Tai Wu Restaurant — Restaurant in Foster City

1st visit: The staff is friendly and nice, but the food is just so-so. We came for lunch, so we ordered rice and noodles. The braised duck wonton noodles soup is just so plain. They left the braised duck on a side dish, it was quite oily, so you had to eat them with the noodles, and much soy sauce for some flavors. I ordered a combo, fried rice with rolls and sweet and sour pork, and instantly regretted because I underestimated the amount of food. The pork fried rice is good, but the rest of the combo is disappointing. We also ordered mapo tofu because we really loved that dish, but their mapo tofu lacked spiciness. All we could tasted is sweet. That’s not mapo tofu at all.

2nd visit: This time we stayed away from noodle soups and ordered dishes that can go with steam rice. The kung pao chicken is really good. It has the smell of what a Cantonese would call, the taste of the wok, “wok hee”. The honey walnut prawn is a bit sweet, but the spicy & sour soup nails it. Just the right amount of spiciness and sourness.

= I would say it’s a decent Hong Kong restaurant. I’d love to try other dishes, but not the...

I've been a regular Take-Out customer for over 10 years. would always order the same Rock-Cod Claypot and always taste great. Weekend of 04/27/2025, I've made an extra order of the Sweet & Sour Chicken. The picture posted at the entrance window looked very appetizing. When I got home which is about 5 mins away, it looked totally different from the picture. A couple of small pieces of green pepper, but the sad part was the chicken was very soggy and the chicken tasted bland and soaked in some liquid and rubbery texture. It was bad. If the chicken tasted bland then it would not be the sauce. It tasted like someone order this a day ago and was just put aside. I love this place due to great customer service but I was very disappointed for what how they disrespected a regular customer for over 10 years. I called after I tasted it and they said that the next time I order I should request for the sauce to be put aside. NO. I want the sauce with the chicken so the chicken would taste like sweet and sour! Come on people. Value your customer especially...

This is a pretty traditional Chinese cuisine eatery with lot of dishes around noodles, rices, just pretty much everything you expect from a Chinese restaurant. Food quality here is slightly above average.

Base solely on food I would probably give this place 3 stars. However, what this place did it for me is it's value. For the amount of money they charge per dish, they give you a lot of food.

Overall it's the type of places that you would call it no-frills - quick service, ok to good quality of food, and great value for the price. It's also in a Ranch 99 plaza so it's convenient if you can also bundle the trip with shopping as well as grabbing a cup of coffee/drink from the Starbucks next door.

The rumor is also that if you frequent the restaurant, you might also be able to request them to make you a dish from what you just bought from the market, with a price that you'd have to pay of course, but a pretty convenient option...