Amore Eats opened in May 2022 at the Exxon (then a Liberty gas station) located at 1900 Rockville Pike in Rockville. In the last 2+ years, it has gained a reputation for offering some of the best Taiwanese cuisine in the area (video of the experience can be seen below).
Amore Eats co-owner Pei Hsieh was working in real estate and was looking for a restaurant space for one of her friends in 2021. A restaurant space in the convenience store of a gas station that was previously home to Corned Beef King came available, but it didn’t work out for her friend. She ended up partnering with her longtime real estate colleague, Max Mo, to open their own restaurant.
In an interview with DCist in 2023, Hsieh said she missed Taiwanese food and couldn’t return home because Taiwan had Covid restrictions in late 2021. “I thought Taiwan, Taiwan. I felt a little homesick. I kept thinking about food, Taiwanese food. That’s why I told him, you know, maybe we can open a restaurant.” The restaurant opened and was named after a combination of Max Mo’s last name, which can be found in the Italian/French word for love– Amore.
The restaurant serves a wide variety of Taiwanese dishes. During our visit, we spoke with a customer, Andrea, who was dining at Amore Eats for the first time. She was from DC and her friend was from Baltimore and they decided to meet at Amore Eats after hearing great things. Andrea told us that the food reminded her of what she remembers eating in Taiwan, where she and her family were from. “It has been a while since I’ve been to Taiwan, and the food here reminds me so much of the food we would get at the night market. It’s so good.” she said.
The restaurant has earned a 4.5/5 rating on Google with over 165 reviews. One reviewer, Wilson Chu, writes, “Once you get passed the gas station setting, the food is as Taiwanese as you will get here in a restaurant. Perhaps the gas station setting makes it feel more like street side setting. The beef noodle soup had a lot more beef than anticipated, very tender and flavorful. The bento came with very good sides that accompanied the rice, pork chop and popcorn chicken well. The stinky tofu and sausages were also tasty.”
On Yelp, the restaurant also has a 4.5/5 rating on more than 70 reviews. One reviewer, Brian L., writes, “Originally came here as kind of a joke, the idea being that gas station Taiwanese food, it can either be really bad or the best thing we’ve ever had. I’m happy to report that it was the latter.”
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