Ho-Ja (Shepherd's Bush) — Restaurant in London

This is my first time writing on the google review, and should I could rate zero star, I would love to do it. I am writing to express my whole feeling and the situation about my KTV experience at Ho-ja (Shepherd's Bush branch) on 28th of May 2018.

First of all, the staircase that going down to the basement is really disgusting, it's sticky and dirty that doesn't look like for welcoming guests. And the atmosphere of the KTV room seems like having been cleaned for a while, sofas and pillows sent up clouds of dust, the feeling in the room is really bad, makes people feel uncomfortable.

Second, the service of the staffs is totally a disaster to the customers. As we were in the basement, we pressed the bell to have service but the staff never come. As the result, my friend need to go ups and downs so many time to order food. Besides, after we ordered some starters like chicken popcorn and chicken dumpling, they suppose to be accompanied with sauces normally as they are quite dry to eat them alone, but they did not provide any sauce. My friend went up to request for the sauce and was being rejected, the reason is it is hard for the staff to clean up if the sauce was being spilled..... So the question is why can we drink in the KTV room then? All the drinks are easily spilled and will make the floor and sofas sticky after that. It really makes no senses at all.

Third, the staff are really impolite. They rushed in without knock the door in advance and put down the food without saying a word......

Last but not least, after the ''self-service'' and the rude attitude of the staff and we still need to pay 10% of the service charge????? WHAT?

One more important thing is I sent a letter to their official email more than a week and they just simply ignore me, pretending nothing had been happened. Good job Ho-Ja,...

TL;DR - subpar food, non existent service, and an environment where you feel you're in the back stock area of a grocery store.

As a Taiwanese born Canadian, I have been so fortunate with food in Vancouver and food back in Taiwan. I had been to Ho-Ja twice back in 2018 and thought I'd try it again in 2022, since I was craving food from my home country. Ho-Ja is extremely proud to highlight its Taiwanese connection, however I find the food is not up to par. I understand we are in London. We're in England, where the fastest flight to Taiwan is a 13 hour flight. However, if you're going to be showcasing the wonderful country of Taiwan, I feel the food needs to be as close as possible to the food back home.

Instead, the food is bland. The popcorn chicken is soft, not crispy. The stewed beef was cold and doesn't taste stewed, instead it tasted jellies. The Ho-Ja wraps had very little filling. If my uncle from Taiwan came and ate here, he would have insisted on not paying. This is hard for me to type out, but it's the truth. I am craving and longing for fantastic Taiwanese food. That's comfort food for me, but I just can't seem to find any resemblance of it here. Well, the Taiwanese canned soft drinks tastes of home, but at an outrageous price of £2.85 a can.

I hope the owners or managers of Ho-Ja really take a look within and think about what they are doing. They are so proud to fly the Taiwanese flag that they have colouring sheets for children featuring our country and symbols. The food needs to be fantastic, it can't be bland. It needs to represent the island of people who dedicate their life to food.

I beg you. Please be better. Please represent the country properly. I want a place in London where I can eat food that I feel proud to share...

I really want to give a negative star , but there is no such option. Google may need to think about this option as an improvement.

First of all, I want to say hello Ha-ja chef, seems like you call yourself a chef because you can get the food cooked . But you know nothing about Taiwanese food. We ordered 8 dishes , nothing is close to right, or tasty .

beef noodle (牛肉面）， this is one of the Taiwanese signature dish, you got it so wrong, I think instant noodle is way much better that your. The soup is so tasteless , noodle is basically those dry noodle from supermarket . Oh man , put it this way, you got everything wrong about this dish , so please stop selling it.

pork rice (卤肉饭）， another signature dish which is ruined so badly . To the owner or the chef , simple tips , first of all you need to cook the rice right . I do not even want to comment on the pork, cause it is so wrong .

I think the above two is enough to judge whether it is a ok Taiwanese restaurant or not . The rest, are basically so bad that any Chinese takeaway is way better .

I suggest the owner or the chef try to understand want Taiwanese food , or what food should be cooked and tasted , before calling themselves a Taiwanese restaurants.

The food is so bad that made me angry for the rest of the night.

Oh man , have...