Ai Noodle

This review is just for the beef noodle soup here. I thought it was pretty meh. I ordered it with thin noodles, and I really liked the noodles! They weren’t overcooked and were just the right level of chewy. The beef tendon was really good as well. Wasn’t a fan of the beef though… I thought it tasted kind of funny. I also didn’t like how you only get ONE thing of bok choy. It would have been nice if they included more veggies. The soup was also very oily… so I didn’t drink that much of it.
Prices are decent. I think the beef noodle soup was $ 7.50 or something? Service here is hella slow though so be prepared to wait a while for your food. All in all, I probably won’t be back.

omg i so love love taiwanese breakfast and this is the only place i know in the bay area that serves it. people if you know another, PLEASE let me know. now that i live in sf, i dont come to cupertino often or early enough b/​c breakfast is only served until a certain time. i went with my taiwanese friend and ordered dishes taht i’ve never gotten before. SO GOOD
we ordered prob a bit too much for 4 people but these were my favorites:
— TOFU & THOUSAND YEAR OLD EGG: hands down my favorite. the tofu was SO flavorful. i dont konw what they did to it
— SALTY soy milk — they add toppings to the milk which makes it so good
— sweet soy milk — basically soy milk plus sugar. def get salty instead
— beef noodle soup — b/​c you’re here why not, we ordered two, prob not the best place for it but it was still satisfactory
— sticky rice roll with dried pork — not exactly if thats the right description in english but its so yummy! i always get that for breakfast bc its the only time you can order it!
— onion pancake — its not a taiwanese breakfast w/​o these! i prefer the thinner ones to the thicker pancakes (but the thicker pancakes come with meat if you want to add it)
my only thing about this place that i don’t like is the service. we came on early and there were literally only 2 – 3 tables with people including ours and also at one point, we were the only table. there were at least 2 – 3 servers and we were IGNORED the entire time. we had to wave them down plus it’s not like language was a barrier since my friends spoke mandarin. they just chose to be lazy. but i still keep coming back bc the food is delicious and you never expect good service at a chinese place but at least that’s usually when they’re busy!

Bad service, noodle quality is way worse than the previous AJ noodle. Will not go back.

Decided to check out Ai Noodle because it was a rainy day. Had to wait about 10mins during Sunday brunch time which wasn’t bad.
Ordered the spicy beef noodle soup with fat noodles, thousand layer turnip cake and pan fried beef dumpling thing that came with two pieces. The spicy beef noodle was just alright. The broth wasn’t that tasty and it was also greasy. The meat was good. Wish it came with more greens as there was only 1 piece of bok choi in it.
The thousand layer turnip cake was interesting. Loved how it was crunchy and lots of layers, but overall it was pretty tasteless. Had to dip it in soy sauce to get some flavor. The pan fried beef dumpling thing was pretty much the best thing here. Be careful when you’re biting into it because there’s some juice in there. I made the mistake of quickly biting into it and all the hot juice squirt out. eeps!
I think there’s definitely better places for beef noodle soup so I probably wouldn’t come back here for that. Maybe just to try it the other appetizers.
Note: this place is cash only!

Came here for lunch on a weekday to meet up with a friend who recommended it. We both got beef noodle soups, fried chicken, and a stinky tofu. The soup was good and not too salty and the noodles were nice and thick which is great if you like having more substantial noodles. The fried chicken was juicy and crispy, the most important things for fried chicken. They were also topped with Chinese mustard greens which really complimented the chicken.
Last but not least we had the stinky tofu. You wouldn’t go into a smelly bathroom and start thinking «boy is this making me hungry!» However, the stinky tofu tastes way better than the smell. I have only had it twice before, but each time it always surprises me how it doesn’t taste like poop. I highly recommend it!

This place was recommended by a friend who is Taiwanese so I had to check it out. The beef noodles soup was ones of the better one I’ve had. I like the hint of spiciness in the broth and the noodles was nice and chewy. The meat was really tender as well.
Though, the best dish that we got there was the pork chop. MUST GET. You can get a side order of it instead of the entire rice plate. It is delicious and it goes well in the beef noodles soup.
I would skip the XLB, it’s a bit dry (no soup popping out at you) and the meat to dough ratio is all off.

Used to be called A&J Noodle a few years back. Been here sporadically throughout the years, but if you want yummy Taiwanese food that’s affordable, it’s always a good place to go. Some of my favorites are Spicy and Sour noodles and the Beef Noodle Soup. Service is fairly straight forward as you order your foods by marking what you want on a sheet of paper provided, and then the waiter or waitress comes by and confirms your order. For noodle dishes they then ask if you want fat or thin noodles. I usually go for thick noodles nom nom nom.
I kind of forgot this place existed because I used to hate fighting for parking at Cupertino Village, but it’s gotten much better with the addition of the parking garage. Hopefully, I will find myself back here more often as I really do enjoy the food!

It has been 30 minutes since I placed my order. It’s not busy here. The kitchen has a lot of commotion but orders are not coming out. This is a sleeper of a Sunday surprise. Hope they fix their logistical issues.

The taste is not good. I felt the beef soup taste like water adding soy sauce. The DanDan Noodle is not for real, no minced pork nor vegetables, plain noodle mix with sesame oil. The green onion cake is very thick and oily. :(Not coming back at all. I am also surprised by the bad food and service that they are still operating :(

Fairly poor customer service. Walked in and waited a while to be seated because waitresses were too busy talking amongst themselves. Sat down and got the hot and spicy soup along with the thousand layered pancake and the potstickers. Being appetizers the potstickers and pancake should’ve came out first, but our noodle soup came out first. None the less a problem as we were eating our noodle soup, our pancake came out midway. Both noodle soup and pancake tasted fairly bland. The noodles tasted fresh and homemade though.
As we finished our dishes and asked for our check, we realized we never received out potstickers. Since we were already done we decided that we no longer wanted it. As our check came, the waitress then remembered our potstickers and brought them out. As we told her that we longer wanted it, she referred to the other waitres about it. She came over with a great attitude and told us that we could not take it back because it was already done. As we argued that it should’ve came out earlier the excuse given was that «it takes a long time to make it» we had no other choice to take it to go. Never had to deal with such difficult customer service before. Don’t think we’ll be coming back here again.

Wasnt expecting much based on some of the other folks i know that have been. However late weekend lunches offer only so many choices and we decided to get some Asian since itd been out of rotation for a while. I know the Taiwanese like their beef noodle soup but i honestly never liked it. So i went for the pork chop Imperial, lamb with scallions and beef tripe in hot oil. Food was actually pretty decent. Service seems a bit curt and grumpy and the ambiance is fairly non existent. I think the lamb was the winner and would do that again. Other stuff was fine but there are definitely other comparable or better Taiwanese joints out there

Something feels like this is juusssttt a bit off from the old A&Js. The carbs are heavy here, like more heavy handed than I remember A&J being. All of the noodles are solid here, very obviously fresh and maybe even hand made, but the broth and meats are to be desired (chewy, stringy, sparse). The rice balls are heavy on rice and light on filling. Overall, its hard to find an A&J’s type place around here and AI does a solid job, but I miss A&Js.

Disappointing. I had such a good experience eating NRM that it brought up hopes. I got regular NRM instead of spicy NRM, and perhaps that was my mistake. But the biggest qualm was that the meat wasn’t tender at all, and I felt like I was eating rocks (barely any juicy meat with lots of tendon/​fat).
There wasn’t enough meat portions so I was stuck with a whole bowl of noodles. Sigh. Must try a new place next time.

Pig ears! Best appetizer there, ohhh and dont forget about their spicy cucumber. Mmmm love it.
Their beef noodle soup is aight maybe 3.5÷5 and they give lots of noodle.

We ordered the beef noodle soup and the hot and spicy beef and tendon noodle soup. I must say that we loved the spicy one over the non-​spicy beef noodle soup.
I highly recommend the Chive with Pork Dumplings. The wrap is chewy (al dente). The filling is full of flavor that bursts into your mouth as you take a bite.
All our other dishes were tasty. We were not disappointed.
Service was good.

Despite the owner change, my family still comes pretty often for our beef noodle soup cravings. My only complaint is that the broth doesn’t feel as indepth as before. I used to slurp the soup down easy, but now a days I find myself reaching for the soy sauce to try to add salt? umami? into the broth.
I always get the noodle soup with tendon and its always on point. Always had the thin noodles and its always perfect for me (probably too mushy for those who like al dente).
Green onion pancake is on the thicker side, but delicious. Bean curd noodles is good.
Can’t remember if they take card, but I always have cash just for this place. Parking can get busy during peak hours at the plaza in particular.

I missed the old a&j noodle place… But I guess this new ai noodle place is aiiiite. Sometimes u walk in and you can smell the stinky tofu in the air. I usually get the beef tendon noodle soup with the onion pancake which is a good combo. Service is usually on the slower end so that’s a minus… Oh yeah cash only…
More to come later…

My cousin told me about this place and recommended their spicy beef noodle soup. So on a rainy night after work, I decided to grab myself a bowl of this comforting noodle soup.
Despite the name, the soup isn’t spicy at all, more like peppery. But it was flavorful and the beef was tender. What stood out in the dish was the handmade noodles. I asked for thick noodles and they were not disappointing at all.
We also ordered their meat buns and the thousand layer pancake to share. Both were pretty good.
So for 3 bowls of noodle soup and 2 appetizers/​side dishes, our total came to be about $ 40 with tax and tip. Very reasonable. Each bowl was about $ 8. Relatively cheap to me! But they are cash only.
Service is not the best and the workers aren’t friendly at all. But all they need to do is take your order and hand over your food!

The food looked way better than it tasted, maybe I had high hopes since it’s hard to find dishes like this. But I was disappointed in the lack of flavors resulted from cutting corners.
FOOD
*Soy Milk*: the ratio of soy bean to water was like 1 to 100. There was no soy flavor. Not to mention our was served Luke warm.
*Turnip Cake* really flaky and greasy but the inside tasted funny. It had a strong stinky turnip and not that sweet deliciousness. Perhaps didn’t use good daikon to make it. Or that the filling was old.
*Pig Ears* pure pig ears. Nothing else on this dish. Good flavor but was much pig ear for me.
*Sticky Rice Roll * had it last time and it was good. Can’t go wrong with it.
*Thousand Layer Pancake* beautiful layers and really greasy and the oil had some aftertaste. This was one thing that was up to par in production but ingredients not so much.
It might have been just a bad day being that it’s Sunday and super busy.
SERVICE
Efficient! it’s a Chinese place. Don’t expect it. But they did their best to get you seated quickly and served as soon as its available.

Ai was homeless and living in a hotel… so, Ai had the chance to eat out all the time and really wanted to try something new! Ai was told that this was the former A&J that used to serve up a mighty delicious spicy beef noodle bowl and thus was ready to spice up my appetite!
Well, Ai was so disappointed. The noodles were of a fatter type and they tasted fine, but the broth was super oily and the beef tasted like Mark Yuckerberg… definitely NOT poking it!
On another occasion, Ai got the non-​spicy beef noodle soup. The noodles were nice and chewy, but the broth lacked any seasonings. And in it, was a disgusting piece of gnawy meat.
Service…oh do Ai have to butcher them even more? Yes, unfortunately Ai do, for the service (or lack thereof) was horrible too :(
All in all, I was thoroughly put off by Ai in general and suffice it to say, I’ll be taking my homelessness-​eat-​out-​extravaganza elsewhere.