Taiwan Cafe - Milpitas

Their specialty : pig hock. Got to try it just to know.

We have friends who just came back from trip to Taiwan recently. They bought a unique deck of cards featuring popular Taiwanese food. Those cards really were distraction. We couldn't just play with the cards without getting side track talking about food.

One of our conversation was where they normally go for Taiwanese food in San Jose. Knowing that at one point, they lived in Taipei for a few years. I was curious to find and maybe to have someone who could order for us if we visit a Taiwanese restaurant. *wink wink*. They told us about Taiwan Cafe in Milpitas. And today we got to try it out with them. Yay.


When we got there on Sunday at 11:30 it was still quiet. We went in around 11:45 and patrons started pouring in. At one point, there were a few parties waited to be seated. I guess that's good sign.

Five spice chicken roll - yummy and popular

I had no clue nor had any preference on any Taiwanese dishes. We've been to Liang's Village in Cupertino but we ordered based on what we liked. So I didn't know whether those were typical Taiwanese dishes. So today we let our friends did the ordering. She only checked to see if we would take pork blood. Which I haven't for as long as ten years maybe. And I know hubby would freak out.

stir fry rick stick - homely

The first dish that came out was pig hock served with rice, braised hard boiled egg and pickled bamboo and vegetables. The pig hock was very tender but mild flavor. I like pig hock, but I would like it better with garlic chili sauce with lime/vinegar. The dipping sauce didn't add much to the flavor.

Taiwanese thick soup

The second dish was the soup. I didn't know the name of the soup. I think it's something "thick soup". It had bonito flakes as the topping and some cut napa cabbage and pieces of fish cake. It's quite a nice taste and certainly unique.

chicken popcorn -can't go wrong

All other orders after that came out fast. One by one. I almost felt overwhelmed. I guess we sort of over ordered. If there's such thing. Our friend wanted to make sure that we had a chance to try out everything. The one dish that hubby liked the most was the stir fry rice stick. It was simple but homely. Of course if we make it at home, we didn't have a hot wok enough to create that smoky wok smell.

fried tofu with basil - very unique texture

Beside the stir fry rice stick, the other dishes that we enjoyed was the pork chop rice and popcorn chicken. Yeah...it's hard to go wrong with deep fried items. The one item that I thought was completely weird was the oyster omelett/pancake. It came with a red orangey sweet sauce on top of it. I was used to the Singapore (maybe teochew) style dry one. Beside being sweet, the sauce and the pancake was very gooey. I think because the pancake was made mainly with some sort of starch.

Oyster omelette - can't quite make out of this dish

I would say over all we enjoyed the food. It's not something that we would miss for a long time.

Taiwan Cafe
568 N Abel St, Milpitas, CA 95035
(408) 586-8885