formoosa — Restaurant in San Diego

Food: 4/5 Service and Setting: 3.5/5 Value: 3/5

For a while, beef noodle soup 紅燒牛肉麵 was really hard to find anywhere, but now you can find it in almost every other Chinese restaurant in Convoy; however, traditional Taiwanese style beef noodle soup is hard to come by. I was elated to find that Formoosa seemed to serve a modernized take on Taiwanese classics. The restaurant itself is very modern with a center bar that is surrounded with geometric motifs and a traditional Chinese style mural. Seating is ample and this restaurant tends to get busy in bursts, so come ASAP if you do decide to eat here. Parking is a nightmare as is common in most of these small malls in this area so be mentally prepared. During lunch, they were very understaffed so the wait that I experienced for food is probably not the norm. Service was overall kind and attentive.

Cruller: 4/5 The cruller, aka youtiao 油條, is a great accompaniment with beef noodle soup. Because of this, I was very confused to see it come out first, almost a full 10 minutes before my soup came out. The cruller itself was big, fluffy, and fresh, a step up from most supermarket youtiao. I found it be very yummy, but a tad on the pricey side for what it was.

Taiwanese Beef Roll: 3.5/5 I ordered the beef roll without any cucumbers and it came out twice with cucumbers. The waiter/bartender was working really hard trying to handle more than 5 parties, so no blame, but I received my correct beef roll after my meal was basically done. The meat inside was well cooked and they seem to use some sort of spicy mayo instead of a more traditional sweet bean sauce. The pancake that I received in the end was well cooked, but I will comment that each beef roll that I was served differed in how the pancake was cooked ranging from totally underdone to almost burned.

Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup: 4/5 The beef noodle soup at Formoosa has a very apparent sour taste upon first sip. Normally, I like to add vinegar to my taste, but they have taken the liberty to do it for you. The soup’s viscosity is light and has a stronger spiced flavor profile in comparison to somewhere like Din Tai Fung. The soup base has a strong soy sauce flavor and tastes like a traditional beef noodle soup that I am familiar with. I really enjoyed seeing my server char my meat with a blowtorch and tasting the kiss of fire while enjoying my noodles. The egg was perfectly cooked but strangely overly salty for my taste. The noodles are not knife cut but a more high end dried noodle restaurants can purchase. Overall, I thought it tasted good, but to me, the soul of beef noodle soup is having fresh wheat noodles to tie the dish together. All of the components in this soup tasted well made, fresh, and tasty, but the noodles they use are so slick and smooth and never truly incorporate into the dish as a whole. Wheat noodles, with their more starchy and gooey coating helps bond all the components together and create a more harmonious final product. If you are not as picky as I am, I am sure that you will love this dish and I hope that you...

Formoosa is not authentic nor is it a good restaurant to dine in. For having only the few Taiwanese classics on the menu, this place is a let down on flavor, texture, and the restaurant category on its own. We could not be more disappointed with the dishes we ordered: beef noodle soup, sesame noodle, and beef roll.

To start, the beef noodle soup has low quality chewy beef, and instant noodle like noodle. The flavor of the soup was basic and mediocre that hides behind spice. Worst of all, the soup’s temperature was lukewarm at best upon arriving to our table. What is it good at? Looking passable for something of culture and heritage in photos. If you are trying beef noodle soup or Taiwanese food for the first time here, I am sorry to say that you are better off picking a nice beef flavored instant noodle from the Asian supermarket nearby and cook it yourself at home. I am not usually mean with my reviews but I do feel the responsibility to call out the complete lacking of this place.

Beef roll: weirdly sweet with soggy cucumbers and greasy scallion pancake…and again, room temperature upon served to our table at best (it should’ve been either warm or chilled). The beef inside is some sort of shredded/minced beef of mysterious cut covered in sauce. The authentic type, for reference, is made with fresh cucumbers, sweet savory brown sauce, green onions, freshly pan grilled crispy pancake, and clean tender full flavored slices of beef of top cut (heel tendon). Formoosa does not cut it whatsoever on this one either. Was all the other positive reviews paid reviews? Or just people who don’t know better? Idk.

Lastly, the sesame noodle… it’s barely passable because technically this is a fairly simple dish with a singular sesame sauce. But of course they messed up on the noodle choice, it’s too soft and lumps together after the while from the sauce. And the whole dish hides behind the chili spice once again and provides no satisfaction for this simple common dish that should have given you the lip licking peanut buttery experience. What. Adding a soft boiled egg gets you the right to charge $12 for a bowl of instant noodles and sauce? No thank you.

Something else to mention, for naming itself Formoosa (Formosa is an old Portuguese name for Taiwan) this place does not deliver on the Taiwanese reference, nor the focus on beef (moo)…as it failed miserably on both ends in its dishes.

It appears that this place focuses more on its equally, if not longer menu for their cocktails…in this case why pretend to be a specialty restaurant that misleads and ruins someone’s perception of how great and simply satisfying Taiwanese cuisine can be? It’s a shame of a place that claims this name and honestly I don’t see why anyone would return here for a meal. We definitely would go elsewhere else in the convoy area for better food experience.

Ugh. I really wanted this...

Parking: So many good eateries in this plaza. Thank goodness two of them were closed Mondays and this place was still packed even with the rain. Street parking is your best bet.

We made reservations for 6pm for a party of four. When we got there, it was just us. Bar seating at the U shaped bar or four tables.

We ordered one of EVERYTHING on the menu for a party of four to share. Nine items. Totally worth it. Bill came out to be $100 plus tip.

Started with drinks. Their drinks are made in house. Super tasty.

-Soy milk is made in house. You taste the beans and no sugar added.

-Milk tea is really really strong. You can taste the tea leaves which was a bit bitter but really good. Kept me up at night.

Small plates: -Sesame wontons ($12.50) - 8 pork shrimp wontons in sesame sauce

-*Chili wontons ($12.50) - 8 pork shrimp wontons in chili oil

-*Taiwanese beef roll ($10.50) - scallions pancake with cucumber that’s wrapped like a burrito

-*Popcorn chicken ($10.50) - the best popcorn chicken I’ve ever had. It was so fresh like fried in fresh oil, crispy batter and juicy thigh meat.

-Crullers ($5) - these are also known as Chinese long donut. Also very fresh. It was crispy on the outer edges and soft inside not like the frozen ones that you bake

-Pickled cucumber ($5.50) - You can’t go wrong with this dish. The sauce is not spicy like most places and very refreshing to be eating greens.

-*Sesame balls ($7) - deep fried with red bean paste. Perfect size and proportions. It’s equivalent to a giant gum ball that you get out of a vending machine or a ping pong ball size.

Entrees: -Taiwanese beef noodle soup ($14.50) - house special broth with braised beef and wide noodles. The beef is so tender. This dish was more on the salty side for me.

-*Sesame noodles ($11.50) - could have been a vegetarian meal but we added the braised beef for $4. This dish is served chilled without the broth.

I have to say all 9 items was really tasty. I put an * on my favorites. All food came out fresh, hot and quick.

The type of noodle used was different. It’s like Guan-miao sliced noodles that comes out wavy like ribbons made out of flour. Everything on the menu is quality. Kai was phenomenal in taking our orders and serving us.

I would suggest dipping the crullers into the beef noodle soup and let it soak up the juices. They also give you a bunch of dipping sauces. San Diego lacks Taiwanese food so I hope this place is here to stay. If they expand their menu, we’ll be back. If they don’t, we will...