O! Taho

I am not Filipino.

But every time I mention the word Taho to any of my Filipino friends, they will without fail, tell me a story about "a taho man in the Philippines, who comes around and says "Taho! Taho!" and everyone rushes over to get some". Each and every friend of Filipino friend of mine tells me this, no matter how long ago they were in the Philippines last.

So I had to check out this store. I knew Taho was a tofu pudding, so I just went in and got a large size of it to go. It came warm, fresh and with a side of ginger syrup and tapioca balls. I quickly went home and dug in.

Mmmmmmmmmm! Man that was delicious. It was yummy, sweet, light, silky and comforting. I could eat the whole thing. That ginger syrup was gold!

I am a fan. Even though I've never met or encountered the famous TahoMan in the Philippines, this Fraserhood joint is definitely a winner to me!

Discovered this place on Yelp as we are visiting the Vancouver area, and made it there yesterday. We bought the small (1 liter) of taho for $10.50 and brought it back to our hotel since there was no dine in option. Taho is their namesake main product, and they currently offer only the arnibal and boba pearls for topping. We opened the warm container and noticed the taho appeared clumpy. We scooped it into bowls and found the taho to be very loose, like it didn't set. It pretty much disintegrated into liquid as we ate it. The arnibal with boba was good.

We eat various versions of silken dessert tofu regularly in SoCal and in Asia ... Filipino, Taiwanese, Chinese, and Vietnamese. It's been our experience that silken dessert tofu be served soft and smooth, that you can cleanly spoon it into layers without it disintegrating. The taho here tasted okay, but the texture was just not for us.

I grew up in the Philippines for the early years of my life and so I grew up with taho. I have wonderful memories of the people selling taho on the streets and my parents buying us a couple of cups. Delicious!

I'm so happy Vancouver had a specialized place just for taho. It was DELIGHTFUL! We all got the cold version, which was refreshing on a very hot day. It was the perfect amount of sweetness. I ended up ordering a 4L amount of taho for my family and it was warm (on purpose) and it stayed warm until our party a couple of hours afterwards. It was delicious! It was also very affordable considering the sheer amount you get.

Service was great! COVID wise, there's hand sanitizer and a barrier between you and the cashier. It seems like it's very much a family run shop which is great. They do recommend you preorder your 4L taho at least an hour before though.

This is really a great place if you're craving for simple yet tasty dessert.

Its a family business and the daughters working at the front were very courteous and polite. I asked them what is the signature item and they quickly referred me to the halo halo and the tofu pudding dessert.

Since I had just grabbed a latte somewhere else, I opted for the tofu pudding. I went for the small but I won't call it that...although their large then is indeed...well, large.

It comes with a syrup much like the brown sugar you find in bubble tea. But they gave me pearls. It's not overly sweet at all and blends well with the rich flavour from the pudding itself. I'm not sure about other reviews that says otherwise. It clearly had a smooth tofu taste and it's confirmed by my friends who ate with me.

Some say it's firmer than Cantonese pudding but it's a nice texture. Nothing to complain about.

I think my serving at room temperatures was just right on this cool autumn day, especially when the pearls were still slightly warm. But I can see how this will be a refreshing summer dessert served chilled.

Thank you to the whole family that made my day.

So. Good. Really cute family-feel shop. Walked in on a weekend afternoon and a group of young adults took our order and speedily handed over the goods.
Pros:
- local business support
- extra container of boba included with tofu pudding
- nice and warm tofu (some places only cold option)
Notes:
- costs more than my usual place at crystal mall ($10 vs. $7 for a medium, which serves two people with two bowls each person)
- parking in Fraser st is free 1hr

I came here upon recommendation of a fellow Yelper who swore that the Filipino version of tofu pudding would rock my world. Well... this is why my mom always lectures me on going somewhere based on someone else's opinion. My Filipina friend warned me beforehand that it was really nothing special, but nevertheless, I decided to trust a Yelper. So the taho is a bit firmer than the Chinese tofu pudding version, and because it's swimming in syrup and pearls, it has no flavor to itself whatsoever. I wasn't a huge fan of it, mainly because it's hard getting an even distribution of taho/ syrup/ pearl through a straw. This might've been better served in a small bowl.

As for the halo-halo, I've had better. It was too much ice and not enough toppings.

Great taho. This may be me showing my westernized side too much, but I took off two stars because the service was a bit strange.

My mother and I passed by while we were visiting Vancouver from the US. And we didn't have Canadian cash because everywhere we went accepted credit cards, even on the 3-4 previous trips we've taken to Vancouver. But we get it if some vendors don't want to accept credit card.

This place didn't take credit cards. On top of that, they don't take US debit cards. And when we confirmed this was true, the woman just said like "sorry :(" so we then had to ask if there's an ATM nearby. Obviously I don't know the whole story, but there was very much out on the counter a credit card machine (it might've been broken, it might not have been set up yet, etc.). She said she didn't know if there was an ATM nearby, but there's a liquor store a few blocks away. So we tried looking for an ATM but had no luck. We then walked all the way back and asked her if she took USD because we just didn't think of it earlier. She said yeah but only at a 1:1 exchange rate, which is a rip off from our end. But we wanted to support a small Filipino business. So we ordered taho for 10.50 CAD and that's only about 7.70 USD. We prepped a 10 USD bill and she really asked for exactly the full 10.50 USD so here we were digging around in our bags for quarters to match the already super inflated exchange rate. We effectively paid 14.25 CAD for taho that was 10.50 CAD. No one was around to call them out; I feel like 10 USD for 10.50 CAD was still super generous even for the trouble of having to convert our cash. But no they needed that 50¢, too.

We also asked if we could order some lumpia and she said they need at least an hour notice to cook them. I understand that, but it felt weird to offer that on the menu and not have a single piece of lumpia readily available.

One other quick point is that she was helping another customer bag their order when we walked in. And during those lengthy 5 or so minutes of helping that customer bag a bunch of items, she never once acknowledged us or looked at us or said "I'll be right with you."

tldr: It felt like we were putting in so much effort to try and support this business, but they were simply not matching our energy at all. And maybe it's entitlement or maybe I'm ignorant, but the customer service was underwhelming to say the least. Taho hit the spot though lol

Classic taho, but with a twist. Instead of the sago pearls that one might be accustomed to, these bad boys are served with tapioca pearls (boba/bubbles). Perfect combination!

We bought some taho and we all got upset stomach after eating it. The tofu is not that nicely made mostly felt a bit uncooked... a bit disappointed as it's been a year since I ordered from this shop and the quality is not as good as before...

***
Update:
I appreciate the owner replying to my concern, unfortunately we have already throw the Taho away. No refund is necessary.

I grew up eating taho or 豆花 as it's called in Chinese. I've been meaning to try this place for years and after having a mediocre one at a dim sum restaurant, I knew I had to come here.

I've had taho in several Vancouver restaurants and at Icy Bar and Meet Fresh and I'd say it's a tie between Meet Fresh and O Taho in terms of consistency and taste, but O Taho wins on price.

The syrup was good and so were the perfectly cooked bubbles/tapioca balls. I personally prefer taho with ginger syrup but I am not going to knock a place for having traditional brown sugar syrup. Perfectly soft consistency of taho. People might think it's super easy to make this stuff but it's easy to burn it and it's also easy to overcook it and it's much firmer. Some places also cook it and there's too much soybean flavor but this was perfectly done. I can see why this place is so popular. A few people came to pickup their phone orders and they ordered so much they had to have a cardboard fruit tray (like when you buy a thing of it at Costco) to carry it all!

Our friends treated us to a medium (they got a medium to share too) and we could have easily finished it. Next time we'll take a large home, add some green beans and sesame balls in it too :D

The todu is so creamy and smooth. The sugar syrup is thick with a great caramel sauce! It's a light refreshing dessert I like cold.