Secret Recipe

Not too bad but not good also. Food is average. The place is quite dark and smell. Not really a good place if u want to get lunch break… Your mood will go down… Hope the place would become brighter and more energy

Lawdy, but this was some good food! We were with a very large group that probably took up most of the restaurant on a Saturday night. Our one long table (we had two others) ordered in two groups so we could enjoy a more family style. So one person from our little group went to the counter to place the order and within about 15 minutes or so our food started coming out, so I’m not too sure where all the bad reviews came from about how slow it was. As for waiter service, there wasn’t any. Our drinks were self serve at the machine, with refills up to us, which was fine. The only service is when they bring out the food.
There is nothing confusing about the place. Yes, the menu is ridiculously large. So grab a menu, take a seat and choose what suits you. Order at the counter and they’ll bring you the food when it’s ready. Done and done. I’ve been to dozens of other places just like this. It’s not a pretty place. No one will refill your iced tea but you. But I don’t notice or care about things like that when my snout is buried in a ginormous bowl of decently-​priced wonderfulness.
Anyoo let’s get to the food our group of four had… and we kept to the Southeast Asian recipes:
— Water spinach with Sambol — Delicious. Each bite was better than the last. Had a bit of spice to it too, which was great.
— Sliced Crispy Pork — Gorgeous on the dish and pre-​sliced, but not enough. We had a struggle getting it apart. But it was good with a nice crunch to the skin.
— Penang Char Koay Kak — Yummy and had quite a few different meats and textures.
— KL Hokkien Mee — An interesting noodle dish with seafood and pork… looked like worms but day-​um, it was delish!
— Rendang Goat — OH… heaven to me! I love a good curry and I love goat. Definitely would order again!
— Malaysian Curry Laksa rice noodles — Sweet child of mine… definitely the best of the bunch, and that was a mighty fine bunch! The flavors, the spice level, the different ingredients… so, so very good.
I was also able to taste the grilled stingray that someone at the next table ordered. It was beautifully presented and tasted… like a nice fish. And it looked nearly impossible to eat easily.
The food here is terrific with huge portions. Don’t miss it!

The food was delicious! This is a self-​serve style restaurant. The staff were very friendly and helpful. The prices were very reasonable, better than many restaurants. We had the crispy chicken, pineapple fried rice, pork in Malaysian sweet sauce, and Chinese vegetables. We will definitely come back again!

Wondering if I can give «-» or «0» star… so i’m still good person by giving 1 star.
On my last visit got super bad experience. Arrived on Tue ⁰¹⁄₁₂ evening around 7 PM, then I made order for crispy chicken and carrot cake. Saw only around 4 – 5 tables occupied. Carrot cake came after around 45 mins waiting but not my crispy chicken.
After waiting almost 1.5 hrs total, my crispy chicken still not coming. Between 1.5 hrs waiting, server kept coming telling «crispy chicken is almost ready» but in reality never come at all. Then my wife asked for refund and the owner just simply said «it was chaotic» even without saying sorry at all.
After that I left the store, the cook came out and said «sorry» but it was too late and wasted my precious 90 minutes just for crispy chicken?
Won’t come again until they change the way they handle customer and ethics.
BR/​Herlan

If I could give this place 6 stars, I would. Excellent food in taste and ridiculous in portion. I usually always finish my food at other restaurants, but always find myself taking some home at Secret Recipe.
Beyond the food, I think the service is some of the best, if not the best, I’ve experienced. The owners really care about whether you liked your food, if there’s anything they can do better for you, and making sure you are satisfied enough to come again. Since I end up taking food home (because they give you so much at such a cheap price), the owners always take the time to personally ask if it was good, and if there’s anything yo be done better, to not hesitate to say so. It’s always greatly appreciated. When I come here, I feel like a valued customer, which is something that seems rare.
Highly recommended.

First of all, I want to tell everyone that this place is a wonderful hidden gem! Oh man, their dish flavors reminded me of when I visited Singapore, and the surrounding region. This restaurant offers many dishes with bold spices, and flavors. And did I mention Delicious?!
As a Vegetarian, I was impressed that every dish that they have on their menu could be converted to my vegetarian needs. Which is AWESOME in my view of an excellent restaurant. With that stated, they converted the Malaysian Curry Laksa Egg Noodles which usually is made with Beef or Chicken to a Vegetarian version. It was DELICIOUS!!!
Note: If you’re a Vegetarian like me and you’re trying this restaurant for the first time. I highly recommend the «Vegetarian Malaysian Curry Laksa Egg Noodles»
Vegetarian Malaysian Curry Laksa Egg Noodles: Coconut-​based curry soup with egg vermicelli noddles.
Note: This place ONLY takes cash!!!

I am going to be very clear: the food here is spectacular! I could eat every single day. I love the flavors, the different cuisines represented here and all. I can forget anything else and just focus on the food and it’s all good! I couldn’t care less if they only take cash. The food is all that matter.
Then we go to the service again. The staff have changed, the manager is the same, which I like a lot. It is good to go back to a restaurant and see familiar faces, when they are nice! Very nice, accommodating, attentive manager and wait staff.
What is lacking? The same as the other location. Order or kitchen management. The point is the food takes some time to get to you because when an order is placed they cook the entire order (let’s say 2 app, 2 entrees). They do not bring first the apps and later the entrees. This time I had no problem, I had just 8 people little later in the evening, everything worked well. But I just noticed the «glitch» because a friend put on order before me and he had about 6 dishes! I needed to wait to all his food to be served to get mine, then the person who ordered after me waited for all my food to come out and so on. Again, be prepared for it and just go. You won’t regret at all, just dont go too hungry, you might need to wait a little.
So, yes, owner, the ball is with you!

I agree with the reviewer who said Lion City was 10x better. This is a decent place if you just really need to get your fix of Malaysian food but they really did NOT knock it out of the ballpark. We got the HL Hokkien Mee, sambal fried eggs, and roti canai. Eggs were way, way overcooked between hardboiling and frying, and sambal was surprisingly bland with not much flavor. Roti canai was good — roti was fluffy but curry part was just okay; again, had mediocre flavoring. Hokkien mee was my favorite dish but could have used a bit more punch — perhaps a little more salt or chile? Steamed rice that came with the eggs was shockingly dry and hard — seemed like it had been sitting around all day instead of being recently cooked. Barely edible, but will make for a good repurposing for some fried rice.
Overall, we went because we happened to be close by but I wouldn’t go out of my way to come back here again.

I went there just to try the Malaysian curry laksa, but there are so many wide selections of Thai, Cantonese, Taiwanese, and Indian cuisine.
Please always remember to bring cash and you have to go to the front desk for your orders to be taken.
It’s a hidden place if you want to have a wide flavor of different stuff.

Save your money and time and go Asian Delights nearby for much better food and option to pay with credit card! The food at this new location is mediocre and service was poor. We ordered roti canai. The chicken curry was watery and had a large piece of chicken skin in it. Also ordered sambal fried rice, salted fish fried rice, and beef rendang. The fried rices were dry and low on flavor. The beef rendang was the best item we ordered. It had good flavor. We didn’t realize this place was cash only. Over $ 50 for 3 entrees + appetizer. We didn’t have the cash. I went to the bank ATM nearby and was able to get cash. But the guy at the register was rude about it. Next time we crave Malaysian and in Plano, will go to Asian Delights on Custer and Parker (about a mile away) instead.

I normally don’t write reviews after the first time I visit a place, but the food was so good that I couldn’t resist holding my good words inside me!
As soon as we sat down we were given a menu which was more like a booklet. The count of dishes they had were huge! It took me probably 20 – 30 mins to just browse through the selection of food. the best part of the menu is that they have a picture of all the items they serve which makes it easier to guess what the food will look like.
We went in a group of 7 so could order many things and got to try a lot of the food.
To order the food we have to go up front and order. The other thing is they don’t accept cards, cash only! :(
Coming back to food, the selection was so much that it actually confused me what to get and what not. Its like you want to try everything that is available but can’t. I eventually ordered 2 appetizers and an entrée! Everyone in our group did order at least one appetizer and an entrée so we got to share and taste everything.
Appetizers tried: Crabcake Rangoon, Pot Stickers, Chicken Satay, roti something… All of them were amazing. I jsut couldn’t stop at one even though I had to share them :(
I got the Goat Rendang as entrée, which had an amazing taste with perfect amount of spices to have the taste stay in your mouth and the goat was so tender that you could actually savour that with the spices.
The other entrees were amazing too… the names of which I don’t remember. One was the number N7 which is not at all spice and good taste.
Overall this will be my go to place for the next month or more till I taste all of the dishes they have! :)

I feel bad writing this review because I really wanted to like this place (especially since we frequently visited the Carrollton location).
Yesterday we picked up some food on the way home from Secret Recipe, and decided to stick with some of the Unilocal favorites like Roasted Hainanese Chicken, Sambal Fried Rice and Penang Char Kueow Tai (the flat noodles). In summary all were dismal!
The Hainanese roast chicken was definitely not roasted but fried and it was bone dry. We felt like we were eating fried pieces of cardboard. Also the oil they used to try it had a stale aroma… yuck!
The sambal fried rice — ditto, completely dry and some of the rice was uncooked.
The Penang flat noodles — devoid of taste and more importantly salt (how’s that possible for an asian dish???). They were also mushy and clumpy.
I think Lion City is 100X better than this place. It was really disappointing to spend $ 28 dollars and drive 15 minutes for this food and then turn around and have to throw it in the trash. Our subsequent business is going to Lion City.

I wanted to love this restaurant but it was meh. I’m rating this place 3 stars because I still think it has some potential and I may come back for the noodle dishes. The lady who served us was very attentive and greeted us immediately when we entered the restaurant. Their Tuesday Special was the reason that we were there since my favorite Singaporean restaurant– Lion City is now under a new management and I cant find any other places that sells Hainanese Chicken Rice in the area besides Secret Recipe. Their Tuesday Special has $ 4.99 Hainanese Chicken Rice. You really get what you pay for. The chicken is much smaller and not as juicy as the Lion City one. The orange garlicky sauce tastes watered down and the brown sauce wasn’t salty enough. I was not impressed at all. We also ordered the Fried Soft-​Shell Crab with salted eggs. It was good and filling but I just don’t think the portion was worth $ 13. The iced thai tea was flavorless and not the best. It’ CASH ONLY just like most of the Chinese restaurants.

We came to Secret Recipe for dinner one night because 1) there were great Unilocal reviews, and 2) my mother-​in-​law ate here recently and really liked it. Maybe we ordered the wrong dishes but our experience was anything but good.
It’s a really confusing setup inside. Apparently you’re supposed to walk to the counter, get a menu (which took awhile because the owner/​manager was chatting away on the phone while browsing on the computer and hardly looked up to hand us the menus; red flag #1), sit down and pour over their ridiculously long menu (red flat #2), go back to the counter to order, and then sit back down to wait forever for your food.
We ordered dishes from both the front half (more ‘Americanized’) and back half (more ‘authentic Southeast Asian’) of the menu and I was disappointed with every single one. Salt and pepper calamari came out practically white (instead of golden) with zero seasoning. We had fried rice and a noodle dish, both of which were bland (so I had to make several trips to the self-​serve sauce and condiment station). Fried char-​siu (which sounded interesting) was super duper dry.
The only ‘redeeming’ thing was that the portion sizes are quite large.
Worse than mediocre food with poor service? No thanks.

OMG HUGE portions. We ordered three items and had leftovers to fill two large containers. Really great tasty food. Love the ambiance and the manager Shirley is really fun to talk to.
There is no need to tip as it is a self-​service spot. They have a very wide variety of Asian food, Korean, Malaysian, Thai… etc. I will be back!

Fast casual dining set up where you order at the register. Service was friendly and attentive and the dining room was very clean.
The dish I ordered, pineapple fried rice, had too many vegetables and a bland flavor. Not bad, but not great either. The homemade soy milk I had with it rocked my world though! It was so good I got 2 more to go even. I would come back here specifically for the soy milk.

Been there twice over the past two days.
I really enjoyed their food and their prices are very fair, if not amazing.
Chicken rice: I tried the chicken rice yesterday, roasted and steamed. It was a tad dry, but overall very flavorful and more importantly, the rice was very good. Though, my mom thought the rice was raw.
Cantonese flat noodle: Today, I tried the Cantonese flat noodle and curry noodles. The curry was spectacular and Cantonese flat noodle was also very good.
Curry puffs: The curry puffs were okay. My mom said it was really good, and I split half with a friend but mine didn’t seem to have very much meat, perhaps he got the better half. I’ll have to try it again.
Service: Self serve. They bring food out to you. I like this set up because I get exactly what I want without having to bug anyone, and I don’t have to tip as much, saving me money! I still do though since they clean up after me. Staff is overall friendly, though one girl seemed like she didn’t really care much or perhaps she was just tired.
Prices/​Portion: Very good. They have daily specials which are great and good portion. Something they claimed to have that their first restaurant didn’t have. Unfortunately I wasn’t as impressed with their original place in Carrollton a few years ago after trying out once, perhaps I should give it another shot.
Conclusion: ⁹⁄₁₀. Very good. Highly recommended!

Many friends recommended the Secret Recipe in Carrollton to me for a long time but I never had a chance to try it since I live in Plano. I also heard that the Carrollton location was so busy that usually people have to wait in line to get their food.
I am so glad that they opened the Plano restaurant just 4 minutes drive away from my home. Finally I checked it out last weekend and the food were as GOOD as I expected!
I ordered 马拉西亚肉酱豆腐（Tofu with Minced Pork）and 咖喱海鲜面（Seafood Laksa）and they were both Great!
The Tofu with Malaysia meat paste was a big chunk of Tofu poured with Malaysia meat paste. The surface of the Tofu has been fried somehow and taste crunchy, however the inside of the Tofu were very soft like pudding. The meat paste looks salty but actually not.
The Curry Seafood Noodle was so good. A little sour, spicy and sweat. Not as strong as Indian and Thai curry but more smooth and fragrant.
It’s cash only and more like a help-​yourself serve style. You order at the cashier desk and pay first. You also have to help yourself with drinks and sauces. But the price was reasonable and the food was AWESOME so I can’t complain.
PS: Special dish for Tuesday all day: 海南鸡饭（Hainanese Roast Chicken Rice）for ONLY $ 4.99 and 咖喱叻沙面（Curry Laksa） for ONLY $ 5.99 on Wednesday all day. Nice choice for office person nearby.
Tips: The Americanized Asian food are in the first several pages of the menu and the more authentic Southeast Asian food are in the back half pages of the menu.

Having lunch with my wife, who suggested this recent expansion of ‘Secret Recipe’ in Carrollton.
She ordered seafood Laksa; I ordered a vermicelli noodle soup with fried garlic. Together, we also enjoyed a perfectly prepared water spinach!
We also ordered their crispy chicken for our sons to enjoy later.
You HAVE TO try this place. Note: CASH ONLY.

If you’ve been to the Carrollton location, this Plano location is no stranger to you! Same great food, great variety of Southeast Asian cuisine, and nowhere else in DFW you can find such great food!
If this your first Malaysian food adventure, and if are adventurous, try the spicy food, like curry laksa, nasi lemak, etc. If you are not that adventurous, you won’t go wrong with Hainanese chicken rice (either roasted or steamed are great!), KL Hokkien noodle, Singaporean noodle, Char Kuey Tiew. Oh, don’t forget the appetizers like satay, roti canai, rojak. They are really great hawker food!
I will continue to brag this great place by many more words, but it is definitely worth to try it yourself, especially the Carrollton location has been too far for you to travel. This new location is definitely my new reason of having more Secret Recipe!