Taro Taro — Restaurant in Taipei

To be fair first, my son's milk tea boba seemed fine.

However...my pineapple iced tea tasted overly sour that it doesn't combine well with the oolong tea's bitterness. I can only bring myself to finish 1/3 of it.

As for the service, it was ridiculously disappointing (if not frustrating or even infuriating). We ordered 2 drinks to go first and then tried to return for more drinks/dessert after walking the Ningxia market. But their ridiculous indoor dinning policy and unwelcoming staff was discouraging enough for me to go somewhere else.

We walked in with leftover food bags from the Ningxia market and the cashier immediately warned us there is no outside food allowed. Ok, fine. It was just leftover and trash anyways.

Then she said if we want to sit down and eat, we must spend a minimum of $80 per adult and $40 per kid for indoor dinning. Ok, fine, it's hot enough that we could use a few more drinks.

Now comes the ridiculous part. Right when I thought we can finally sit down and get some AC & let the kids use the bathroom. She said we cannot order drinks, which is the menu in the middle, to count toward the minimum charge. We have to order the mochi desserts and tofu desserts. No, not fine, I am not gonna order stuff I don't want to eat!

Why do you put the drinks up the menu if it is not part of the menu? Why can't you just charge more for the tea for indoor dinning if you just want more money? I ended up just ordering the previously mentioned pineapple tea to go and let my son use the bathroom while waiting, cuz I was already a bit pissed at them for imposing so many hidden red tapes for just freaking tea/dessert. 😒 I am not going to some 5 star fancy restaurant ya know.

I am surprised at how unwelcoming the young lady cashier is, cuz from experience taiwanese people are quite friendly in general, especially toward kids.

1 star for the drinks, 4 for AC & restroom and -10 for service. That came out to -5, too bad the lowest I can give is 1 🤗. I am surprised at the 5 star ratings, good that the lower star reviews seem to confirm my experience. Can't trust the star ratings...

Ordered a matcha red bean shaved ice because I urgently needed to use the toilet. Ice was coarsely shaved, ice cream tasted weird and super hard and doesn’t melt.

Came in around 10.30pm, staff don’t allow us to sit in the inner seats stating that the section will be closed for cleaning soon (but there were still people sitting inside. Wanted us to sit near to the entrance.) I can understand if they are about to close but it’s still an hour before they close. Its absurd. Service staff all don’t look happy working here.

The only good thing is their toilets are very clean.

Ratings are high as they give a free drink for giving them...

the taro ice is LOADED with mushy taro paste balls, like the bowl is swarming with taro. the taro itself isn’t too sweet, but the sweetness is provided by the brown sugar syrup buried underneath, flavouring the crunchy ice with a mild, watered down sweetness. my favourite part was the (tiny) scoop of taro ice cream on top, as it was a perfect creamy balance between sweetness and the taro flavour — but i really do wish it was bigger / there was more of it, because it was gone in like two bites. i don’t lOVE shaved ice desserts, but this was good for a couple spoonfuls before i got...