Swen Chinese Cafe

My son and I ate there last night and spent the rest of the night throwing up. it had to have been something in their vegetable fried rice or fried egg rolls. Needless to say, we won’t be returning.

The food is delicious, the portions are generous, and the price is good. The service is horrible. Rude, slow, and incompetent.

My family and I have been coming to this place since it opened many years ago. It seems like it has gone through one or two change in management or ownership. It was one of the best Chinese foods in Sugar Land, but had pretty cruddy service.
After the management change, the quality of the food has decrease a bit. The service is also quite slow as well, especially if it’s a busy night such as Saturday or Sunday. However, they’ve stepped up their games and the quality of food has increase quite a bit since a year ago, and same with the friendliness of their staff. I would still say this is one of the best Chinese restaurants in Sugar Land when you consider the price, décor, and distance.
My favorite dish is their Moo Goo Gai Pian and House Style Tofu

Food is good but the service is always bad. you would think the new waitresses might have better service but the same. luckily, I only order to go

I order from this place for take out when I can’t think any other place to eat. The is hit and miss! It’s never really bad and some times it is very good! I always order the chicken and broccoli. the food portion is great and they always have it ready for pickup. I would eat in, but they have no music on and it is often not busy. The kitchen looks to be clean and the front is kept organized. Staff not very friendly! I do recommend that you try the food to go!

NEVER GOING BACK. The food is not bad, but fortunately there are so many other options in the area that we don’t have to go back there ever to face the rudeness of the Asian man at the register. My daughter and I were there to order three entrees, he seemed to be in a big hurry, said we couldn’t choose any type of rice but white and we told him we’d pay for fried; he «answered» with a growl.
Then he snatched my credit card from my hand and threw it back on thw counter along with the boucher and ordered «sign here» and he disappeared into the kitchen without asking us to sit down or telling us how long we had to wait. We asked one of the waiters and decided to wait in the car. After 30 minutes my daughter had to go get the food and she even feared to have it thrown at her! It was left on the counter and again she had to ask a waiter if that was our order.
As I said, the food was ok but not good enough to the point of us ever considering going through such RUDENESS ever again

I have been going to this place ever since it opened. I was born and raised in New York, so I’m pretty much used to Chinese restaurants having sub-​par service, shabby décor, and dirty bathrooms. These are usually traits of an authentic Chinese restaurant. Fortunately (or unfortunately if you hate the trade-​off between tastiness and lack of good service), Swen is one of those places minus the dirty bathroom (most of the time)!
As some of fellow Chinese-​American reviewers have noted, the food here is authentic and extremely delicious, but the service is a hit-​or-​miss depending on who your server is and what time of the day you come to visit. Unless you can speak Cantonese or Mandarin, you may have a hard time getting good service here. Some of their best dishes include Mapo tofu (super legit), the house special crispy chicken (spicy chicken), Chinese green beans, Chinese broccoli (gai-​lan), cumin beef (their lamb is also good, too), stir fried fish with white sauce (its not on the English menu), and their hot and spicy shrimp.
As a side note about their waiters:
One of the friendliest waiters is this skinny, tall, balding dude with glasses who has been waiting tables here and cooking in the kitchen since the place opened. My family’s nickname for him is Mr. Swen — I kid you not, this man used to be the face of Swen before they hired all the extra staff. He was usually the only one waiting tables aside from a younger man who no longer works there (he was actually one of my classmates in my college biology class). You’re lucky if you get him since he’s pretty friendly, attentive and likes to interact with customers — his English is. well. lacking. We literally used to see him all the time, but lately over the past year he’s spent more time in the kitchen than in the dining area.
Then there’s the two ladies; an older one with glasses and a slightly younger one without. The one without glasses is the owner I think or at least related to the owner, and she’s very friendly and is usually at the register. The one with glasses can be kind of sassy during busy hours, but my family and I eventually succeeded in making her sorta warm up to us.
All in all, great place if you want to have a filling, tasty meal with your family. Don’t expect top-​notch service or for the waiters to be super friendly, but expect to have your stomachs filled with good food. Unless you’re extremely hungry and haven’t eaten in days, you’ll probably be walking out of there with lots of leftovers :)

Sad. The food is pretty good. Actually, better than Aileen’s, but the owner’s rudeness forces me to give it 1 star.

The food and atmosphere here at the current state is great. I would like to review on the past but one should realize how this restaurant has come out of the grave it dug for itself. The food is delicious compare to the local King Bo and though it may be hidden this restaurant should take pride from what it once was to what it has become now. I wouldn’t leave it to the locals to review the food since all they have tasted their whole life is Americanized Chinese food. I would highly recommend this place for all that visit the sugar land Chinatown. I give it 3.3 stars but since it is on the tip of the needle the place came down to the dishes it had to offer and I have to round down. This was due to an unclean bowl and some sanitation issues I have realized most Chinese food hot spots all have and the food was a bit bland. But hey, go to China and tell me about the sanitation code and still love Chinese food. Still overall great food, price and atmosphere. I have yet to meet a 5 star restaurant which the Yin and Yang meets in complete harmony.

Good Chinese food. Service is a bit shabby. The waiter (probably the owner) didn’t seem like he wanted to be there and was really impatient with my family (mind you, my 60-​something year old parents and their siblings, which is pretty disrespectful). Now, I get that my family can be a bit annoying with our indecisiveness (who isn’t a bit indecisive in the face of a lot of good food choices?), but everything there was a hesitation in ordering, the waiter would sigh and then turn to watch TV. Um, rule #1 of customer service: pay attention to your customer.
Anyways, aside from that, the food is actually pretty good. If you like spicy, they have this spicy fish soup-​dish that is flavorful and delicious but will mercilessly burn your tastebuds to nothing. They used to have a pretty good fried shrimp dish, but I think it’s changed since we first got it.
I’d say. if you want this food, it’s better to order it to go rather than dine in. That way, you get the taste without the attitude.

I’ll make a quick update. They got rid of the smell. The food is great. I ordered my usual the house special crispy chicken. Something is different about it. Not as oily, I’m not complaining.
Service has improved. Same guy but seems like his life has improved since I last saw him. I would definitely suggest this place.

I just have to put it out there. This is the most authentic Chinese food I have ever tasted outside of china.
Of course my family ‘s favorite restaurant will be here (first generation asian American family). This is truly a bless to those who came from China.
It does also have those orange chicken and some other broccoli beef dish for those Americans but the food here is so original even my parents don’t mind the price they pay (9 – 13 dollar per dish usually for meat and seafood). The quantity they give you trumps every other Chinese restaurants in Houston. Yes including chinatown. The flavor is more towards the northern style so it can be too salty for your normal taste but for my family it is perfect!
We use to go to buffet but finding this place is so much better than all you can eat anywhere.
My favorite dish is fish in spicy soup (shui zhu yu) sorry I do not know the English translation. But it is fish nuggets cooked in spicy soup that also has veggies in it. Truly delicious.
Will always come for family get together. Always!

Visited this place because of a recommendation and reviews on Unilocal with a business partner. First of all, this place does not serve 100% authentic Chinese food. It’s a hole n wall but with bad frozen Chinese food. On the day I visited, there was a bad foul smell. When I went into male rest room couldn’t believe how atrocious it was. This place really needs to be renovated very old feel. Customer service was moderate.
Food portion sizes are fair for price, but don’t expect great taste unless you like frozen Chinese meals served on a plate. While there kept thinking of a Gordon Ramsey Kitchen Nightmare episode.
Eat at your own risk.

Swen Café: If you’re looking for fine dining and nice service and beautiful decorations, then you are at the wrong place. However, if you are wanting very authentic Chinese food that is delicious, and you do not care about environment, then this is the place to go.
I come here quite a bit because it’s one of my parents favorite restaurants aka good, authentic, cheap food. We usually order the same thing everytime (I will try to give English names/​descriptions):
Tofu sa-​guo (Tofu soup?/Hot pot?): Do not let the name mislead you. This is by far my favorite dish here. It’s the delicious, savory yet light soup. It is all vegetarian with tofu, cabbage, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and clear rice noodles. I can drink about 6 bowls of this and still want more.
Spicy fish: (This is not the exact name). Incredibly spicy, but soooo good. It is quite oily and heavy, but it’ll last several meals for leftovers.
Chicken and eggplant: If you like eggplant and saucier dishes, this is it.
Cold cucumber appetizer: Great contrast to all of their other dishes, which tend to be hot and heavy.
Stir-​fried green beans: It comes in a huge plate with a bit of ground beef and onion stirred in for taste. This is my favorite vegetable dish here.
I love the food here, the ones I described are just a few of my favorites. They aren’t the exact names, but hopefully you’ll be able to figure it out!

I love this place. The eggplant is wonderful.
They are happy to make food special order. Portions are large. Price is good.

The location is on Highway 6 so its not a bad location. However, it may be difficult to reach/​leave the plaza during high traffic hours.
The restaurant itself is clean and well-​kept. It has a comfortable and clean environment. Not exceptional, but well-​done. The service is pretty good. The servers are all pretty polite. There are tables to seat big and small parties. The servers can speak Mandarin, Cantonese, and English.
The food is pretty good. Not amazing but not bad either. I’m stuck between giving this place a 3 or 4 stars. 3.5 is probably what I would give this place. I haven’t had the opportunity to try too many of their dishes, just a few.
Depending on what type of dish you order, the price could be below or above 10 dollars especially if you eat in and end up paying tip. I know plenty of people call in and take out the food. I’d say if you want some authentic Asian cuisine, then you can consider coming here.

It’s a good restaurant for good but cheap Chinese food in Sugar Land! When we walked in, they greeted us in Mandarin… their English isn’t too good, but it’s good enough to order.
Pros:
*Green string beans with ground pork — delicious, good seasoning
*Garlic eggplant — saucy, tasty
*Unlimited white rice
*We typically go with a group of 8 – 9 people and when we split the bill, it’s about $ 7 a person!
Cons:
*not as clean, but most asian restaurants are not as clean
*kept speaking to us in Mandarin after we told them «sorry, we don’t understand»
*you really have to wave them down if you want service, they don’t come around and ask you how your meal is

Living in Sugar Land whenever we’re in the mood for Chinese food we like to come here because of the conveniece and the fact that a lot of the dishes are cooked «Mandarin» style which is more to my taste.
Some of my favorites are the Ma Po Tofu, Pork with Dry Bean Curd and a dish called Rainbow Fish which is one of my favorites! The prices are of course more expensive than Bellaire’s Chinatown but I’m sure the rent in Sugar Land is too…
The portion sizes are very good and there are leftovers to bring home whenever we go. The waiters and waitresses seem to recognize us because we are fairly regular and always treat us well…
They also have lunch specials during the day which are a good deal too! If you are looking for more traditional Chinese fare but don’t want to make the trip to Bellaire’s Chinatown area this is definitely a good alternative!

This is one of the few more authentic chinese places in Sugar Land. Usually you have to go to Chinatown to get anything more than sweet and sour chicken and then this place opened. Despite filling a niche though, this place is really just known for a low price and large portions. If you are just looking to order a very simple dish like Mongolian Beef and rice, then I could see the attraction of this place.
But when I last went with my family, the place was okay in terms of cleanliness and the staff was meh as well. They weren’t helpful but with the restaurant being so small, it is easy to grab their attention.
This leads me to discuss the food. Again, they have huge portions, but the food is just brashly prepared. In the tofu pot, there was imitation crab, and I got multiple bites of the plastic wrap that the imitation crab comes in. The spicy boiled beef was filled with meat, but all of it was chewy and seemed extremely old. Everything was very oily and I was not fond of either dish.
I would return only because there are no other options, but this place really isn’t too great.

Meh. I’ve never started a review that way, but I couldn’t think of a better word. We went here because we read several 4 star reviews, but I think they are some seriously skewed reviews.
Pros:
~The restaurant was clean and more modern and attractive than many hole in the wall Chinese places.
~The food is cheap and the portion sizes are large.
Cons:
~The service is brusque at best.
~The fried Won Tons with pork inside were nasty. The pork was mushy and inedible.
~ The Sesame chicken had a slight aniseed taste to it, which wasn’t pleasant.
~ The pork fried rice was ‘ok, but the overall flavor was not impressive.
Overall, I wouldn’t go back. The food was below average, and the service was below average. We ended up with tons of leftovers, but we don’t want to eat them. $ 22 for 2 entrees, two sodas, fried wont tons, and one fried veggie egg roll. It it an impressive amount of food, too bad it isn’t impressive tasting.