Andy’s Seafood & Grill

Horrible service. My husband placed a simple delivery order and after more than an hour since the original order placement and with repeated calls to check in on the order, we still don’t have our food. Unfortunately, I am unable to comment on the food since I haven’t even received it yet. It should go without saying that a restaurant who can’t fulfill a simple order is not a restaurant anyone should dine at. You would be lucky to get your food before you pass out from starvation.
I will never order from this place again. Appalling service with no remorse. Ridiculous.

2 ½ stars. John and Sally took me here describing the place as very home-​cooked tasting like meals. I honestly wasn’t too impressed. The main thing was all the food was over salted, I suspect a lot of MSG. And that’s not home-​cooked at all. And despite what people may think about MSG, MSG takes away the real flavor of foods so this is a real no-​go, despite the fact that I did like what I saw on the menu. Only thing I’d say batted a 3 was the whole fried fish. Everything else was a pass for me.

Incredible food. There is nothing here not delicious.
Best Taiwanese hamburgers anywhere. These guys are incredible.

It is OK, but the quality of the food isn’t consistent and when I passed by the place recently, I noticed it received a «B» rating from government inspectors. I’ve avoided eating there since I noticed the sub-​par rating.
In the past, I’ve eaten and enjoyed the popcorn chicken, calamari, and Taiwanese burger. I would avoid eating the lunch specials. Unfortunately for me, once I ordered the spicy fish lunch special and it was VERY oily and not really spicy.
The place is also often empty or semi-​empty. I prefer eating at a more lively place (i.e. more people, but NOT crowded).
I would still order appetizers for there as take-​out, but I wouldn’t eat inside as it’s a bit eerie, boring, and depressing.

Uh-​oh. What is happening to this place? I used to do take-​out fairly often but seems that in the last year the quality of food isn’t as good as when they first opened. Surprisingly they are still Michelin ‘recommended’.
A few nights ago I decided to introduce my parents to this place for Taiwanese dinner. I know they are usually more critical but unfortunately i have to agree with a lot of their comments. It was a Sunday night but the dining room is fairly quiet. There are only 2 ladies working — one cashier and one waitress. They weren’t the most attentive as I sat for about 10 minutes before asking for water and then another 5 minutes before they decided to put some place settings on the table.
Dishes we ordered: Popcorn chicken, sauteed eggplant, 3 cup chicken, diced chicken and shrimp, braised pork shoulder, bean sheet with edamame and taiwanese hamburger. Most of the dishes came out room temp which is a big offense to my parents. They like to get their food HOT. Too much cornstarch slurry for the sauteed dishes. The best dishes were popcorn chicken since it was very flavorful and eggplant. I didn’t personally have the Taiwanese burger but my sister thought the meat was bland and no where near Ippudo or Momofuku pork bun. Everyone else at the table seemed to enjoy this appetizer.
Overall, its still a decent Chinese casual eatery that I’m sure will still be on my list of local eats.

Andy’s is my go-​to place for Taiwanese cuisine, when I don’t feel like driving to Flushing… which…is…always.
For a good stretch of time, the boyfriend and I were ordering from Andy’s at least once a week, and the meals have been pretty consistent for us.
Taiwanese Hamburger — sometimes a little fatty but always delicious. Good thing two come with an order.
Scallion Pancake — Eh. We ordered it once, said «eh» and that was that.
Seafood Taro Roll — smaller than I imagined and a little greasy for me but not bad. Reminded me of stuffed fried taro that we sometimes get at dim sum, but in roll form. The boyfriend seemed to like them a lot since he ate 3 out of the 4 in the container.
Meatball (Appetizer) — we were confused when we ordered this the first time. Taking another look at the menu now, I think they gave us the wrong order and gave us sticky rice with gravy instead? The boyfriend thought it would be an appetizer portion of the Meatball entrée, which (to us) was the equivalent of Chinese style meatloaf.
Ginger Clam Soup — simple and was what was expected. Good ginger flavor with a handful of little clams.
Seafood Tofu Soup — I love seafood, I love tofu, I love soup so no complaints here! It’s my comfort food. Especially when I’m not feeling well.
Sliced Beef and Tripe with Hot Pepper Sauce — the boyfriend doesn’t care for cold appetizers but I usually order this when I want something to pick at.
Clams with Basil — the container was packed with onions and scallions but there were still a good number of clams in there. I devoured it happily… and hungrily.
The couples’ meal is actually a good pretty good deal. The portions are a little smaller but it comes with a soup. Now that the boyfriend and I are doing our post-​holiday diet, it’s perfect for us. Meatball with Napa Cabbage seems to be the boyfriend’s default order but he’s tried the Beef with Tomato & Egg and enjoyed it. Fish Filet with Mixed Vegetables and Tofu with Baby Shrimp (not spicy) are both nice, healthy-​ish meals for me.
So, if you couldn’t tell by everything I listed above, we definitely like this place enough to keep going back… and back… and back… boy do I have a hankering for Chinese food now…

Delivery spot for me. Actually I treat it like a second kitchen if I am too lazy to drive to Flushing. I am Taiwanese, Fobbily so, so I consider myself a good indicator of Taiwanese food. The food is pretty good and the price is reasonable if you buy the entrée combos. The delivery is fast and the guy is pretty friendly. The Taiwanese snacks are mostly spot on. If I were to order Chinese food for delivery, this place usually is my default.
Only con is that the food is inconsistent. I mean not a quality kind of way but in the actual cooking. I get the same dishes sometimes and the results can be slightly varied, not in a bad way, but in like a different sauce is being used kind of way. It’s like different chefs cook on different days, sometimes its oily, sometimes not, etc.

This place is a decent queens restaurant. I’ve gone here twice and have enjoyed each visit. Service is attentive and friendly and the place is spacious and clean.
The standout dish of both meals was the meat bowl. My boyfriend loves their meat bowl and ordered it both times. Simple, tasty and homely is what it’s all about.
We ordered a slew of dishes and while each one was tasty and hit the spot, there was nothing outstanding to Unilocal about. I recommend trying their hamburger steak because it was good, but I didn’t think it was as amazing as I’ve previously had in other Taiwanese restaurants.
I don’t think that this is spectacular food fare and coming in with high expectations will surely lead to disappointment. What this place does offer is consistency. Consistent service and satisfying food. If you are in the neighborhood, I would definitely recommend you check it out.

Be wary of what you eat in this restaurant. I story about POOR HYGIENE.
I have been ordering from Andy’s for about a year now and was overall happy with the food. The prices are okay and the dishes were quite authentic. There were a few minor mishap with some order and once while using
to order dinner or order was cancelled but we didn’t know about it until an hour later.
Today Andy’s Seafood and Grill Taiwanese Cuisine goes to the bottom of list of restaurant to go to.
There was a DEAD FLY in my food hidden in their sauce and the manager actually questioned whether my claim was legit. (SEE PHOTOS)
Since I have been pregnant I have order countless time by phone, Dining-​In or picking up in May 2011. They have a computer tracking system to document delivery orders to see that I am a loyal customer. Sadly because my timing was off my claim have been brushed off.
THE STORY:
Around 1PM on a Saturday, I was feel a bit sick and my throat was sore. Wanting to eat healthy I told my husband that I wanted to order some soup for lunch from Andy’s.
I ordered a Tofu mixed Veggie Soup and my husband ordered a Beef Stew Noodle Soup and because dinner time wasn’t too far away we decided to order a Sauteed Chicken and Baby Shrimp (Ch13) Entrée that comes with some separate white rice for Dinner as well.
The food came pretty quickly. We gobbled up our soup which wasn’t that tasty but hey its warm soup and it helped my throat. Then we put the chicken and shrimp dish into the fridge and I took a nap afterwards until it was dinner time.
About 6:30 PM I started to feel hungry and got up to warm up the rice and Chicken and Shrimp. As I spooned the chicken and shrimp over the rice, I noticed that there wasn’t much diced meat and a lot more huge veggies (mostly Zucchini, bleh) in the dish. This was a trend for most of their dishes plus the use of flatter containers to show the appearance of having more. This didn’t bother me too much since their is a recession going on so you do what you can to save money. What bother me was the fact that I started to eat my dinner and then noticed a FLY that was BIGGER than some of the grains of rice laying next to it.
EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW­WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!
My husband dropped his fork and started to rinse his mouth as did I and then I phoned the restaurant. To sum up the long phone conversation, they asked me whether or not I «LIKED» the food!!! or if there was a «MISTAKE?!!» They never apologies and questioned me if I still had the food why did I call so late and so on. At the end of the phone call I was told that they would give me $ 10.75 credit for my next order. I told them that I want to use it now because I don’t have any dinner which she replied, «Sorry we are too busy to delivery to you can you come pick it up instead!!!
You know what ANDY’s «You can take the $ 10.75 and shove it up your @$$! You filthy animals.»

I came here twice on the same week. My first experience left me coming back for more but my second visit left more to be desired.
My first time here was not planned. I had just finished shopping at Marshalls across the street and my belly was grumbling. Since I’ve never tried this place, I thought I’d give it a go. Service was nice and attentive. I ordered the jellyfish with sesame oil and lamb with cumin sauce. The jellyfish was rather bland even with the sesame oil tossed in it (I much preferred the Hong Kong ones with pickled radish served on the side). The lamb with cumin dish was strings of lamb stir fried in a fragrant cumin sauce with strips of green peppers. It was a great dish, best eaten with fluffy white rice.
Satisfied with the food, I ordered more food to go so that my tummy will love me even more come dinner time. This time, I got the popcorn chicken with basil (appetizer), kung pao chicken and for my vegetarian partner, spicy bean curd with pork sans pork. The popcorn chicken with basil was rather bland and the kung pao chicken turned out to be more like the Americanized takeout ones that the authentic kung pao (OK, fine. I mixed up Taiwanese and Szechuan food). The spicy bean curd was delicious though.
Realizing how wonderful this place is, I went again a few days later with my partner. Again, very nice and attentive staff. I was there around 8pm and it was just us and another table. The phone was ringing non stop though so the delay in food must be from the non stop delivery phone calls. As the kitchen tried to churn out as many dishes as they can, I began to sense a breach of integrity of their food. Kitchen staff were shouting. Waitstaff ran back and forth from the kitchen to the front desk with bags of food. Alas, our dinner finally came.
I ordered the lamb with cumin sauce and squid with basil. NOT GOOD. My lamb dish looked and tasted totally different than what I had days ago. I also found a piece of plastic in my dish. Fun. The squid with basil was cooked using frozen squid. The whole dish was tasteless (there was like less than 5 basil leaves in there).
I don’t think I’ll be coming back again. If I do, I’d probably come for lunch seeing that they can’t really run a business when it’s busy.

The more I continue to explore Rego Park, the more impressed I am with the variety of international cuisines available in this eclectic hood. Everything about it supports the notion that Queens is the most diverse area of the country. So it’s fitting that Andy’s, a Taiwanese joint joints the rest of the international parade along Queens Blvd, churning out quality Taiwanese eats in the process.
Typically Asian establishments in a largely non-​Asian hood skimp out on the menu and shoot for short cuts to cater to the community palate. Chinese takeout joints, faux-​Korean food, laughable Viet phở, eye rolling Japanese sushi at cheap-​o prices is all too familiar. Sometimes they end up combining powers like Captain Planet (#1) (
), pulling off Thai-​Japanese, Chinese-​Viet, Korean-​Japanese, etc. Thankfully, this doesn’t apply to Andy’s.
Their menu is reasonably priced and still features a good load of traditional dishes often found in authentic Taiwanese joints. Sure, there’s crab rangoon and general tso’s on the menu, but there’s also huoji ruofan (turkey rice), lu rou fan (ground fatty pork over rice), chou dou fu (stinky tofu), o-​a-​chian (oyster pancake), youyu geng (cuttlefish soup with fish paste), danshui agei (fried tofu with cellophane noodles), and much more. How often does that variety co-​exist with the typical chino takeout? Almost never.
Surprisingly, it’s all very reasonably priced. It’s on par with the Flushing price tag, if not better. Most of the appetizers are within the $ 3 – 7 range and things get more pricey once the family platters are involved ($ 8 – 17). The lunch specials are an incredible deal for $ 4.99, which I believe comes with a drink.
The food is probably somewhere between a 3.5−4. It’s not mind blowing but it certainly does a pretty solid job of keeping the cravings in check. My Taiwanese go-​to paigu fan (pork chop over rice) is a solid lunch special choice and I could do any of the aforementioned dishes without much hesitation. The stinky tofu could stand to be a bit stinkier, but that involves some serious marination that I don’t think the NY DOH would appreciate.
The infamous «Taiwanese hamburger» that Andy’s is known for is really just a pork belly bun (
), with crushed peanuts and some cilantro for some aromatic effect. It is tasty, but at $ 4 is nearing Momofuku and Ippudo prices ($ 4.50), which is no bueno considering this place is in Queens and is not high end.
In the end, Andy’s is a solid spot for folks to get their Taiwanese eats on. It isn’t going to break the bank or scintillate the tastebuds in the same way the Flushing competition might. Stick with the appetizer dishes and the variety of traditional dishes, and life won’t suck. After all, It is Rego Park /​Forest Hills’ best (and only) Taiwanese option.
_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​
(#1) Though not nearly as environmentally friendly.

My mom left to China for a month recently so I’m stuck cooking for myself all the time…
LUCKILY I live in a neighborhood that offers authentic taiwanese food for delivery and it’s actually pretty darn good. One of the obvious choices to order from here is their taiwanese hamburgers (2 burgers in every order). It’s little pieces of pork belly in a sweet plain bun topped with some garnishes and condiments. YUMM
I also had prawns with walnuts but I was a little grossed out from it. First off, it only came with like 6 prawns and the rest was broccoli drenched in mayonnaise. eek! and the prawns weren’t cleaned properly if you know what I mean.
The steamed bok choy entrée was cooked properly (you know when it’s bright green) but it was rather expensive for just vegetables ($ 14!)
The only thing that I would come back for are the taiwanese hamburgers but that’s it.
I miss my mama’s cooking.

I think they changed chef’s. The food is no longer of good quality, the last time I ordered my oyster pancake from here, it was mediocre and the sauce on top was very bland. Bland sauce covering bland oyster pancake with way too much cornstarch.
Since my last review, I’ve given the Taiwanese pork chop two tries and both times it was done badly. They tasted like regular pork chops that someone coated with eggs and breadcrumbs and flash fried. They didn’t have any Asian flavor to them at all nor do they resemble any pork chops I’ve ever seen at any Taiwanese restaurant.
The Taiwanese thick noodle soups — FAIL. They’re not thick at all and yes I’ve just about tried them all. Quite bland too, where’s the fried shallots and garlic?
The only thing still good here is the stinky fried tofu and the Taiwanese burgers. Although they’re definitely skimping on the filling in the burgers now. I used to order from this place at least twice a month, but now it’s very infrequent.
My last attempt at this place, I picked up my order and brought it home. The place at lunch time was very desolate and empty. They even removed the pictures they previously had up and removed their $ 1 lunch specials. There’s definitely been a change in management here, and it took a turn for the worse. It’s clearly becoming your typical take out fast food Chinese place and less of the specialized Taiwanese food restaurant. Which is sad because now I’ve been going back to Elmhurst to Lin’s. So there is almost nothing that distinguishes this Chinese restaurant from any other fast food place in the neighborhood.

Best pork buns ever! I’ve never eaten at the actual restaurant but I always ask to order from this place when I’m over at my friend’s house in the area. They call their pork buns Taiwanese hamburgers. Have them. Don’t ask questions, just have them. They are the best pork buns in New York! They remind me of the pork buns I used to get in Chinatown in Japan and Manila! And yes, in Taiwan! The food is really authentic. None of that crappy all sugar and starch and food color coated mess most Chinese take out joints have.

I WOULD GIVE THIS 4 STARS IF THEY GOT MY ORDER RIGHT.
I’m only giving this place 3 stars for now. The food and service would be given 4 stars. I’m still a little angry that they gave me salt and pepper ribs instead of what I ordered which was salt and pepper frog legs. I know they sound alike… NOT! It sounded like they spoke decent english and could take a food order but I guess not. The food, however, was really good. The Oyster Pancake was loaded with oysters and was quite large. The sauce on top could have been a little better. It did taste a little like a ketchup based sauce but it was good non the less. The Taiwanese Hamburgers were great. I recommend getting these for sure. Bubble Tea was really good but not the best I have had but real close. I would get again. So I do like the food here without a doubt. The salt and pepper ribs were really good and I just ate them cause i had no time to tell them they messed up my order. Price is great and menu is huge. Pretty large and clean place as well.

A great dining choice in Rego Park — an authentic Taiwanese restaurant that you would expect to see in Elmhurst or Flushing. Relatively spacious inside with many tables. The oyster pancake here is excellent. I also tried some of the entrees here. They are high quality but can be hit or miss depending on your personal tastes. The diced chicken with chili pepper is so-​so. The curry beef is better.
The best deal is easily the lunch special which is around $ 6 for a dish with rice. In comparison, the dinner entrees are $ 10-​$ 15 per dish.

This is perhaps the only authentic Taiwanese/​Chinese restaurant in the neighborhood.
Big thumbs up for:
1. An extensive lunch specials menu for $ 4.95
2. Fast delivery (usually under 30 min. and I live pretty far away)
3. Taiwanese pork chop ($ 6.95) and oyster pancake
Avoid:
1. Bubble tea. The bubbles are hard and not at all chewy.
2. Soup dumplings. There is no soup and the meat is bland.
3. Salt and pepper chicken. My order was way too salty and over fried.

My past experiences with Taiwanese food have involved heavy, greasy dishes, some with heat some without but overall quite unappealing stuff that I wasn’t in a hurry to try again — that was until I had heard about Andy’s Seafood & Grill.
I figured, «sure, why not». I don’t live too far from the place and I needed a recharge from an intense holiday shopping session at nearby Century 21. We started off with a simple and comforting bowl of ginger clam soup that brought warmth back to our chilled bones. The guo bao or Taiwanese hamburger is what attracted me to Andy’s. These little treats are the size of a White Castle slider but the melt in your mouth pork belly (topped with sugared crushed peanuts, pickled veggies, and cilantro) cradled in a fluffy white bun makes me wish that I could purchase a case of these babies to take home when I had the crave.
The following dishes — shredded beef with hot peppers & fried baby oysters — were tasty, enjoyable, and most importantly, not greasy at all. The beef noodle soup packs some good heat but just an okay rendition overall. The restaurant is quite clean, as is the food. I cannot claim if Andy’s is the best representation or the most authentic Taiwanese food around but it has me eager to venture further into the cuisine and of course return for more of the guo bao.

Oh hello, how come we’ve never met? How come I’ve been driving all the way to elmhurts for David’s Taiwanese? You are so close to me, I can’t imagine why we’ve never crossed paths. Maybe the neon lights of Dominos nearby always grabbed my attention first.
But you, you have charisma, charm and a sense of style about you that I find irresistible. From your beef & tripe chili sauce cold dish, to your reasonable prices on the 2-​dish family meal… i think our relationship should continue. The Chicken & Basil was soft, well seasoned and made me yearn for you. The mapo tofu was piping hot and kept me going. The accompanying Ginger & Clam soup gave me a warmth on the inside that I can’t deny.
Andy’s Seafood, until we meet again.

Still a fan! I still get their Taiwanese Burger and their Oyster Pancake. YUM!
Recently, I started getting their Szechuan Beef Noodle Soup (but medium spicy). It’s pretty good!