It can be hard to review Chinese restaurants when their menus are so standard. That’s mostly the case with Taigu, although there are a few unique items served at this Middleton restaurant.
No surprise, the menu is divided into appetizers (e.g. fried dumplings, egg rolls, etc.), meat dishes (e.g. beef, seafood, etc.) and specials. The gems are the homemade noodle dishes, served primarily pan-fried ($9.95), boiled ($9.95) or in soup ($9.95-$11.95).
I ordered the knife-cut (“cat ears”) boiled noodles with pork and eggplant in house sauce. Despite the lukewarm noodles, I did enjoy this ensemble. The eggplant was thoroughly cooked (making it tender), and the bits of ground pork and the sauce generated a lot of flavor. Next time, I’ll probably get the beef chow fun ($11.95), which is pan-fried rice noodles with steak, scallions and vegetables.
Meal combos come with fried or white rice (note the fried rice is barely fried) and two crab rangoons or soda at lunch or fried rice and an egg roll at dinner. The only other dish that caught my eye was the General Tso’s shrimp ($8.35 at lunch, $9.95 at dinner). I liked that the jumbo shrimp was not overly breaded, and the sauce met my expectations.
Be warned that service can be slow. At lunch time, with only three other tables occupied, my entrees took 30 min. to be served (and my soda was served just moments before that).
Taigu is open every day for lunch, dinner and carryout. You may get lucky and find street parking (in angled slots) in front of the building, but otherwise, be prepared to drive up and down Elmwood Avenue.
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Another Chinese restaurant has opened in the space next to Mermaid Carwash on the west side, but this time, it’s not a buffet. Besides a regular lunch and dinner menu, 
The sauces are Nani are delicious. They don’t overpower the dishes; rather, they accentuate them. An example can be found in the chicken feet ($4.95). The feet sat in a “special sauce” (the waiter couldn’t even describe how it was made) that made me think you could put any item in this sauce that somewhat resembled a beefy-soy sauce broth.
I don’t recall ever hearing so many people rave about a buffet, but the word on the street is that 
Some items not generally found elsewhere include full fish fillets (tender and flaky), kimchi (not too spicy or sour), chicken balls (tasted just like a pork meatball) and stuffed crab shells (unfortunately, stuffed with imitation crab). There’s also a carving station and stir fry station. I appreciated that there was an employee on a radio regularly updating the kitchen on what needed to be refilled.
