Redi To Go

So sad this place was so short lived. Nothing ever survive the space that is 111 E 4^th, and I really thought Redi To Go and Mango Garden would be the exception, but alas they too could not do it.
We love the bentos here, especially the house special cuz you get a bunch of different meats. Also the mini hot pots. Their personal hot pots are just as good if not better than Fashion Wok in Foster City and way more convenient (we don’t have to drive!), but all that is gone.
They also had Red Hot Wok’s shaved ice, which is so fluffy and flavorful.
Hopefully they come back to San Mateo in a different location soon!

4 stars for their bento boxes, which are a good deal for the quality and quantity. Taking this to go is HIGHLY recommended, since we tried eating in over the weekend and it took half an hour to get our food, and the servers were super disorganized. The worst part was, we were one of only a few tables when we arrived, so it wasn’t like they were busy. We tried:
–Combination Bento (w/​Taiwanese Sausage, Pork Chop, Chicken Roll, Served w/​Rice, Picked Mustard Greens, Fried Tofu, Stir-​Fried Broccoli, $ 11.95,
): Yum! This was an awesome bento to get if you want to try a lot of different items. I actually liked the pork chop pieces the best, since they didn’t give you an actual giant pork chop, but rather small pieces of marinated pork chop. The chicken roll was also flavorful and pretty good, and the Taiwanese sausage solid. I would definitely get this bento again!
–Grilled Onion Short Ribs Bento (Served w/​Rice, Picked Mustard Greens, Fried Tofu, Stir-​Fried Broccoli, $ 11.95,
): Good flavor and a giant portion of short ribs, but the beef was really chewy and the sauce was oily. The beef needed more of a sear, and they also give you a mound of onions, so definitely not the best first date food. I wouldn’t get this one again.
–Tea Eggs ($ 1.50/Egg): Delicious, and very flavorful– recommended!
–Three Cup Chicken Bento (Served w/​Rice, Picked Mustard Greens, Fried Tofu, Stir-​Fried Broccoli, $ 9.95,
): Yum– I really liked the flavor of their chicken, and it was cooked well. The sauce was great with the rice and the other bento box items– recommended!
Overall, I will definitely be back to try their other bento box items, but will plan to get it to-​go the next time around. The servers were nice, but could definitely use additional training. Parking is always difficult in Downtown San Mateo, especially during the lunch and dinner rushes, on the weekends and weekdays.

This is my friends go to Taiwanese place. I opted for their go to dish, the house special bento box. It contains the Taiwanese sausage, pork chop, chicken roll, and 2 vegetable sides for the price of $ 11.95. The vegetable sides differ, but mine came with daikon and lotus roots/​celery.
This restaurant is quite small and only seats a few people. We came on a Saturday night and were promptly seated. The bento box tasted very authentic and was absolutely delicious!
I can’t wait to try this place again.

Redi To Go had been on my list of bookmarks for quite awhile mostly because I was curious about the whole Taiwanese cuisine served in a bento box idea. Tonight I finally tried it since lately I’ve been eating at the same San Mateo restaurants over and over again. Besides that the restaurant was empty when I walked by tonight as opposed to recent occasions when it was packed. As mentioned by other reviewers the tiny space seats no more than 17, and they share a kitchen and restroom facilities with the Mango Garden restaurant next door.
Greeted by the young lady who acts as server and waitress I was directed to take my own seat. A menu and a tumbler filled with room temperature water was brought to me along with a basket filled with napkins and disposable chopsticks. The menu itself is rather simple with a generous variety of bento box dinners, mini hot pot, appetizers, Taiwanese shaved ice desserts and tea drinks.
I happen to love short ribs and there are four types of preparations to choose from among the bento boxes. I ordered the Grilled Onion Short Ribs Bento and later added a Lemon Black Tea to my order. A small bowl of Hot and Sour Soup was brought out to me and I slurped it up right away. It was actually pretty good its consistency not very thick or thin with slivers of crunchy bamboo shoot, a bit of tofu and egg whites mixed in.
The food came out super fast. The wait was no more than 5 minutes. Only the short ribs were cooked to order. All of the other components of the bento are precooked and kept in warming dishes. I dug right in. The rice had a bit of pork and preserved vegetable added on top which I liked because it reminded me of my youth and eating home cooked meals in Chinatown. Also good was the simple stir fry of lotus root, celery, a little bit of green bell pepper and small cuts of bbq pork mixed in. The Shanghai bok choy was prepared rather simple with just a bit of minced garlic much like how I would handle the same ingredient when cooking at home. Seems it was so far so good until I tried the main entrée.
The short rib was cut in a variety of sizes some big, some small and most right through the bone. While the seasoning was tasty these short ribs were extremely chewy easily the chewiest short ribs I’ve ever had. That’s saying a lot because I’m hella old and that’s a lot of short ribs I’ve had. Throw in the fact that one piece had that peculiar funky taste of meat having sat in the refrigerator for too long completely turned my experience more to the negative side.
The Lemon Black Tea was cold and refreshing with just the right balance of fresh lemon to black tea. It’s slightly sweetened which surprised me. It didn’t state so on the menu and the black tea listed right above it is unsweetened which led me to believe both were. Luckily the sweetness is fairly light.
My server/​waitress was friendly and efficient but a bit poorly trained. I asked her what the Chicken Roll on their appetizer menu was and she didn’t know. I asked for a description but she couldn’t give me that either. She did make the extra effort of looking for and finding a photo of it to show me, and even though it was only a thumbnail I appreciate the extra effort. I blame her bosses for not training her properly. Anyway I tipped her over 20 percent which probably was more than most would.
My rating? More like 2.5 stars, but I won’t be back either.

I like the easy order photos, you point which one you like, you order at the counter, and viola, it’s ready in 10 minutes. Any of their bento is good, but I particularly like their Ground Pork with Egg and veggie. It’s really good and very tasty. Prices are reasonable, and if you pay cash you save 5%. Defintely a great Taiwaneese place to dine in or takeout.
Until then, Cheers! ~ :p

It’s so hard to find a good Taiwanese restaurant without driving all the way to the South Bay, so I was extremely excited when Redi To Go showed up in San Mateo. When they first opened, it was a buffet counter with various Taiwanese dishes, which I LOVED. They’ve changed their menu a couple times since then, and now it’s bento boxes and hotpot for the most part. It’s still really good, but I really miss the buffet counter so I could choose exactly what side dishes I wanted.
The bento boxes come with your choice of entrée, minced pork rice, pickled veggies, and 2 side dishes. You don’t get to choose the side dishes, but they are different every time and usually yummy. ^_​_​_​_​^ I have gotten the Salt & Pepper Pork Chop and Black Pepper Shrimp/​Seafood and have yet to be disappointed. I got their Beef Noodle Soup once and it was also pretty good (I mean, not as good as in Taiwan, but what can you do? :P) Their popcorn chicken is super authentic, very salty and flavorful, with crunchy fried basil leaves mixed in.
They give you a complimentary bowl of soup (also different each time) as an appetizer before your meal, and also complimentary mango shaved ice dessert afterward, which I think is a really nice touch. The price is not too bad, considering the portion sizes are really large and you get soup and dessert. The service has always been good and it’s never been so busy that I had to wait for a table. I have to try the hotpot sometime, but every time I go, I always end up getting a bento because it’s so good… I hope this place sticks around so I can stop by whenever I feel homesick for Taiwan! :)
Allergy warning: The minced pork sauce for their rice has peanuts in it. So if you have a nut allergy, watch out!

Part of Redi to Go is at the back of Mango Garden, a larger restaurant. This in itself isn’t necessarily a problem, but when we were sitted there, we were pretty much forgotten for a long time and had to walk to the counter to make an order.
The house special bento is big and contains a good variety of delectable Taiwanese meat, both the Taiwanese sausage and ribs are very good. The tiny hotpot however, is quite disappointing. We ordered the spicy soup base with beef, and while the portion is pretty hearty with more than enough to be shared among two, the taste is a bit lacking.
Fashion Wok in Foster City offers better quality and value hotpots. Complimentary soup and shaved ice.

I came here with my family for dinner one night. I was very intrigued by the concept of having your own mini hot pot.
My dad and I had the seafood hot pot and my mom ordered the lamb hot pot. The soup was tasty, the seafood was okay for it’s price. My mom’s lamb hotpot was really good, I wished I ordered hers. Each hot pot comes with a drink of your choice, it can be boba or tea. This dinner was very satisfying especially during a cold night!
I would definitely come back and try their bento boxes, I heard many good things about those :)

This place is really small, maybe four or five tables and booths. It’s attached to Mango Garden, so when we came we got a little bit confused as to which restaurant we are in. We ordered one individual hot pot, which ended up being enough for two people (as long as you’re not super duper hungry). This place is pretty small, so it probably wouldn’t be good for big groups.
They gave us complimentary egg drop and corn soup. The hot pot also comes with a drink. We got the green tea, and the guy was nice enough to split it into two individual cups for us. In this respect, the service was pretty good! The only thing is that I think our server spoke Chinese and not really much English.
The individual hot pot we got was the original soup flavor (no spiciness) with lamb. It comes with some veggies, meat, tofu, fish cake, and thin vermicelli noodles. It also comes with a side of rice. It was decent, but not outstanding in terms of flavor — but maybe this is because I prefer spicier foods/​soups. The tea and complimentary egg drop soup were both good though. It was quite cheap too, $ 22 for two people — for the hot pot, the complimentary soup and drink, and a side of rice.
This place also seems to have a Chinese menu written on the board that has things like beef noodle soup. If I was to come here again (which I probably will), I would like to try the beef noodle soup and the bento boxes (which everyone seems to rave about). Most people who were in here with us actually had the bento boxes.

Ordered Pork Chop bento… Came with tomato eggs, tofu with bok choy, pickled mustard, rice and egg drop soup… Food is definitely yummy.
Food is enough to share between 2 people (order additional side of rice)… Btw, it is not ready to go as they took me 10 min to get my stuff — maybe I went during busy time. But nonetheless, the dude have me a Taiwanese iced tea for free.

It is a small Taiwanese hot pot restaurant. The staff members were friendly but kept talking to me in Chinese until I said” I don’t understand”. It tried bento box there. The amount was more than enough and the foods were pretty oily, so I couldn’t enjoy eating them.
But I really enjoyed mango shaved ice there. It was one of the best shaved ice. There were a lot of fresh mangoes on top of ice, its sweetness and taste were perfect. I’ll definitely come back for the dessert.

Awesome Taiwanese bento
Best 3 cups ginger basil chicken ever.
Succulent and great taste for value

*Dessert Only Review*
Service was nice, we ordered 2 small shaved ice but decided to change last minute to large and when we went to tell her she said she wouldn’t charge us.
Mango was fresh, juicy, and not too sweet. The strawberry shaved ice on the other hand was way too sweet and tasted super artificial!
Overall Thoughts
I’ll stick with the mango shaved ice and look forward to coming back to try their mini hot pot options

Awesome Taiwanese food!!! Place is small but the food and service are great, reasonably priced as well. I love the meat sauce on rice, and the peppery popcorn chicken!

Solid taiwanese food. Eating hot pot here and drinking passion fruit green tea with aiyu reminds me of Taiwan a lot, which I like. My boyfriend usually gets the bento boxes and is a big fan. There is a lot of food, so I think price for quantity is very worth it.
My biggest gripe is the inconsistency with side dishes. Sometimes we’ll order more than one bento and they will have different sides. There are some I prefer over others, so it would be nice if they could let us know what options there are so we can pick.
Overall still good and we stop here quite frequently when we’re heading up to SF or on our way back down.

Craving Taiwanese food but not willing to drive down to south bay or Milpitas for some, I stumbled upon this little joint. It is a little side café off to the side of Mango Garden.
We ordered the House Special Bento which came with 2 Taiwanese sausage, 4 chicken rolls, ground pork rice, and some sort of veggy, and this broccoli and beef/​pork? side. We also accidentally ordered another side of ground pork rice.
The Taiwanese sausage was tasty but not amazing. It was kind of dry compared to what I am used to and the flavor didn’t pop out.
The chicken rolls were the same way. They had extra sauce drizzled on top I guess to try and give it more flavor but, again, not really flavorful.
The ground pork rice (both the side and the one that came with the bento) was only okay. There was barely any actual pork on it and the sauce was thin and, again, only slightly flavorful. This isn’t your mom’s ground pork rice with that great savory sauce and extra helping of pork belly. The tea egg on the side was average as well.
Overall, an average place for the things we got. I do want to go back to try the hot pot since that seemed to be what everyone else was getting when I was there.

Ordered their House Special Bento, a Tomato base Beef hotpot and Taiwanese milk tea. Food was average, service was good.
The House Special Bento is a great choice to try out the various meat that they have. You get Taiwanese Sausage, Pork chop and chicken roll, all of the meat tasted great. The bento came with rice, vegetables and potatoes, unfortunately, all were cold and rather tasteless.
Hotpot was the reason why we decided to visit, trying to satisfy a hotpot craving. It’s called a mini hotpot, we were expecting it to be tiny, but it turned out jammed pack with goodies. The tomato based turned out tasting weird, more like thick sauce than soup which caused made everything in the pot taste weird. I might visit again but if I do, I’ll probably stick to either the Redi Spicy Pot or the Original Pot.

I got the minced pork over rice and my parents both got some bento box combos. Everything was delicious, fast and affordable.
The place shares a space with Mango and is very small. Expect a wait if you want to dine in.
My minced pork over rice tasted very… Japanese to me? Haha that’s okay though, I just thought it was interesting. It may have been the type of rice they use — the big fluffy kind. It was still very tasty.
Decent portions — we brought home a boxful of leftovers!

Another star for the wonderful staff here.
They are always so friendly, patient and considerate. The food here is good with generous portions as well.
Thank you for giving us wonderful and awesome service always!!! :D

Small, to-​go style taiwanese food joint
The place is crazily heavily decorated given that it’s mainly serving to-​go food. They clearly spent a non-​trivial amount of money renovating the inside to make it look new and clean, even though it’s fairly small inside and the seats are limited
The food is pretty good, especially the beef noodles, which was Huge. One bowl of that beef noodles is equivalent to a normal size of 2 bowls at other places. The noodles were great – soft and chewy, with the spice soup sticking to it as you grab it up to eat it. The beef was ok – a little chewy, so maybe a little overcooked, but overall it tasted very good with the spicy soup soaked into it. The best thing of all was the little pieces of cabbages on top – biting into one of those while eating the noodles or drinking the soup really added depth to the entire experience!
Overall, recommend stopping by.