Chef Chen Restaurant

I’ve been coming here since I was 7. I’m now almost 23 and I still love this place. I’ve never had a bad experience and Grace is always the sweetest person. The food is always amazing and fairly priced for the portions you get!

I was born and raised in San Francisco. That being said, it can be a challenge to find any good Chinese (or any Asian food for that matter) out here.
Hands down, favorite Chinese restaurant in Brentwood. Consistently good, priced fair, and really friendly customer service. A win in my book and a lot better than other Chinese restaurants in Brentwood.

I was extremely dissapointed, paid $ 15 for shrimp chow mein and did not find one shrimp at all. A complete waste of time and money.

It’s tough to write this review, but I must so Chef Chen gets their act together. We ordered the cashew nut prawn. The vegetables tasted old with that tell tell disgusting left-​over flavor. As soon as the food hit my stomach I got a belly ache. I was in the restroom for 15 minutes. Such a dissapointment since two years ago this place was a good place to eat. When a chain of bad reviews start appearing, it’s time to check on the problem.

Not very good! That’s all I can say about the food. The fried rice was mushy and can you say MSG, had stomach issues all night. The combo appetizer platter was very skimpy and not worth the cost.

Love Chef Chen’s food, service, prices, and food. Since discovering them a few years ago, they’re the only Chinese place we go to for eat-​in or take-​out.

Gotta love great food & great prices! A wonderful family owned & operated restaurant. I’ve been coming here for 20 years. Never a bad meal. Exceptional garlic prawns & egg foo young! Truly everything is exceptional! Say hi to Grace as she will be carrying for your Table.

I never leave reviews but felt I must.
It’s was a horrible experience all around.
Word to the wise. Food made me sick.

Disgusting! We ordered two dishes of Honey Walnut Chicken (a fav) and Mongolian Beef. Neither of us could eat the Honey Walnut Chicken. The chicken pieces were stale, the batter was chewy, the walnuts were stale, and the sauce, well, wasn’t a sauce… just globs of mayonnaise barely mixed in with the chicken. No sweetness, no other flavors whatsoever.
I’ve never had to send back food before and told the waitress as politely as I could that we couldn’t eat it. She didn’t offer to bring us something else or to remove it from the check, so I had to ask but she flat out refused. I asked, «don’t you think it is wrong to charge us for food we cannot eat?» Her response was that she can’t do this for all guests as it would hurt her business. How are they even stay in business if they have that many who people who find their food inedible?! If that’s the case why not just serve better food?!
I’m not sure why I didn’t just pay for the beef dish and leave (still bad but, at least, edible). The check was $ 40 and I left feeling totally ripped off. At least I can share my experience with other Unilocalers and vow never to return.
Oh and the bathroom is filthy… which, in my experience of Chinese restaurants, means it’s probably filthy behind the scenes as well.

Unfortunately I found a bone in my most recent chow fun order. I don’t even recall asking for meat at all in my dish.
Real bummer since I’m already weird about my Chinese food (why are all Chinese food places holes in the wall unless you pick a clean Americanized Panda Express ?!)
Wish a nice, clean, kept up and delish Chinese spot would pop up near me. I would even drive a distance to find one :((
Oh well.

I’m not too sure what is in the food here but, it’s absolutely DELICIOUS! We order from Chef Chen anytime our craving kicks in for Chinese, and you my friends, should do the same!

Every other time we’ve been in here the food has been amazing. Not so today. Brought the fame for father’s day. We ordered and told the waitress we know it is extra but we lime fried rice, not steamed rice. Order comes out with steamed rice and waitress says chef said no to the fried rice. WTH? I thought I was the customer? When can’t we order what’s on the menu. If we asked for a substitution without paying that would be one thing, but we said we would pay for it! Also our order came out wrong too. Never coming back!

Went for lunch a few days ago. The place was empty but oh well lets give it a try. I love Chinese food and had eaten here before but did not remember much about it.
I ordered Mongolian Beef with Fried rice. They give you the soup as a starter and I thought it was very average. The Beef dish was alright but was on the small side and was a little tough. The fried rice was really just brown rice with nothing in it. It was fine but I was hoping for some stuff in it. The best thing on the plate was the brown sauce and the onions.
The place looks like it needs a makeover. It is pretty old and dingy.

New to Brentwood and my wife and I wanted chinese food. This place was recommended by a co-​worker that lives here and after reading the reviews decided to try Chef Chen.
While I’m no expert on chinese food, this place was not good at all.
Everything we ordered for takeout seemed like it was in the pot all day. It was extremely salty, hot and sour soup was dark, mongolian beef was soft, walnut prawns had little sauce and how can a chinese restaurant screw up fried rice.
Chef Chen was a far cry from our go to chinese restaurant in Livermore.
Sorry for the bad review Chef Chen, but if you read these reviews, I think you need to try harder.

Ok, so me and my family went here because we saw that it has a good rating here in Unilocal.I was disappointed because we were expecting a lot based on the comments and ratings.
First of all, the facility was run down and it was hot inside. Im not sure if they have airconditioning but when we were there the opened the front door so breeze can come in.
Second, we were given soup spoon that was not clean. I figure it s ok if it s only one but two? Now im not sure if we used the other utensils and not notice if they were not clean and just used it.
Third, the food and price. The price looks cheap but the serving was small. So if you compare it, it is pricey and should be $$. The taste was mediocre and most of our order taste the same.
All in all, our experience was not great and wont be returning here.

Cheap lunch specials! Only $ 6.90-$ 7.90 for a select entrée that comes with either white or fried rice, a fried wonton, eggroll, and hot & sour soup.
To me, that’s a steal. However, the quality of the food is very so-​so. It could have just been my choice of food… I tried the lemon and orange chicken… but hopefully I’ll get a chance to come back and try something different with more color and vegetables. The fried rice is also vegetable-​less if you’re expecting that.
Either way, I feel like I got a lot of food for how much I spent, and if my wallet is happy and my stomach was happy then what else is there to ask for?

Not impressed at all. I had such high but was dearly disappointed. The ratings were so promising. Very little to choose from on the dinner menu.

We placed a to-​go order by phone based on average ⁴⁄₅ reviews. If we hadn’t pre-​ordered I would have walked away when there were no other customers in the restaurant at 6:30pm on a Friday night. I wasn’t setting the bar too high for take-​out Chinese in Brentwood, but this place was a new low. The potstickers were hard/​crunchy and had a very peculiar flavor. Lemon chicken was soggy/​gooey. Even the shrimp chow fun was a complete fail — one needed a magnifying glass to find the odd shrimp in the carton. Kept trying to find something in our order that would save the place, but frankly nothing was even OK. We threw away most of the order — none of us was willing to even finish what was on our plate.
I don’t know if this place is under new ownership or what given that it looks like it has been there for a while and has positive reviews in the recent (Feb ’15) past. Either something has drastically changed or I have to assume that some of the positive reviews were by close friends of the management. Over-​optimistic to say the least.

I went here tonight with a friend after getting my pierced next door. My stomach hurt a little so I wanted to eat something to ease the pain. Anyways we go inside and we were greeted by the sweetest woman. We ordered the chicken and string beans and we split it. It was so delicious! My stomach hurt really back because I felt sick before coming in, so we asked for a take out box and the woman was upset that we barely ate. I felt so bad! It wasn’t the food! It seriously was just me! Once I got home I ate every bite of my food.
This place is awesome. I totally recommend it.

My family and I have been coming to Chef Chen’s Restaurant for the past several years, now, and we’ve always been more than satisfied of their Chinese dishes… due to being an Asian I have a little knowledge of how should a Chinese cuisine be prepared and taste.
The dishes we had were the «Mongolian Beef», «House Chow Fan», «Chicken w/​String Beans» and «Fried Prawns». Some restaurants tend to over cook the string beans, not at Chef Chen… the string beans were crispy and tasty… the Mongolian Beef was just perfect, not extremely hot where you need a garden hose to wash away the hot chili… the Chow Fun was delicious because the noodles were cut much smaller rather than the usual humongous cuts that other restaurants usually serves… that requires a steak knife to cut with.
Chef Chen is one of the best Chinese Restaurant that I have the pleasure to dine at… sure, the place looks empty sometimes but that’s due to their abundance of «take outs», which apparently their satisfied customers’ prefer. Not a perfect place to take perspective clients to but it’s a fantastic place to have delicious Chinese meals with family and friends.