definitely not the kind of Shanghai style soup dumplings here which I expected since this is clearly a Taiwanese restuarant. Definitely wouldn’t have ordered this on my own accord but Mo’s brother is picky and doesn’t range out from the dishes he already knows and likes. Tasty though, not dry and had good flavor.
Potstickers — Again… Mo’s brother. Good though, crisp wrapping, delicate inside.
Cold Noodles in Hot & Spicy Sauce w/​Peanuts — Good flavor, spicy, crunchy, fresh.
Boiled Won Tons in Hot & Spicy Sauce w/​Peanuts — Pretty much the exact same as the noodles just with won tons instead. Filling was good in the won tons though.
Service:
Quick, everyone spoke English when we were there. Definitely classic no muss no fuss Chinese service but polite and nice.
Next time I will DEFINITELY come back and get the fan tuan and give the shao bing another chance since it seems like we got unlucky this time. Plus the salty and sweet soymilk alone would bring my family around. And I am sure my family wants another place to add to the regular rotation since Chinese Cuisine is no longer in business.
**CASH ONLY**

The Sao-​bing, Yeeyow-​teeyowuh and soymilks (sweet and salty) are the winners, everything else is A-​Ok.
Dad ordered the xiao-​long baos and they looked dry. We didnt take the leftovers home.

Great and cheap Taiwanese food!
Went on an unassuming Sunday lunch to try their food and it was pretty good!
We had:
–hot salty soymilk, pretty good. Enough for 4 people to each have a bowl.
–rice roll (fan tuan), so good. Crispy Chinese donut with some crunchy veggies and salty sweet pork sung, all wrapped in a bundle of sticky rice. One of better fan tuans I had
–Taiwanese pork noodle in soup, this was alright. Not much flavor or pork.
–spicy beef noodle, this was the better of the two noodles, made me sweat on an hot afternoon! The beef was tender and flavorful
–sesame flatbread with beef, my favorite of the bunch, crispy, flaky oily flatbread with a nice slathering or hoisin sauce inside with slices of beef! Yum.
–hand pulled pancake, pretty good. The texture was really good. Chewy, thin and easy to tear.
All in all, pretty good! Hard to find a decent Taiwanese place in the area.

Went looking for a place that served traditional Taiwanese /​Chinese breakfast food in the East Bay. Chef Wu is the place, tucked in a section of old Newark. The restaurant is non descript with a parking lot located near the corner of Thornton and Sycamore. They offer Shau Bing Yue Tau along with soy mlik.
They even have it with egg. The traditional brunch items like beef noodle soup, spicy wontons, bao’s and green onion pancakes. The service no non sense and fast. It’s cash only.

Taiwanese breakfast is best breakfast! Came here upon a few recommendations from friends. If you do want to come here, check their hours — they aren’t open on Mon/​Tue for starters and are only open from 10am-​3pm the rest of the days.
My wife and I each got #1 — Sesame flat-​bread with Chinese Donut and #5 Taiwanese Salty Soy Milk along with a #8 — pork and green onion baked buns.
All for around $ 20. Good stuff! Will definitely come back if I crave Taiwanese breakfast food.

Yummy Taiwanese breakfast! I had been craving Taiwanese breakfast for a while now and this place definitely satisfied those cravings. It’s a little pricier than I would’ve expected, especially given the portion sizes, but delicious nonetheless! And there aren’t that many places in the area with a good selection of Taiwanese breakfast food.
The restaurant is its own stand-​alone building and kind of randomly located with no other Asian food around. Definitely wouldn’t have ever noticed it or even remotely considered eating here if it weren’t for Unilocal.The parking lot isn’t very big but the place wasn’t particularly busy for a Saturday morning/​lunch.
Service here is pretty much what you would expect from most Chinese restaurants — nothing exceptional but nothing to complain about. Their menus have pictures of all their food, which I always find to be super helpful, and everything’s labelled in Chinese and English. You order off of a slip that only has Chinese on it, but if you’re like me and don’t read Chinese, just match the item numbers. Everything on the menu looks pretty good, but I’d recommend getting things you can’t easily get elsewhere, like fan tuan. Food comes out pretty quickly.
CASH ONLY!
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#5 SALTY SOY MILK ($ 2.75) — 4.5÷5
I’ve never actually had salty soy milk before so I don’t have anything to compare theirs against, but I liked it! I was expecting something heavy and rich, but it was surprisingly light and watery. Not particularly greasy even with the you tiao and the chili oil, which wasn’t spicy at all.
#12 GREEN ONION PANCAKE WITH SLICED BEEF ($ 5.95) — ⁴⁄₅
Pretty good but could be better. Beef was solid and the sauce wasn’t too sweet, but the pancake itself was too chewy and doughy and didn’t taste freshly made. Kind of bland and looked/​tasted more like a normal flour pancake than a green onion pancake. It wasn’t necessarily bad but I would’ve preferred it to be a little crispier and flakier. Not spicy either, despite what it says on the menu.
#21 RICE ROLL WITH CHINESE DONUT, SLICED DAIKON & PORK SUNG ($ 3.95) — 4.5÷5
MMM YUM. The rice was a little hard and chewy and I could’ve had less of it and more of the filling, but I love the combination/​proportion of the donut, daikon and pork sung! Nothing out of this world, but definitely brought me back to Taiwan. It’s kind of pricey given it’s just one average-​sized roll, but I can’t find many places in the area that have fan tuan.
#25 BOILED WONTONS IN HOT & SPICY SAUCE WITH PEANUTS ($ 6.95) — ⁴⁄₅
Wontons were pretty solid and sauce was good, but I was disappointed that it wasn’t spicy at all, despite all the red chili oil.

Some dishes here are really fantastic; others are above average. Overall, a 4.5 star Taiwanese Chinese restaurant; a 5 if you consider the area that we are in.
What you come here for is the Taiwanese breakfast. The Szechuan beef noodle soup, egg over green onion pancakes, and pan fried buns are all solid here. Of course, my favorite here is the beef noodle soup — best in the area.
Crazy thing is that they are basically only open for brunch and linner. Takes good food and demand to do that right?
When you are looking for Taiwanese breakfast in this area, there is no need to go elsewhere. Nice people, great food, and good bang for the buck.
Oh — they only take cash!

Awesome for Taiwanese breakfast!
Try the shao bing + you tiao (first thing on the menu, $ 4.5). This is best shared with two people.
Also, try the savory soy milk ($ 2.75) this tastes a lot like ramen broth, totally delicious, one of the best place i’ve tried this other than Taiwan.
The rest of the food looks good too, I’ll be back for sure! It is pricier than LA Taiwanese breakfast joints, but I’m down to pay a few dollars more for quality.
Tip — cash only, breakfast offered 10am-​3pm

One of the few places around the bay area that does legit Taiwanese breakfast. Was happy to find it, but food was one star under excellent.
Egg Shao bing was solid, not too salty, and good portion. The beef Shao bing was ok, the beef was cold but the texture felt like it wasn’t super fresh. Pan fried pork bun was too oily and a bit soggy.
Beef noodle soup was excellent.
Place was huge and staff was nice.