Aruba

This is the 3^nd time I’ve tried this place. It was the Bento photos on the window that got my attention. The menu is less confusing now compare to my 1^st visit and they have more drinks and combos to choose from. The portions are bigger. The smell and taste of the food sure reminds me of taipei alot. I’m starting to like this place.

3.5 stars.
The menu is confusing, but I followed my friend and ordered a combo. There are three choices for about $ 7 – 8. I got Ivan’s, which came with tempura, sponge tofu, cabbage, enoki mushrooms, pork belly, and knife cut noodles. If you want a more unique combo, you can do the first one (forgot the name), which comes with pig ear and chicken gizzard. All combos come with a tea (black, green, or wintermelon). You can sub a milk tea with boba for an additional $ 1.
The combo meal is really filling and pretty tasty. It’s a very unique meal that I haven’t seen anywhere else before. It reminds me of home-​style cooking with the soy sauce-​based flavors. The only downside is that the meat was tough, and the knife cut noodles seemed store-​bought and too much like regular noodles.
Restaurant is super small, since it is meant to be Taiwanese street food. There are a few counter seats and only one table for 3. $ 10 credit card minimum.

I visited Taipei about 12 years ago and seriously considered moving there for the food and culture scene. Today, eating at this noodle place brought back some amazing memories of Taipei. I HAVE NOT HAD SOMETHING SO DELICIOUS IN A LONG TIME!
I need to find a way to return to this place to try other combination. I’m thinking the duck wings and maybe the cuttlefish balls. Can I buy the sauce they put in the noodles?!

Ordered the Taiwanese Pork Chop Bento which is pretty yummy (except the only half of the meat is fully cooked). It’s pretty big portion and it comes with bean curd, steamed rice, cooked cabbage and two slices of radish. Very reasonable price!!! Will definitely come back for something else :)
This place also has really delicious oolong milk tea and high mountain milk tea!

Snack size Taiwanese food. $ 3 for 2 choices!

I will say this… The moment I walked into this place — I was instantly reminded of how the night markets/​streets smell in Taiwan. Oh sweet sweet Taiwan, how I long for thee.
The place itself is like some reviews say — smack dab in the middle of two Teaways. It’s not too hard to miss.
The food items are all relatively inexpensive. if you don’t order too much. They have a pretty big menu with typical Taiwanese street food.
The food itself was mediocre. I can’t really say too much. It wasn’t amazing but it wasn’t terrible either. But then again, you can’t really go wrong with seaweed. and pork intestines. meshed together. «Lu“‘ed together. Uhm. Hm.
I will say this though — the level of Taiwanese-​ness might scare people away a bit. So I’m not too sure about the future of this place — it’s still relatively new though.

Got kids running this place with no customer service skills. We were standing there for minutes trying to figure out how to order and they didn’t offer to help. As for the food, it wasn’t good. Good luck!

Today is my second time visit and I noticed that they’ve come out with a new menu. This menu made it less difficult for me to order as a vegetarian. I got the healthy combo with knife-​cut noodle. QQ tofu was always my favorite and the food did taste better than last time and was less oily and salty.
I honestly like the concept that customers are able to pick the toppings they like and add noodles if they want to to create their own orders. Last time I picked two toppings and one udon. It only cost me five bucks. I think this place has very reasonable price and I highly recommend to you guys.

Before I went there, i was so excited and can’t wait for trying the Taiwanese food because there’s no Taiwanese marinated food in bay area (at least I have never heard about it besides Taiwanese restaurant).
Store is not very big, and there’s a few seats for customer to sit down. Some food came out in a small portion. However, it is okay for me coz I like to order a lot of different things when I order food. So I got a bowl with all balls, cabbage, wings and etc and the other is the noodle. But it is over $ 10 Food taste quality is in average. But it could be better.
Tips for other customer, you will feel thirsty while you are eating noodles and enoki mushroom or anything will absorb the sauce easily. Food is not very salty but i feel a little bit more thirsty in every minute, but they taste so good. Hahahaa so if you order those things, remember order the drink from them although they only sell few kinds of drink (not milk tea, not boba) not fancy drink that especially attracting kids as target to crave with like next door Teaway and quickly. Blah!!! Tapioca drink is too much for my life two years ago.
Customer service is okay, not bad.
Overall, not depressed this time. Im willing to go again since they just opened around two months. Hope it will be better and surprise me next time
Customer service rate: 3.5÷5
Food quantity: ³⁄₅ some are ok, some are little bit small
Taste: 3.8÷5 some are no flavor coz not enough time, some are perfect to me
Time: at least five minutes although it is only 2 – 3 customers (understandable, not a fast food!!!)

The Food sucks. 2÷10… Tw street food being a 10. Pig ear is horrible. And that’s my favorite.

«Lu Wei» is a common street food in Taiwan. As a Taiwanese, I was very excited to drive for 30 mins to try it. I was very disappointed due to the service and experience.
The store deco is awful. Operation was a mass. Hard to understand the menu and pricing (price was outside the store.) 3 out of 8 things I ordered was out of stock. The casher seems didn’t know how to use the pos system well. The casher keep asking the kitchen if they have certain items. The store was too small since the put seats so I had to wait outside after I ordered. It was a long wait after ordered but there was only one guest before me.
The whole serving experience about «Lu Wei» in Taiwan is like Chipolate/​Subway — you ordered food or took food by yourselves and then the cooked it right away, but Aruba didn’t provide that experience. You ordered, you got your food in a box.
Overall, I think then owner didn’t put soul and heart to the store — I feel they were doing it as «just a store to make some money.» That made me mad — if you don’t try hard to offer the food and experience, then don’t tell people you are serving Taiwanese food; Taiwan is known for its delicious street food but your way of doing business is shame for Taiwan.
Ok, now let’s talk about the food. «Lu Wei» is all about the sauce. The sauce was plant. Not only I felt so, when we were in the store, the guest next to us also said exactly the same thing. The pork intestine was under-​cook, duck tongue was ok but a bit fishy, and tofu was not enough flavor even with the sauce. Also, the portion was small, I spent $ 13 to get only one bowl. I ordered two orders of pig ears and only got 5 tiny pieces — each of them are smaller than one piece of McDonald fries.

I really like their service, and the food taste so good, knife cut noodle is my favorite n I always like to get a winter melon tea for drink. I would like to try the winter melon milk tea next time :)

Aruba’a menu is difficult to understand. combo has a list of items for 3.50? checking reviews., combo looks like a sampler.
the specials board, $ 2@? price not posted.
foods listed are not grilled but marinated in soy sauce. so every item will probably taste the same.
eats: knife cut noodle (spec., 2)
–wide noodle ala fetticunge, nice light chew to it
soy sauce flavoring, some msg tasted. good value, small portion
gizzard/​duck wing (2/​$ 3)
–gizzard sliced in pieces, served in dish, whole duck wing, all soy marinated.
hard to assign value, nothing special.
4 stars for novelty, value 3 stars,
take outs:
–2, 3 seats for eat in
–items «cooked» to order.
–doubtful return, not a soy sauce fan, flavor one dimensional.

Love the concept. Food wasn’t bad but it also wasn’t good either. My high mountain tea was overly sweet and I wanted milk tea but they didn’t have milk.
This place has potential on Irving. Hopefully food will taste better the next time I try.

The concept of this place is ground breaking. I have never seen any place like this in SF. The idea of this place really brings back a lot of memory about Taiwanese food.
The flavor was okay. Not bad. However, there’s no «pig blood cake“aka“豬血糕» on the menu is a gigantic let down. I 100% understand some food items are not available here in the States. «Pig blood cake» is available in almost every major Chinese grocery store. So I don’t feel so Taiwanese about this place after all.
I guess if you want to claim yourself «Taiwanese,» some Taiwanese will check you out.

You know that feeling when you want to eat something but you’re not hungry enough to be willing to slurge all your money on food but you just want something nice to eat to satisfy your cravings anyway? And you don’t want to just buy a snack, you want some real food? Well this place is the way to go.
I’ve been frequently stopping by this place and each time I come here it’s been improving bit by bit. Expect a bit of a long wait (about 5 min or so) though since they make everything upon order.
There’s a 2 items for $ 3 deal going on and they just recently had a special combo menu to choose from. They also have a selection of drinks too that I need to try soon. The workers were really nice and are open to any questions you have about their menu.
Today I ordered Combo A: Pork Intestine/​Beef Tripe+QQ Tofu/​Sponge Tofu/​Five Spice Tofu+Veggie (cabbage, broccoli, green beans, romaine lettuce)
There were some other combos which I can’t remember clearly but they also included chicken gizzard, pork heart, chicken wing, duck wing, and all that good stuff. Combos range from $ 3-​$ 3.50 so I guess it’s pretty good for the price.
If you want something more filling just add some noodles in there and you’re good to go.
Not much seating area since it’s sorta cramped in there so it’s more of a to-​go place but you’re gonna be a happy camper walking out the door anyway as you hold that warm bowl of deliciousness.
I just wish they give bigger portions though. The combo bowl I got today only had a few thin slices of pork intestine, a moderate amount of tofu, and a truckload of cabbage dunked in their sauce/​broth like MAAAAAN C’MON.
3.5 stars

Aruba is pretty much Taiwanese street food in a hole-​in-​the-​wall crammed between two Teaways. It still looks super new — the menu screens are barely up. But they have a «2 for $ 3» special. Basically, you can pick 2 items from their menu and they’ll put it in a little cup with some greens and sauce. Pretty good. They also have daily specials or something like that that aren’t on the menu screens on the wall.
Very different from anything else in the area, I think. Definitely worth a try. Tasty and not pricey.