King’s Cafe Taiwanese Cuisine
“They have an awesome pork chop over rice, and an amazing chicken leg over rice.”
“If you order this, you must order this with a boiled egg and a Taiwanese sausage.”
“The "combos" come with rice, pickled veggies, tea egg, taiwanese sausage, and your choice of either spicy cucumber or string beans.”
King’s Cafe Taiwanese Cuisine
Delivery: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Price range.
$ Price range Under $10
8 reviews
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Known for their mouth-watering fried chicken leg over rice, this little hole in the wall has grown into a restaurant/cafe with table service over the years. Sometimes, expansion can be good because it means there are demands and people love the food. However, if expansion is not done properly, it also means losing the quality it once had as well as losing loyal customers. For now, King's Cafe is still holding up with the quality and consistency of taste. Unfortunately, the management is terrible with handling table service and take out order during lunch hours. There were mistakes made on phone orders and the wait for food was ridiculously long. I hope they can sort out these operational hiccups because they have so much potentials to be really good.
Taiwanese cuisine is almost non-existent nowadays in Flushing after the gentrification of mainlanders. We ventured into this hole-in-the-wall shop being one of the few that are still opened as recommended by several people. There isn't any English storefront signage, only Chinese so just look for "359". We ordered the quintessential dishes of Taiwanese comfort food.
CHICKEN LEG BENTO BOX ($7) — Chicken leg over rice here comes with a side of Taiwanese sausage, tea-boiled egg, napa cabbage, and string beans. Their chicken leg was cooked to crunchy perfection. To my dismay, their gravy loaded with pickled veggies and minced pork was completely bland. Should've just tried the three cup chicken instead.
BRAISED BEEF NOODLE SOUP ($7.95) — The broth had hints of an enriched spice similar to star anise which adds on to the heartiness of the dish. I liked that the spice was kept to a minimal here. The noodles were perfectly slick while possessing a springy texture. However, the beef was slightly overcooked and made it hard to swallow.
Overall, adequate service and mediocre food. Amongst all the Taiwanese eateries I've been too, this place would not be one of my top picks.
I am a novice when it comes to Taiwanese food, my knowledge really is only pork chop over rice. I am glad Linny F hosted a great UYE to showcase Taiwanese food. I was looking forward to the event to finally try a very popular Taiwanese dish: stinky tofu. The restaurant itself is not that big, it has a few 4 seater tables and a large round table that seats 8.
The food:
Stinky Tofu- Oh God, it smells exactly how it taste and it was not for me. It had a certain feet like quality that I wasn't a fan of. Apparently, wet stink is supposed to be better than the fried. TBD yelp.com/user_local_phot…
Taiwanese Sausage- I enjoyed the flavor of these but I felt they could use a bit more moisture. The raw garlic cuts the fat nicely. yelp.com/user_local_phot…
Salt & Pepper Fish- I thought the flavor of this was great, it was seasoned nicely, I only wish the batter on the fish was crunchier. On the bright side, the fish was not oily. yelp.com/user_local_phot…
Cold Fermented Tofu- It was a good dish but I wish the dish wasn't served cold. The tofu had nice flavor and the bamboo was very tender and flavorful. The Wood Ear mushroom was a nice addition. yelp.com/user_local_phot…
Beef with watercress in Sacha sauce- I liked the flavor of the Sacha, the beef is a nice textural addition but the star was the watercress. I thought the sacha and watercress really worked well. yelp.com/user_local_phot…
Taiwanese Fried Rice- I thought the fried rice was made well, there was a good amount of Taiwanese Sausage in the dish and the fried rice was seasoned nicely and not very oily. yelp.com/user_local_phot…
Three Cup Chicken- I thought this was one of the better dishes of the night. The chicken was nice and tender and the sauce flavored the chicken well but I thought it was a tad sweet. The abundance of basil in the dish was great.
Braised Beef Noodle Soup- The beef was nicely tender and had nice flavor. The noodles were a tad over but that wasn't an issue. The broth itself was a little too aggressive for my liking. It kinda had too much of a pickled/vinegar flavor for me. yelp.com/user_local_phot…
This place is now a merger between the former restaurant and the former Taiwanese beef noodle shop down the street on Prince Street which got evicted a few months back.
The ticket here is the beef noodle soup which is now better than what it used to be at the prior location. The broth is remarkably strong and flavorful which complements the noodles perfectly. The stinky tofu is also a good option if you want an appetizer but they're pickled cabbage that came with the dish is way subpar since it was neither sweet, sour or spicy. Best Taiwanese beef noodle in downtown Flushing.
I'm so happy Linny F. held a UYE here. With a large group, we were able to try multiple things. In terms of food, for me this place is the same as Gu Shine, which I gave a 3 stars, but I loved the beef noodle soup here so bumping it up to 4 stars.
This is what our massive group ordered listed with favorites first:
Spicy Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup 香辣牛肉麵 $7.75 – This is what you should come for. Make sure you get the spicy version for extra flavor! The beef is extremely really tender and the broth is very rich and flavorful unlike some other places where it's super weak. The noodles aren't homemade but it does the job of soaking up the delicious soup.
Salt and Pepper Sliced Fish (椒鹽魚片) $12.95 – In general, this is one of my favorite things to eat. The fish had no smell and had a nice crispy, salty exterior. Most definitely ordering this again.
Stinky Tofu (炸臭豆腐) $6.25 – Definitely not the stinkiest I have had. Pretty standard. Because it's fried, it's also considerably less stinky. I actually like the stinky tofu at Red Chopstick better. Marginally more stinky there, and they give you more for roughly the same price at $6.25.
Taiwanese Sausage Fried Rice (香腸炒飯) $7.50 – Yum, I love fried rice. Add Taiwanese sausage and it gets x10 more "xiang".
Three Cup Chicken (三杯雞) $12.95 – Pretty standard three cup chicken, meaning it's delicious. It's listed as having bones, but there aren't too many. This was better than the one at Main Street Imperial, which was much oilier and had really annoying tiny bones that got stuck in your teeth.
Stir-fried Cabbage (炒高麗菜) $12.95 – These were stir-fried to be less salty and was nice after all the heavy items. The cabbage was nice and crisp. They use Taiwanese cabbage as opposed to regular cabbage which makes a difference.
Chinese watercress with Sacha Beef (空心菜沙茶牛) $10.95 – This wasn't my favorite rendition of the dish. The sacha wasn't as strong as I usually like it. For this dish, I like the one they serve at the Taiwanese restaurant in Elmhurst.
Taiwanese Sausage (台灣香腸) $3.00 – Tasty, but definitely store bought. I've had them before where the restaurant made the Taiwanese sausage by hand, but they are cheap so get these.
Kau Fu (烤麩) $6.95 – This is pretty much just braised wheat gluten (麵筋) in really large chunks. The dish is rather sweet, but they add in tasty woodear mushrooms. It's also listed as Baked Barn on the menu in English.
Minced Pork over Rice (滷肉飯) $5 – Out of everything we ordered, this was probably my least favorite. This was listed as 滷肉飯 (braised pork belly) but it's actually 肉燥飯 (minced pork). Taste-wise really bland and they give you a tiny amount of that bland meat too.
Overall, Taiwanese food not bad here, beef noodle soup definitely a winner.
This place was kind of raved about by a few people and for me that is more than enough reason to give this place a shot. I might have went in with higher expectations than that and so disappointment felt even more so.
I came specifically for one thing, The Beef Noodles. And being a borderline beef noodles snob, the presentation I felt it was good. But the food…my expectations was so disappointed that I had to go eat elsewhere afterwards to make up for it. Sucks. The braised beef was bland as bland could be. The soup helped but not enough to save the beef. The noodles was the best part of the meal. The water or tea that they serve had this weird yellowish hue to it. It tasted like watered down Chrysanthemum tea without the Chrysanthemum.
The best thing here is the service.
I'm weary of giving this place another shot. But in an ideal world every place deserves a second chance, no?
R.I.P. Liang's as the search continues…
Yes previous reviews on the spicy beef noodle soup being really good are true. I would recommend only coming here for that though as my friends and I were not impressed with the other items we ordered as the flavors just weren't there, therefore the 1 star deduction.
These are the other dishes we ordered;
– hot and sour soup
– taiwanese sausage with garlic
– spicy beef tendon
– tomato and egg soup
– tomato egg and beef over rice
Decor: just like any other Chinese/ taiwanese restaurant set up in Flushing nothing special that makes them stand apart
Service: we had good service however nothing really note worthy
Since certain yelp boys are giving me a hard time about my old review, here's a new one to shut y'all up! (thanks for the motivation for me to write, tho)
SO~~~ my previous review was written last year PRIOR to their recent renovation and menu… I can proudly bump up another star now all for their BEEF NOODLES~~~ (even if beef noodles ain't your thing, other dishes here are delicious, too!)
As of mid Feb 2015, King's Cafe merged with beloved ex-champ of Taiwanese cuisine, King 5 Noodle House (from one block away). Besides the brand new exterior/interior, they've combined both menus to now feature Taiwanese Railroad Bento boxes AND the top favorite noodles and stirfry that King 5 used to have. Many tables and seats are added to the once barren King Cafe so people can now sit down with friends & family to enjoy a nice meal!
Our favorites:
Spicy Beef Noodle – still the best in town, slow-cooked broth and all. King 5 make their own chili peppers so that's a brand new zing you won't get anywhere else~
Sausage Fried Rice – off menu item, but you can still order it. Like i mentioned in my old review, King 5 is the ONLY (or very very few) place in NYC that has REAL TAIWANESE sausages. It's different from Italian, American, and even Chinese sausages — definitely worth a try.
Pan seared Dumplings – open on both ends so the oil seeps out. Super filled inside un-thick dumpling skin. And something I really appreciate is the dipping sauce being NOT vinegar (usually other joints' easy way out).
Stinky Tofu – for the adventurous foodies who have had this before, y'all know that it's either super hard & cripsy tofu, or soggy tofu that gets thrown in this Taiwanese classic… BUT, King 5's tofu is magically crispy on the outside and soft in the center. While I wish they gave more kimchi on the side, I love the sauce that it's paired with. I would say this dish is 2nd best in town.
Taiwanese Sausages (2 links per order $3) – and if you feel like it, you can just get a side of these babies, straight up. They can come sliced or whole, with garlic on the side, if you so wish to use.
I've yet to try their signature 3-Cup Chicken… but are we ready for that UYE now, guys?!