Taipei Cafe — Restaurant in Rockville

This is a true epicurean gem and a near & dear restaurant for me. And by "gem", I would give this place 6/7 stars (aka a must try in anyone's lifetime) if I could as the food here is on my coveted 'death row meal' list of restaurants.

Taipei Cafe (food menu) used to be the old Bob's 66, where the current Bob's Shanghai 66 is today (starting around May 2018). The menu between both places are not even close. This review probably makes more sense to those who crave the undeniably flavorful Taiwanese gastronomic street food and really good Chinese home-cookin' classics.

On every visit, I religiously order oyster pancakes, gua boa (TW pork burger), fried stinky tofu, pork chop rice, oyster vermicelli ..... and that's to start. I purposely do this so I can leave left overs to take home since this place is not close to my daily commute. It's a lot of food but the end goal is to rejuvenate my taste buds on what real asian/chinese/taiwanese food taste like before they get sterilized over time by mono-culture franchise chain food companies.

Sadly, it is oddly and almost nearly impossible to find these gastronomic delights anywhere else around Northern Virginia suburbs. Go ahead ..... name a place that makes all these dishes [...not poor copies using sub-standard ingredients...] under one convenient roof and at these blue-collar prices.

You still may not be sold that it's 7/8 stars but the review is all about the food and authentic flavors. Here's another comparison for you .... one can find equally good oyster pancakes, gua boa, all the dishes I just named in NYC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, other places with large Chinatowns ..... oh, and Rockville, MD. So think of Taipei Cafe as one of those places that checked a 'should-have' checkbox for the DC Metro area on the...

I've changed my review to 5 stars. Here is my 2 part review (for groups that like duck and individuals on a budget) with extra notes at the bottom:

For people looking for a delicious group meal: We had the special "one duck 3 ways" which is SO WORTH IT. For $46 you get one large duck soup with cabbage and tofu, one full duck wrap platter (like Peking duck - this is by far the best I've EVER had), and one plate of stir fried duck with yellow chives. All three dishes were EXCELLENT we are considering coming back for this regularly... I want to comment especially on the Peking duck - what made it so good was well, everything, but the wrapper was so thin, translucent, yet strong enough to hold and wrap around a few pieces of duck, unlike other restaurants where it's thicker and sometimes dry and cracks easily. Also, the sauce I believe they prepare themselves - it isn't as thick as other restaurants and you can easily drizzle it on your duck rather than shaking a big blob from the spoon. And of course the duck itself was amazing - skin was crisp and meat tender. 11/10 would recommend.

For people looking for a budget meal that will still make you very happy and full: I recommend the pork stew on rice (lu rou fan); it's $3.25 for a bowl of, well, pork stew on rice with a stew-marinated egg. It's really delicious.

Extra notes: Shaved ice was too sweet for me and ice was rather chunky. Chicken with ginger in wine sauce was flavorful but a little on the salty side, but the bamboo shoots with pork and the loofa were good. The loofa is sooooooooo good. It's a silky vegetable that melts in your mouth and is very refreshing.

Apologies for the photos of half-eaten food. It was so good I forgot to take pics before...

We eat here a few times a month. It's one of our favorite places. The food is different than mainstream chinese as it's taiwanese (slightly different). The shaved ice dessert at the end is always a hit with the kids. There are some different spices here that many don't get often, ma la for example. This is sometimes and acquired taste (i'm 'meh' about it) but my wife loves it. Their ma la tofu dish is legit here and has that spice flavor that many others lack. The also have some unique seafood/fish type dishes that some of the older parents/taiwanese people swear by, but I can't get used to those flavors.

The staff has generally been there a while so they know the dishes, but it helps a lot to speak chinese here. Our kids love their little spicy fried chicken pieces (we're americanized chinese peeps), and I like their longhorn green pepper with beef strip dish (it's spicy). Other greens are usually spot on and cooked well too.

Oh, and their ah wah me suan (some taiwanese soup thing my wife loves) evidently is good too (though I don't like the flavor myself. Their hot/sour soup is always a great choice and they have it in group size which is a plus so you don't get dinged with ordering 5 individual bowls for twice the cost of the singular big bowl!

Parking can be tricky, but luckily at night the lumber liquidator place is empty as it can get busy come dinner time. We come early to guarantee a seat and we suggest you...