Nana Dumplings & Bubble Tea House

We arrived to a slightly busy restaurant during lunch on a weekday, with half the tables full but not a single server in sight. Seriously, no one behind the counter, no one walking around. So we stood there for a few minutes, and then finally decided to seat ourselves. The couple behind us did the same thing. And there we sat for about seven minutes before we saw the only server come in through the front door and acknowledged us, and then waited an additional five minutes before we got a menu.
Everyone in the restaurant was waiting for either their order to be taken or to receive a menu or for their food. We were all just looking at each other awkwardly, and one group asked another how long they had been there. That’s how slow the service was, people!
It was a confusing system of order taking, with a server who didn’t seem to know what order people arrived in and just took table orders randomly. It also seemed the kitchen picked which tables to to cook up first on a random basis as well — some people who were seated long after we ordered received their food before ours. Literally 40 minutes were spent waiting for food. I was super hungry.
We ordered a beef noodle soup, a regular for taiwanese shops, and a braised beef dry noodle. Both were okay dishes (the braised beef was quite salty). We also ordered the garlic cucumber and enoki appetizers, but it was quite terrible. It was basically shredded cucumbers (shredded?!) dunked in a watery garlic broth. The cucumber shreds still had seeds in them, so everything was mushy and didn’t have the garlic flavour absorbed. It was a solid disappointment.
They were quick at accepting our bill though, so we quickly finished our food and left. It’s a nice looking place with decent decorations, but I doubt I’ll be coming back here again.

* New homelike Taiwanese snack shop *
This newly opened snack shop has a very homelike feel — complete with a futon, baby sitting in a carriage on the way to the washroom, laptop computer hooked up to a TV playing downloaded materials, and a couple running everything while also watching after their daughter.
I ordered the smoked chicken leg, which was a nice change from the standard Taiwanese fried chicken leg combos available at many spots.
They smoked the chicken and then lightly fried it without any additional breading. So what you get is a very juicy piece of meat with nice crispy skin. When you bite into it the light smokiness from the smoking process gives the meat a pleasant flavour to compliment the crispy skin. This was a delicious chicken leg:
The side rice, which came with it, was nicely decorated with some black sesame seeds and it was cooked properly:
The complimentary sides were a bit disappointing. The kimchi was standard fare and tasted fine. But the carrot and celery mixture was oversalted beyond belief. To the point where I wonder if they confused salt and sugar and were trying to go for a sweeter version like you sometimes get? It was barely edible, which is too bad, because it also had a homey look to it with rough handcutting and looked promising at first look (oh how looks can be deceiving!). Photo:
I would definitely order the chicken leg again — it was delicious and worthy of 4 stars easily. But the quality control on that veggie side lost a star overall as I have to wonder if everything else would be inconsistent over time too. I’ll likely return to check it out again and decide.