101 Taiwanese Cuisine — Restaurant in Reno

My wife and I were looking for something different in the Reno area - something we hadn't tried before. We had only eaten Taiwanese food one other time so when we found the listing for 101 Taiwanese and saw the reviews, we had to try it. Holy cow are we glad we did. We went there on a Friday night and the place was busy but had a couple of tables available.

We ordered a few things that sounded tasty and they most certainly were. We ordered the Spicy Basil Chicken, the Beef and Tofu in Spicy broth (I think that is what it is called), Sweet Taiwanese Sausage, and Sauted Spinach. Everything was very tasty and large enough portions that we had left overs of everything but the Spicy Basil Chicken (our favorite) so we ordered a second round of the chicken to take home.

Welp…. fast forward to Wednesday and it was kind of cold out and we were talking about going out for Pho. We remembered our server at 101 saying we needed to try the Beef Noodle Soup. So why not? We went back. But of course we had to try something else we also hadn't had. So we ordered the Popcorn Chicken and the Beef Wrapped in Pancake. Again... everything was excellent. The spices and flavors were all unique and very well balanced.

I won't tell anyone that either my wife nor I are experts on Taiwanese cuisine. But we eat out a lot and have eaten at everything from the top restaurants to the hole in the wall taquerias and out of the way joints.

My wife is allergic to eggs and mildly allergic to dairy. The staff had no problem with this and made sure that everything we ordered was safe for her.

I realize this is a long review but we are just that impressed with this place. We will be back as we still have a bunch of menu items we just...

⚠️ WARNING ⚠️ Do not order their milk tea. For $6-$7 a cup they are so watery and flavorless. We ordered 6 cups and I think they made one cup and split in two and add water to them. So bad we have to throw away. This was our favorite Chinese restaurant at Reno before the pandemic. We finally revisited at 12/27/2022 and now officially it’s the worst. ⛔️PRICE: Before pandemic is about $6-$12 per dish. Now is $10 to $20 almost double the price. ⛔️TASTE: I think they have different chef then before. The foods are missing it’s flavor. Beef noodle soup the beef is dry and hard to chew. And beef chow fun the rice noodle has been frozen for quite awhile so it’s hard and not fresh. Overall value for the food it’s about 1/3 less than before pandemic. ⛔️SERVICE: Wow! Is there any?😂😂😂 After waited in line almost 2 hours finally got seated at 8:10pm the waitress came with flat unhappy face rush us to order quickly because chefs will stop cooking at 8:30😳And the restaurant close at 9pm. And they keep missing our dishes we have to ask multiple time on some dishes to where they are? And waitress response with “are you sure is not here?” Like we try to cheat for extra dishes 😂 Around 8:45 the waiters start the clean up process, put chairs on the tables start wiping the floor while we try to finish up our food. There are about 3 other tables still have customers. It just disgusting while customers are still eating and they are mopping around your table. I guess waiters are ready to storm out of this place before 9pm. The 18% tip was automatically added to the bill. Why do they deserve the tip? That I don’t know. 😂😂🙄 ⚠️ LAST WARNING ⚠️ Don’t bother going to this place or you will be sorry...

I was honestly a bit skeptical of this place: too many menu items to be of good quality, and plastic utensils, plates, and bowls. BUT, I was pleasantly surprised. All of the food was good and my Chinese-American partner said the food tasted authentic. Also, older Asian people were coming in, so I think this place might be the real deal.

Value: not great. I haven't seen the food prices for Asian restaurants around Reno, but coming from Seattle, where food isn't necessarily cheap, the prices were on the expensive side for similar quality and quantity. The beef noodle soup was $16.59, the Chinese herb soup with pork stomach (offal) was $13.59. The wine chicken roll was $9.99. For the quantity, the beef soup was probably the best, but the other soup was also a full entrée. The wine chicken roll was a nice appetizer size.

Quality: Good. The food came fast. Like 5 minutes after ordering, which made me suspicious. However, the Chinese herbs were soft in the pork stomach soup, indicating that they were actually cooked for a while. I managed to bite into a piece of star anise in the beef noodle soup, which also indicated that the soup was probably freshly made. The chicken roll was perhaps the most interesting food that we orderee, with a nice yeasty, winey flavor. It came with an insultingly small amount of chopped cabbage. The beef noodle soup was flavorful and nicely braised and the pork soup had a lot of interesting, funky flavors.

I would try other places, but it's not bad if you want Asian food. I say "Asian", because their menu includes foods from other Asian countries, not just Taiwan, and they also have a boba tea bar. 4/5...