101 Cafe

Taiwan flavor in Diamond Bar :-)
Love the combination chow mein and the potage. Makes me think I’m back at the corner kitchen.
Not fancy, just simple homey dishes. Beats driving to Rowland Heights traffic.

Good cheap Chinese food. They have shaved ice which is a plus. Fried pork chop and the ketchup rice are my favorite dishes

The restaurant is small but ok. Definitely a lot of choices to choose from the menu B U T they need to reprint their menus with the correct English spelling. I’ve caught about 10 errors… funny ones too and had a good laugh. Though l know what they meant, some others may not.
Other than that, the food is ok. I thought the pan fried dumplings were on the teenier side. Many other places serve them a bit bigger and juicier. I had the sliced beef with rice cake and thought it was alright.
The next table to us had the stinky «tofo»…and you’ll recognize the pungent smell. LOL.

Useless Fact: I’m 100% positive the 101 in 101 café refers to the 101 building in taipei taiwan. Fitting since 101 café is a taiwanese restaurant owned and operated by taiwanese people. End of useless fact. Although, i like the name café 101 better. Than again, that’s just me.
101 café is my favorite taiwanese restaurant in the san gabriel valley. There’s not too many around.
I grew up eating good time café in rowland heights. The parents and i would go for lunch and dinner all the time. So much so the parents and the owner knew each other by first name. Food was good and the restaurant was packed almost everyday. Good times. Needless to say, i was sad to find out good time café closed sometime back in 2006 2007. Sad times.
After my aunt told me 101 café is the sister restaurant of good time café, i knew i had to give it a try. So glad i did. The food tastes exactly the same as it did 20+ years ago (its like a little piece of the 90s came back *tears*). The parents and i love the green bell pepper beef fried rice, squid vermicelli, squid noodles, vegetarian chicken roll, four gods soup, moms favorite intestines, dads favorite beef noodles and my childhood favorite appetizer, fried tempura (wish they gave more). Even the sauce tastes the same. So glad they decided to stick around.
If you’re in the mood for taiwanese comfort food or just want to try something different, give 101 café a try. Its also conveniently located in the same plaza as super H mart. As authentic as it gets.

Awesome place to get some great traditional Chinese dishes. Very Taiwanese and great tempura fish cakes. My favorite thing on their menu is their fish cakes. It’s what I always get when I go there. I love it here and it is not expansive.

This place was really good. Had complimentary soup and a drink. I think it was black tea or something. Not sure but I wasn’t expecting much. Then I took a sip and it was amazing. The food was really good. I ordered a beef rice and I wasn’t expecting much out of this either. It blew me away. I’ve only been here this one time but in my one time here, it’s pretty good.

I tried to order a boba milk tea here and they wouldn’t sell it to me first because they wouldn’t accept the same card twice, and then because the order wasn’t over $ 15. However, I just purchased two other entrees 10 minutes before, which made the total well over $ 15. They didn’t offer to refund me for the first purchase in order to sell me the Novak milk tea along with the entrees. These are not customer focused people. The owner should consider better training. Not coming back to terrible service.

101 is another 好年㣊 (hao nian dong) nice time deli with a new English name. The food is the same as the other nice time delis.
The food has good Taiwanese flavor. The service is a bit slow and it takes a bit for food to come out. Worth the wait if you’re jonesin for some Taiwanese food in dbar.

The best chicken or shrimp fried rice! Yum

Not bad. The service is quick and the food is good. We had the beef stew rice and my wife had the combination noodles.

Great Taiwanese Food in the area! Parking is easy and easy to find. Located in the Super H Mart Plaza. Definitely a lot of food options but make sure to tell them extra seasoning. Always ask for what they recommend — they usually are able to marrow down the menu for you since there is alot!
Very busy on Saturdays for lunch and dinner, but you definitely can order take out.

101 Café is basically the same as Good Time Café they have the same chinese name hao nien dong. They are owned by two sisters. This one I am reviewing is the younger sister’s store. While the other one in Monterey Park is the elder sister’s store. They used to be both in Rowland Heights but due to business and customer migration they have ventured to the respective places now.
The menu is like a typical 90s style taiwanese restaurant, with various set meal dishes (pork chop rice, minced pork rice) or taiwanese snacks. In recent years due to customers’ taste shifting to donbei (north east) china taste they started having some dumplings, XLB (xiao long bao) and chinese beef rolls.
Having refound them again I’ve been going to 101 Café since it is closer to where I live. This review is the combined 8 times I have been there. I think they are a poor taiwanese restaurant. The items are less, the price is higher, and worst of all the taste and quality and freshness of the food is substandard.
During Chinese New Years Eve 2015 I ordered the following,
combination soy stewed plate F–
They served food gone bad, the seweed was smelling sour and had some weird white goo on top and the bean curd had gone bad as well, it had a fermented taste to it. Look I know that they premake the food since simmered items take a long time to cook and simmer so it is ok to cut them then put them in the refrigerator then microwaved it for customers but at least make the effort to see if the food has gone bad? To go for something good go for Good Time Café off Atlantic Blvd in Monterey Park.
sticky rice in a can D
no peanuts, no meat slices barely any mushroom and it is microwaved to the point where the rice is starting to feel hard and chewy To get something better go for Old Country Café off Las Tunas Ave. in San Gabriel.
chicken roll D–
the chicken roll is actually pork and chicken should be fried like a super long big egg roll then cut open and served with sweet and sour sauce. the restaurant instead pre-​fried it and cut open, then when we ordered it, they REFRIED the slices, thus taking out most of the moist and juices of the meat which makes the chicken roll slices hard and chewy like rubber. Not to mention the traditional method would have the meat roll up with taro in the center. Nope, not this restaurant. To get something better go for MJ Café.
stir fry «A» vegetable B+
This looked like ¹⁄₃^rd less than any place I have ordered the dish. To be fair it was less oily and fairly fresh. The price to quantity ratio is not exactly fair.
combination stir fried vermicelli D
The same dish at Good time café is moist, but stir fried, the vermicelli are cut so using chopsticks you can pick up a nice bite size. The onion /​cabbage were plentiful and so were the meat slices so when you pick up the bite size you had a good ratio of rice vermicelli, meat, veggie in your mouth. This restaurant had dry but bearable vermicelli uncut so I can pick up 80% of it with once chopstick snatch, there were literally 2 slices of all the ingredients except for the meat slices which were 5 slices (I counted), and the veggie /​onion which were suppose to be plentiful were so scarce I thought we were rationing for the war on terror like in the ww2 days.
meat stew (row-​gun) C
The meat stew dish taste was close but not the same, why? they forgot to include the lard fried shallots that Taiwanese people use in every stirfry /​soup dish. How could you forget that??? Also the bamboo shoots were suppose to be plentiful, not «hey I see 3 of them! They’re so lonely?!»
spicy fish with tofu B
The fish was plentiful and the tofu was stewed with taste. It was an enjoyable dish, the only reason I gave B was because the price to quantity ratio was not equivalent when compared to other restaurants.
goose meat C+
The meat was tasteless, not salty enough, the meat forgettaboutit, it was boiled then sat in the fridge until we ordered. Thankfully the sauce of soy /​garlic was good enough to make this dish palatable.
Overall this restaurant is a failure in my book. I didn’t only come here once. I came here 8 times. I also visit the elder sister’s Good Time Café which is basically the better version of this restaurant with which quantity and quality haven’t disappointed me yet (just the drive to MP is so far). At this restaurant never was I happy with them in quantity nor quality. Sadly they are a monopoly in Diamond Bar, so if you need a quick fix for Taiwanese food… frankly they’re it. Yes there are other taiwanese restaurants such as Bull Demon King, 5BoBee, and Mimi’s Kitchen but they are more specialized don’t offer the variety of stir fry dishes which 101 Café offers. I really don’t wish this store to be that bad. I wish them a thriving success in this new lunar year, but if they don’t change how they operate, I’m afraid they will end up like the other failed hao nien dong in California; chino hills, fremont… etc.

Chicken chow mein was one of the worst versions I’ve ever had. Tasted like spaghetti noodles with very little flavor and virtually no chicken. Extremely disappointing.
The black pepper beef is very tasty and has a good deal of grilled onions.
We ordered take out and had to wait about 15 minutes even though there were no customers dining in when we ordered.
I will not ever be coming back here.

I knew coming in here that my expectations needed to be small. I just didn’t expect this place to blow that badly. If you’re craving for a quick bite of chinese food in this plaza, head on over to A&J next door instead and thank me later.
Pickled Cabbage Pork noodle: worse noodle soup ever. The broth had no flavor and was extremely greasy.
Dried bean curd with celery: I think I was expecting something different when I ordered this. What I got was a cold plate of crap. For $ 5, I expect at least a LARGE plate of cold crap or at least something tasty … UGH!
Service was fast but the food was terrible. 2 stars.

Big menu with a plethora of Taiwanese «Little Eats”/ street food. The food is pretty tasty, but sometimes it’s a little bit salty.
They do have my favorite dishes like stinky tofu, onion pancake, cold pickled cucumbers, and oyster noodle soup. It’s a no frills place with a big menu.
I wish their boba tea was more flavorful though.
They do take Credit Card over $ 15.

I remember coming here as child to the rowland heights location. then they closed, I was sad and missed the pork chop rice. I remember my grandpa would take me here in high school. Ahh that pork chop though!
Pork chop rice — Its thin, flavorfoul, accompanied with cabbage and rice with meat sauce. I destroy this place, it tastes as good as I remember it.
The store front is a little run down for being a newer store. The service isnt that great. But I admit, im a sucker for chilhood memories. I will keep coming back because of it.

When I first set foot inside 101 café, I noticed the chairs and tables were kinda worn down. I wouldn’t exactly say the place is run down, but it didn’t seem like there was much upkeep put into this establishment. Seriously, Dennys’ atmosphere looks nicer.
Food — the food was okay, but they close half of the kitchen down 45 minutes prior to closing, so no rice. And no rice means half the stuff on the menu can’t be ordered. I did have an oyster egg omelet (I think — forgot the specific name on the menu);- It wasn’t that bad, but it would’ve been nice to order a rice dish.
Service — Service was okay, but our original waiter didn’t really understand English. It also seemed like he kept looking at my girlfriend, expecting her to communicate to him in Chinese (which she isn’t that fluent in). It cracked me up when he had to get a coworker to take our order.
I don’t think we’ll be coming back here anytime soon.

Acceptable tasting food. The quality is O.K. and the prices are O.K., but I’ve been to better tasting restaurants in Rowland Heights which give bigger portions for approximately the same prices. I honestly don’t prefer eating here, but it’s convenient and quick when I’m too lazy to drive to Rowland Heights area for my Taiwanese food fix. The service is sub par, but the food comes out fast and they’ve never gotten my orders wrong. I like that they have such a large variety of items on the menu, which can be overwhelming, but if you are familiar with Taiwanese cuisine, you’ll recognize all the popular dishes.
I’ve ordered their xiao long bao (shanghai style dumplings), oyster omelette w/​the sweet ketchup sauce, stinky tofu, boiled pork and cabbage dumplings, pan fried onion cake, fried pork dumplings, beef noodle soup, shrimp fried rice, some typical sauteed veggie dishes, & fried pork chop with rice. Nothing has tasted awfully bad or supremely awesome, but the food is all right here. The restaurant is presentably clean, but I prefer ordering to-​go most of the time.

This is not the best place for Taiwanese, but it’ll do. My mom tells me that beef noodle soup actually isn’t Taiwanese, but Northern Chinese food (when I told her I wanted to eat Taiwanese food for my bday, beef noodle soup, beef roll, stinky tofu, etc).
Food:
Beef noodle soup had very tender beef, but an awful lot of fat (I loved, my mom mom spit out), the broth was a bit sour, and not spicy at all, and not as salty as usual (again Mom liked this). I however didn’t really like that. The noodles were kinda too soft also.
Beef roll. Very good. I got this to go bc the waitress actually didn’t hear us order it, and we had to ask repeatedly for it. I would think this would be even better right out of the kitchen. I would come back here just for this.
Chitterlings were good and tasted like they should. Came with lots of sliced ginger and raw cabbage, and oyster dipping sauce.
Stinky tofu wasn’t very stinky, and they were hollow. Mom says they shouldn’t be hollow. However the pickled veggies that came with them were great. I would not order this again here.
Shrimp omlette (instead of oyster) was good, nice gooeyness, and the sauce nice and sweet. The size of the shrimp were good as well. I would order this again if I came with mom or bro, bf wouldn’t like the gooeyness of it.
A chai (veggie), very generous portion, and lots of garlic. I really liked this one.
Service: I usually don’t expect good service at Chinese places, and this place was swamped and with only two waitresses, but after they slowed down, it was still hard to get our beef roll and to go containers.

We’re a fan of their fried pork chop over rice. I used to go to the rowland heights location under the name of plaza deli. but that place closed earlier this year and i’ve been on a quest to find a similar type of fried pork chop and was almost convinced that i’ll never have anything like it again…
My mom called me yesterday and said she heard that they opened up a place in diamond bar. I immediately took my bf here for dinner to try it out and it’s exactly the same restaurant except with a different English name… the chinese name is still the same though.
We ordered the fried pork chop rice, stinky fried tofu, some kind of sticky rice dish, meat ball, and the shrimp egg omelet. The taste was totally the same as the ones I had before at either Plaza Deli or Good Time Café.
The service was pretty good here too, they came around to make sure we got all the stuff we ordered and refilled the tea pot when needed.
AND…this place takes credit cards. i think with min $ 15 purchase.
YAYYYYYYYYY! Good place for some good old Taiwanese comfort food.