Trend Restaurant

It’s interesting how there was a mix of Taiwanese and Sichuan here. Like they didnt have a true identity. Guess the formula didnt work in the long run. The upgrade to Sichuan only as Chef Zhao has worked out quite well, so not all endings are bad ones

I used to like this place a lot. Something must have changed over the past few years… I thought they may have better food after they changed the name, so I gave it another try, but I’m still really disappointed… The spicy water boiled fish is still pretty good as usual, spicy wonton is not too bad, but most of the others, especially the non-​spicy food are kinda. meh…
If you ever go there, definitely order the fish and wonton :)

Came here with a large group of 15 people.
The service here is downright offensive. The waitstaff didn’t take anybody’s drink order. After our food started arriving, I asked if they were going to take our drink order. The waiter said «Ok what do you want?» and I ordered iced tea. Then he walked away without taking anyone else’s order.
About 5 minutes later I never got my drink, so I asked a different waiter. 10 minutes go by, still no drink, so I ask a third waitress. I see her go and fill a cup with water and then scoop in powdered Nestea! I took one sip and nearly spat it out because it was so terrible. I ended up having to go to the serving station and pour myself a glass of water just to have something to drink.
A couple people ordered sodas, and the waitress brought them a can of soda with a straw.
This is totally unacceptable behavior for a restaurant to treat their guests with such disrespect. On top of that, how do they manage to make money? Most restaurants make their money on drinks. Drinks are the most profitable thing that any restaurant can sell.
None of the food here was that good. I tried the beef stew and the potatoes and carrots were undercooked and bland. The hot and sour soup was inedible. I couldn’t even force myself to drink a spoonful.
The Mongolian beef and pepper steak was OK but nothing special.
The final bill came to $ 23 per person. I’m not sure how that’s even possible but this place is a major ripoff on top of the other problems.

This is the real deal if you crave authentic Sichuan food with Huei Jiao — sichuanese Chinese peppercorn … Try the crispy fried chicken and water boiled fish .
If you dont like spicy food don’t bother coming here. Portions are very generous …

This is hands down the best chinese food restaurant. Just a couple blocks down from downtown Mt. View, you get twice as good of food for less cost than Castro. We come here almost every week. The owner can make great suggestions as well. We personally love spicy and this place can go really really spicy! Standard great spicy dishes include Spicy Crispy Chicken, Spicy Boiled Fish and Cumin Lamb. Very authentic. The cold dishes are really good as well.
Maybe some of the lower ratings were written by people expecting something else, or their paletes have already been ruined by americanized chinese food. (They do have the usual dishes American folk like, and even those have better style and taste than their panda express counterparts, but i’m telling you, go for the spicy authentic stuff!!!)
Yes, the restaurant doesn’t have any lounge, particular ambiance or hip vibe. Just easy parking, awesome spicy authentic food and reasonable prices.
I personally get sick of paying out of my behind for watered down drinks and food just to support the words ‘bistro’ or ‘fusion’ in the title of a restaurant.
Go here for the spicy food, period.
Go.

Very authentic Ke-​Jia style food. I grew up on this food in a very authentic, first generation immigrant household, so beware — if you didn’t grow up with this, you may not like it; you may not be able to take it. Dishes I got:
Beef noodle soup (non-​spicy) — Hit the spot. The beef was a bit dry, but the flavor was all in the broth, which is the way it’s suppose to be.
Green-​onion pancakes — I believe these were deep-​fried, which is somewhat cheating, but the flavor was good. I would get these again.
(off menu) Ants up a Tree — Spicy. A bit too generous with the red-​chilli oil. It’s good (difficult even to find this dish in the Bay), but spice was a bit over-​powering.
(apps) Seaweed & Tofu. The Tofu was good. Seaweed was a bit too salty. Both had good spice levels.
Dry-​fried green beans — My favorite dish of the night. Very tender green beans. Fried well — not overly dry. The right level of spice. Their veggies are overpriced, in my opinion, but at least the dish we got was done well.
Rice — This dropped the rating for me. A bowl of rice for $ 2 is highway robbery, especially if you are a chili-​oil-​focused restaurant. Not cool.
Overall — They’re obvious pretty good at frying stuff, and maybe tried to shortcut and fry too many things. They are a bit too aggressive with the chili oil, which sacrifices other flavors. The best attribute is that everything had the right flavor — it tasted like it is suppose to, which puts Trend in a very small minority of good authentic Chinese restaurants, IMO. I would come back when in the mood for something spicy.

Such an awkward name for a Chinese restaurant. What’s even more odd is that I overheard the owner telling some other patrons that they have to change the restaurant’s name every 3 months due to IRS issues. Shady? Just a little bit.
Nonetheless, that doesn’t interfere with my food, so I’ll let it slide. For a Chinese restaurant, Trend is actually kind of pricey. For a party of 3, the total came out to be $ 45 for 3 dishes and a bowl of noodles. The restaurant itself is pretty clean. Might be because it’s usually pretty empty here as well. Service is prompt, which is always a plus. There’s no throwing of plates onto the table that I usually expect from Chinese restaurants, so I guess that takes away from some of the authenticity?
I ordered the tan tan men, which was $ 6.95. The size of the portion was decent; neither big nor small. However, the taste was a little on the sweet side. Compared to the other places that serve tan tan men, I’d rate this one a ⁶⁄₁₀. Not horrible, but I wouldn’t order it again.
In addition, we also ordered this spicy pork dish which was actually decent. The only gripe I had with this place in general was that it was a little on the salty side. Not a bad restaurant by any means, but I’m not sure if its on my desired dinner list. Sucks that it’s in a bad location though.

My uncle and my mom took us all out here on separate occasions. Apparently it’s very authentic. It’s a special cuisine developed in the army barracks of the Chinese army that were driven to Taiwan. So all the army wives from different parts of China shared ideas and this is what came out of it.
I’m not a huge fan of Chinese food, but this place is good.

We don’t usually eat spicy but we ventured to Trend because we thought it was Taiwanese food. since it was advertised to be in the newspaper. deceived!!!
The food looked hot and sexy but if I can handle it, it’s not really that hot. Ordered the water cooked fish soup which was okay. My mom ordered the cold noodles which was not good. The sauce tasted too bitter for some reason. We also ordered the intestines with pickled cabbage which was good but they didn’t remove the fat in the intestine (which can easily be done) so the dish was very oily.
While we were waiting for our food, we ordered a few side dishes which were not very good either.
Service was really nice. The menu includes lunch specials which seem to be a better option.

It is not the same owner or chef as before, and I assure you whatever you are going to get will be dramatically different from the photos on Unilocal.
Don’t get fooled by the photos

After reading several positive reviews, we decided to try this restaurant with my relatives from mid-​west. It’s their last weekend here we wanted to try something new. Unfortunately, our experience ended up being one of the worst for a Chinese restaurant.
To give credit to the waiter and waitress, they were nice and helpful in introducing the menu. However all the dishes we ordered were far below our expectation and definitely not worth the price they charge. The pork from Zha Jiang Mian was smelly, the Beef Pancake was all dried and tasteless. Don’t order there Shi Zi Tou either. The meat was just not fresh and so salty and mushy. I was so glad I didn’t get food poison from it. Not to mention how much they charge for a single dish, the quality of the food was just not there for a decent Chinese restaurant.
We didn’t order any hot/​spicy food, which I heard might be different. But fortunately I’ll never have a chance to really know it.

I love this place. And here’s why:
Food: authentic Sichuan (aka Szechuan) Chinese food. Although I don’t have high tolerance of spicy food, their spicy fish is my favorite. It just taste really, really good. Their pea sprout leaves is a nice vegetable dish. Chinese pancake is super delicious. Salt and pepper pork chop was also very yummy. They have many other authentic dishes that I haven’t tried, but they all look delicious! Overall this place gives you good Sichuan food with cheap price.
Service: waiters are all friendly. They probably won’t come by to ask «how is everything» and kiss up on you to get tip, but if you need them they will make sure you are taken care of.
Location/​Parking: near 101; parking lot at the front so you always find a spot to park.
Overall: great place for lunch and dinner!

Third time here!
Our favorites are now the green onion pancake (so crispy and chewy), the spicy beef noodle soup (hand pulled fresh noodles!!) and the spicy friend chicken (mmmm so mouth numbing!)
The service is great if you’re being served by the guys. the girls don’t really speak english and are kinda rude.

A mixed performance here, after we drove an hour from San Francisco due to newspaper article (self-​promo?) in last week’s World Journal. The Lion’s Head was excellent, and one of the best I’ve had, while the dumplings in hot sauce were not tasty at all, and the slow-​cooked fish with Tofu pretty tasteless. We said «ma ma hu hu» and won’t be back here, ads or not…

If you’re looking for traditional Chinese food, Trend is it. I just got back from China, and Trend is definitely the most authentic Szechuan food I’ve found in the whole Bay Area. It’s spicy and delicious, full of meat, and ridiculously cheap. The spicy wantons are incredible, as is the eggplant with basil or eggplant with garlic.
Be warned though, this is very unlike Americanized Chinese food (which I also love). This is traditional Szechuan food (the spicy region of China) and can be a little surprising for people expecting American-​type mushu. Dishes here are much more about the sauce and flavor of a single element, so expect chicken with a single vegetable and a lot of (somewhat oily) sauce. Do not expect eight types of vegetables mixed with meat, although they’ll make it for you if you ask them nicely.
Anyway, this place is cheap, spicy, and freaking delicious. Eat here!

This location has changed hands so many times, me thinks the Feng Shui (characters meaning wind and water) here is not so good. Could it be fart and urine? From some old non Asian restaurant to a few iterations of Cantonese and finally to Sichuan, until recently. The English name has remained, and supposedly one of the Trend Sichuan chefs is still in the kitchen, but the Chinese name has changed.
It’s now «Piao Hsiang Ju» if my sucky Mandarin is correct, instead of Chuan Wai Chuan (Sichuan outside of Sichuan). It is said they hired a Taiwanese chef to prepare what is supposedly military dependent village cuisine, who supposedly grew up in one of those designated areas. And it turned out the other Sichuanese chef grew up in one of the military camps in China, and I suppose the owners went «duh» and the new formula was born.
So what is Jurn Chun/​military dependent village cooking? See Joe L’s fantastic explanation in his writeup of Liang’s in Cupertino, a supposedly more authentic MDV Taiwanese style, who does a much better job from what I know. You can also think of it as a mish mash of non Canto Chinese, like a melting pot (think of the diversity of Asian in Hawaiian minus the fusion, in parallel). Now Sun’s in San Mateo can no longer make the claim they are the only folks to do so. And Taiwanese expats get fooled very easily into thinking they are getting something unique.
Trend’s menu has «authentic Tu Hsiao Yeh Tainan noodle».
I bet it’s not anything like THIS
Not foolin’ me!
7:30 pm on pre-​Memorial Day Saturday, and suddenly Trend became Taiwanese overflow central. People waiting outside the door, unthunkable. Even overheard people leaving saying that last week the place was empty. I guess advertising in the Chinese local media paid off.
Food was slow. Menu is all over the map, but if you can read shorthand form Chinese, look for a white board near the receptionist area for the MDV supposed specials. The thing is, it feels like a crapshoot with ordering, even with the supposed paid advertising writeup (the author probably got hooked up with no wait).
Supposedly the lion’s head meatballs are good (entirely made by hand) but they sold out. The manager decided to recommend their Taiwanese stewed striped bass with garlic and tofu ($ 12.95) that they proudly claim is imported from Taiwan (re: purchased from Tien Tien market) and unfortunately it was not stellar (fish meat was very chewy, unlike fresh striped bass if you can score it off the tanks in the South Bay A$N markets). In retrrospect we should have picked the bottom item from the specials board: rock sugar goji berry pork shoulder thingy.
This might just be the only restaurant in town that serves the exotic noodle known as Crossing Bridge Noodle (Guo Chiao Mi Xien). 8 years ago, Z&Y in Chinatown (before it became 100% Sichuan) offered this as well and it was way better, but alas no more. CBN is actually Yunnanese in nature. The rumored origins of this noodle goes something along the lines of a scholar who decided to study his final exams on an island (in isolation) separated by a bridge. His wife wanted to bring him cooked food from home and discovered that a hearty chicken soup with a layer of chicken fatty oil would keep the broth warm, and she packed up additional ingredients and noodles separately, then served them together.
We didn’t get the wife bring the stuff to the table, but the waitstaff brough over a plate of mixed stuff (bean sprouts, yuba/​tofu skin but didn’t bother cutting it up so it was one big sheet, chicken, pork, scallions, shrimp. The noodle was a lot thicker than Z&Y’s, but not bad. Stock was decent. Huge portion, ran about $ 8. If Z&Y’s was considered authentic, then this was average in comparison, but the most delicious item of the evening.
Pork and chive dumplings… oh man mondo screwup. It was undercooked. They took it away, then 20+ mins later, still did not replace it until we asked. Then server came back and put it on our table. We thought, sheeeeeit did they just boil it some more? Nope… they somehow morphed into pork and cabbage dumplings. Skins were mildly chewy and decent but the insides didn’t jive right. :-(
Pretty obvious that these guys can’t handle crowds and scale. Worse was that the receptionist started on her first day that night, and not so sure what to do! If you’re going to advertise to get the A$Ns to come in droves, better learn to be able to scale and keep the flow going. Obviously they need more time and work. I hear Liang’s is having the same problem. This is what happens when the «new Hawaiian» hits the Taiwanese dining community.

Yep. When I came here with JM, I didn’t expect much– I just wanted some buns! So we ordered shen jian bao (pan-​fried pork buns), sweet potato cakes, xiao long bao (XLB), wontons in red chili oil and… and JM ordered crispy eggplant.
The sweet potato cakes came first and they were absolutely unexpectedly delicious! Thin crisp outer shell with a chewy sweet potato inside! I was pleasantly surprised!
The crispy eggplant was next and I was in heaven! The eggplant is cut into circles, tempura’d, then tossed in sweet chili garlic sauce! Amazing! The flavour and texture is aweeeesome.
Next came the xiao long bao, and they were pretty tasty. Not as good as other places, but decent. The meat was a bit too thick and there was not enough juice in the bao itself. But still satisfied the craving. :)
Then the shen jian bao… they looked really tasty, but there was more bread than meat and the flavour was not FABULOUS. These did not satisfay my craving. :|
And then the wontons in red chili oil, which had an awesome flavour– they add orange zest to it, but this as well did not satisfy my craving.
But truly, the sweet potato cakes and the crispy eggplant are enough for me to want to come back. Just learned the lesson that we should simply order the dishes next time, not the buns (but I’ll still order xiao long bao!)
Noms… :) The full video will be posted on
sometime in the near future. :)
See you on twitter! @tastytwosome @ladyleet

I tried Trend Restaurant on Sun 11÷9÷08 with a bunch of chowhounds. I thought everything was just ok. Some dishes better than others.
FREE pickled veggies given before ordering was fine. A bit spicy.
A10 Five Spice Rolled Bean Curd — just ok. I didn’t notice much heat.
a21 spicy beef combo (tendon and tripe) — spicy w/​lots of garlic & peanuts
pig ears — just ok
fried chicken w/​peppers — didn’t try it
smoked Chinese bacon — tasty for what it is, tiny amount of meat & fat.
n17 hot and spicy pork shoulder (with baby bok choy) — fine, meaty w/​some veggies.
Chinese leeks pancake $ 4.25 — tasty, w/​leeks, eggs, & glass noodles in a pan-​fried pancake.
dry fried intestines — not fried, kinda mushy so not that good.
pumpkin cake (4) = $ 4.25 –each round cake was cut in half for sharing. Very oily, but served hot w/​a red bean paste. Tasted fine.
Catfish in spicy chili sauce — It was fine to me, I like catfish.
A-​choy w/​garlic — tasty sauteed veggies.
Big leaf pea sprouts — tasty sauteed veggies w/​garlic.
d13 chongqing style spicy beer sauce duck (in «warm pot») (with mushrooms) — not very good, not much meat & too salty.
pork & napa cabbage dumplings (12) $ 6.50 — I thought the one dumpling I tried was good. I liked dumplings. It’s the water dumpling kind, not xlb.
Hand made noodle — tasted ok, not my favorite. Doughy and not very tasty.
Our table of 10 split the bill which was $ 21 pp.
Separate bathrooms in the front. Woman’s is just one toilet/​sink.
Located in the Moffett Plaza. Cross street: Cypress Point Dr.

When you first sit down at Trend, they will bring you a little plate of cold spicy pickled cabbage and carrots. It tastes great, and the smell transports me back to China. I would go back for that alone!
Trend has become a new favorite for me. I have been craving shui zhu yü pian (water boiled fish pieces) since leaving China, and this place delivers. As others have pointed out, «boiled» isn’t entirely accurate; the fish slices are bathed in an oily, moderately spicy broth and covered with roasted chili peppers. The chilies give the dish more fragrance than heat.
Another favorite is ma po tofu, but as it is routinely served, it’s short on the numbing component of the seasoning. Now, when I order the dish, I ask them to use additional Sichuan peppercorns (prickly ash) and the results are tasty and authentic.
Don’t come here and order sweet and sour pork; stick with the earthy, emphatically-​seasoned Sichuan specialties and you won’t be disappointed. I agree with some other reviewers, Trend’s Sichuan dishes aren’t as spicy as I’d like, but that could probably be remedied by asking them to make it a little hotter when you order.
Service is friendly. The staff always seem happy to have us there. Most seem a little clueless yet eager to please, even if they’re not quite sure how. There’s no attitude like at some places where they act as if they’re doing you a favor to serve you and take your money.

I went there for the FIRST time yesterday and I ordered:
— chongqing chicken (spelling!!!), YUM!!! but I wish it was spicier
— Fish soup with pickled cabbage, YUM!!! but Little Szechuan in San Mateo does a better job. coz they put more cabbage n it’s a bit more sour.
— Numbling Beef dish, this was a recommendation of the «Manager?» because I told him I wanted something authentic n spicy. and LOVE it so much!!! I will certainly go back and order again.
— Special A-​Vegetable sauteed with garlic… not too special but very YUMM although it’s pretty oily. but heiii it’s a Chinese Restaurant. everything is oily.
The Manager was very friendly and personable. he helped me choosing from the menu. They also sell «homemade chilly oil» and he told me that I should first try their food and see if I like it. and if I do, then come back to buy the chilly oil. seems like a pretty honest guy n not trying to rip me off. lol