?I'm not from the Northeast, but this is the most homely restaurant I've ever eaten in Portland. Each dish was full of authentic Northeast Chinese flavors, especially the braised beef with potatoes, northeast dalapi and pickled cabbage dumplings, which were no different from what I had eaten in northeast China restaurants. Must have five-star reviews, if can open dine in even better ~
Unbelievably disappointing, and really poor customer service.We ordered the orang chicken, chef's special noodles, spicy veggie noodles, and the veggie dumplings. From best to worst:The spicy veggie noodles were okay. Nothing spectacular, but okay.The chef's special noodles had good flavor, and it was a very large portion. The problem is that the noodles are swirling in at least 1/4 cup of oil, which quickly undermines the flavor of the otherwise positive dish.The veggie dumplings were sub-par because they were overly garlicky. I really like garlic in food, but no kidding, each dumpling must have had 1/2 clove of chopped garlic. The garlic overpowered any other flavor.The orange chicken was fried gristle. Again, really nice flavors, but literally 1/2 of the pieces were just chunks of gristle fried and dumped into the sauce. Really, really disappointing.Worst of all was the customer service. This was an expensive meal as takeout goes. We called and only mentioned the poor chicken. At first, the staff said they would refund the price of the chicken. That would have been acceptable. We didn't expect or ask for anything more. But a few minutes later, the restaurant called us back to say that they would not refund the price of the chicken and would only give us credit toward a future visit. I can assure you, after that flip-flop, and the overall poor experience with the food, we won't be coming back.There are other much better options for Chinese food in the Hollywood area.
I have a big stack of black plastic containers from Chin's that cannot be recycled. I won't patronize them again until they take responsibility for their packaging. Suggest they look at togopak.com for leak-proof recyclable containers.
Very disappointed. Food was not good (and this is the most diplomatic way of rating it — will spare more colorful language). One star for a restaurant out there just trying to survive, and another for giving Northeast Chinese dishes a try. Nothing more. I was left extremely disappointed, but at least I learned something. In Chinese, we say 吃个明白 (roughly, "we ate our lesson").As a Northeasterner, we're used to very low representation among cuisines. Despite whatever cuisine specialties they claim, Chinese restaurants (just like ethnic Chinese themselves) in the US were historically dominated by Cantonese families, giving way in recent decades to Fukienese (Fujianese) families that have since cornered the Chinese-Japanese AYCE buffet option that you can now find everywhere. In any case, I was very excited after moving to PNW to find that there was an option here in Chin's Kitchen. I had a glimmer of hope that perhaps, in the foodie town that had already embraced jianbing, they maybe started to accept NE as a distinct cuisine? The owner here who took over a couple years ago no doubt wanted to add some specialities from our region, so he added a few (just a few) specialties into the mix.I was told that the staple/representative dish 锅包肉 was only available on Wednesdays, and only by pre-order. Already a bad sign. The reason given? It's difficult to make. Wrong. The real reason is that it loses its texture almost immediately after it's cooked, and most restaurants therefore try to persuade folks not to order it to go. Can't do during the pandemic, obviously. They also missed out on a few other staples, so I just gave up.The only Northeastern dish I ended up ordering was a 五彩拉皮 (btw, you don't have to read Chinese to know what I'm referring to... just copy/paste into Google). The actual cost of raw material is nearly negligible for this dish. It's all labor (needs a lot of manual knife work). The knife work wasn't great (big, chunky, uneven slices). They also omitted the meat (forgivable), egg, and woodear. I added these myself at home and re-mixed the sauce for a brighter taste.The 鱼香肉丝 Pork with Garlic Sauce was atrocious. What was supposed to be a mix of bamboo shoots, woodear, peppers, scallions, on a spicy vinegar/soy/sugar/garlic base (sometimes with cilantro) was essentially pork, lots of carrots, unevenly sliced of course) on a tomato paste base, with an added dash of red food coloring. It was actually so bad that after a few bites, I just held it until morning, when I added whatever missing ingredients at home, RINSED the entire dish (mostly sauce) with water, and re-tossed it myself with the proper sauce.土豆丝 was also so boring and uninspired. Again, the cost is not in the ingredients (just potatoes) but in the knife work. Venture a guess as to how that turned out? I couldn't help this dish too much as the critical process (soaking and rinsing i.e. de-starching the potatoes) wasn't done properly if at all. Worst of all, he used the starchiest Russets instead of a Yukon Gold or Red, so it just ended up with the texture of mush instead of crisp as is intended.Why am I spending so long on this review? Why do I even care? Look, my family owned restaurants too. I worked at a restaurant starting at age 11. We know it's hard work every day. So it pains me to write this as much as it angers me. The anger part is because he's now exposing thousands of unsuspecting customers to their first experience of what's claimed to be Northeastern food, which is awful and gives all of us Manchurians a bad name.The owner himself, who I caught a brief glimpse of, seemed nice. I wish him and the charming non-Chinese dude punching in the order (who spoke OK Mandarin) well. But I hope you understand (and I suspect you already know) that the food was awful.For anyone who actually cares and has read up to this point, the only authentic place I've found so far is Szechuan Brothers up in Vancouver. You won't find any of the NE dishes there of course, but for t
I absolutely love this place. I regularly order delivery and am never disappointed. The food is always fresh and hot, the meat is well trimmed, and the portions are huge. They have been consistent every time. Fantastic restaurant and the best Chinese I've had. Their sweet and sour stuff is AMAZING!
I love their food-it’s the best Chinese in town-but their service for to-go is the absolute worst. The people are super nice, but the food is never ready when they say it will be. I’m talking 45 minutes to an hour late for a pick up.We used to eat here weekly and stopped about 9 months ago due to this. Thought we’d give in to our cravings tonight and true to form, they are almost an hour late as my husband stands outside in the cold waiting for our food and I make a back-up Mac n cheese for our 5-year-old.
Authentic cuisine from Northeast China. They were very much like home-made dishes. No dinning-in recently, the on-go provided lunch box containers wrapped in a paper bag. It was probably for environment protection. But the lunch boxes were plastic (anyway), where they were not covered well. All messy ways of leaking to ruin the paper bag as well as our car (as we were on a trip without staying in a hotel room). So be prepared, there was no place to park by the street, the paper bag could be a problem, and hard to get a good picture :(.
Great food and it was ready for pick up very quickly.
Love the sauerkraut pork dumplings. Everything I've had has been great. Also love the garlic green beans, general tso (I know it's not chinese food) and all of the noodles, particularly the vegetarian stir fried noodles. Rice is great and the people are very very nice. When it was open for indoor a couple years ago we took our niece for her 18th and they comped us some delicious slices of watermelon. First rate food and people.
Awesome! Best authentic Dongbei food, actually only Dongbei food found between Seattle and LA. Will be back. Owners made us Guo Bao Rou for lunch and it was perfect. Can’t wait for indoor dining to open.