Chang An Restaurant

This is a perfectly acceptable and perfectly predictable American-​style Chinese restaurant. It is one of my three MetroWest standbys for things like Peking Ravioli, chicken with ginger and scallions and dry cooked green beans. (The other two are Bamboo in Westford/​Bedford and Lotus Blossom in Sudbury.) You can bring a wide range of people here and all will find something that they can eat.
The lunch buffet is also good and predictable. They have unlimited steamed ShoMai dumplings, which are great. And, it has the big players on them. You won’t go wrong with it.
On the downside, there are never any specials. It is not authentic, like Mulan in Waltham. But, it is good quality and consistent. So, go with the flow and enjoy.

Eeew. Ick.
In the interest of full disclosure, I’m not a fan of buffets. But my dining companion is. So we went.
Ummm… even my teenaged buddy couldn’t eat a full plate of food here. Everything on her plate looked overcooked and garish. She said the chicken skewers were okay. But not so much anything else.
My plate? Well, the only veggie offering was tofu and broccoli with watered down chili sauce. The veggie lo mein pan remained empty throughout lunch. Not even plain white or brown rice on the side. Just fried rice garnished with dry morsels of leftover looking pork bits. Ick. I tried the soy sauce and duck sauce on the tofu mess. More ick. Sauces were so watered down they just created goo.
Minus extra points for the gross habits of our fellow patrons. Ick to the kids putting their sticky hands on the plates. Eeew to the adults who put nibbled food back on the buffet. Nasty to the waitstaff who didn’t say anything and just left the ick on the plates and the Eeew in the food.

First time to the buffet and I didn’t really enjoy it at all. The only thing that I liked was the General Tso Chicken. Everything else tasted very bland to me. They just brought out the fried rice and it looked so new and fresh, but what do you know? It was tasteless and dry. The chow mein dish was also horrible. They used spaghetti noodles in place of chow mein noodles. I can’t really say much more about my unpleasant experience with their buffet. To quickly sum it all up. There are not much selections for the buffet and most of the food is bland. I don’t think I’ll come back here for the buffet again.

Stay away! My family reluctantly went here for dinner yesterday. We got dirty looks when we walked in (beware, they dislike children in the restaurant) and were put in the way back corner of the almost empty restaurant at 4:45 pm with no one seated around us or in sight. After 5 minutes of being seated, we could sense the unacceptable negative energy.
Families skip this restaurant. Many friends say they have been placed in the back of this restaurant with kids and got dirty looks the whole time. Read the reviews: Stomach issues, MSG, mystery ingredients, rude staff… um, no thanks.

I love this place. Their servings are nice and big, enough for dinner and left overs the next day. This place has quickly out ranked other local restaurants as the quality of their food and service and always consistent and good!

Stopped for lunch and I wished I had kept going. By far some of the worst «Chinese» food ever tasted. Ordered the General Gau chicken and each piece was a nugget of over cooked sauce soaked fried batter. WHERE WAS THE CHICKEN? The chicken wings tasted like something you would buy in the frozen food section of the super market. Another GPS drop off

We have been going to Chang An for years. It is decent. Take out is always «10 minutes». Recently three of my family members shared chicken with black bean sauce, mooshi pork, and friend dumplings. We all had stomach issues during the night and into the next day. Nothing major, but the fact that the three of us experienced very similar issues made me think the was an issue for the food.

The best Chinese food in the Concord area. We go here weekly and are never disappointed. They will do any changes that you request, and the wait staff is very attentive. Steve and Diane

I went for the lunch buffet. The food was very plentiful and good. It is a great bargain! 10 bucks for all you can eat and a choice of soup. The food was hot and the service was good. I will definitely be back.

Sorry, but blah. Got the pineapple shrimp. It was basically overly doughy fried shrimp with mayo and canned pineapple. The lo mein was ok, nothing special. This is NOT authentic Chinese in any way.

Nothing special. Starchy sauces. MSG (or something that smells like it). Small portions for takeout. Over-​fried General Gao’s chicken. (in fact, I didn’t know it was supposed to be fried). There are strangely few restaurants in Concord center, so this place has no incentive to provide nicely cooked fresh fare.

One if my favorite Chinese restaurants. Food is always satisfying and reasonably priced.
Pupu platter with lo mein and a scorpion bowl usually serves us well. Comes out to about $ 45 with tip.

Admittedly, it’s been a while since I was last here, but I’ve just missed the place so much lately!
I am also surprised by some of the poorer reviews. I went in with some friends for lunch and we had a fantastic meal. A bit pricey compared to the rest of the area, but if I were in town again I would definitely go back. I remember two things that really stood out — the delicious sweet and sour chicken (NOT your standard delivery) and the mysterious drink, I think it was called Chang An’s Delight? I asked what was in it, and all they’d tell me was «mystery». A bit off-​putting, but it was delicious, and the buzz surprised me, since normally it takes a few drinks to even get me to blink.
The atmosphere was great and the service friendly, at least for us. The bar looked very impressive as well. Definitely a five star experience.

If you order takeout and they screw up, don’t expect any reasonable degree of customer service.
They might agree to refund you what you ordered and were charged for but didn’t get, but forget about the rice (or anything else) that you ordered and found you didn’t have when you got home.
Rice? Really? To me it is a large part of the meal. They just say, «Yes you ordered but we didn’t charge you. Too bad for you.»
Horrible customer service. Food is decent.

Pretty standard Chinese cuisine. The pineapple shrimp was a highlight. A good option for Chinese food and drinks for a small town many miles away from Chinatown in Boston.

This is what Chinese food is all about. Spicy mustard? Check. Stiff pours on the fog cutters, mai tais, and all those funky drinks? Check. Pu Pu platter on the menu? Yes. Dark bar with app specials and Hawaii 5 – 0 playing in the background? yes. Snobby people complaining that this is not authentic and that they won’t be coming here again? Yes, and that’s what will keep me coming back. Do you, Chan Ang. Do you! (sorry, made up the part about Hawaii 5 – 0. I think was Fantasy Island on the bar tv)

I’ve been here many times and I always leave satisfied. Chang An’s food delicious, fresh, and light. Some of my favorites are the moo-​shi, peking duck, chicken with chinese eggplant, or shrimp and cashew nuts. I have never really had a dish I don’t like, however. They don’t seem to use an excess of oil so I also never walk away feeling like I just ate a day’s worth of calories in one meal.
The restaurant itself has decent service. I’ve never had to wait to get a table (even with a large party), and food comes out fairly quickly. Portion sizes are large so definitely share (unless you want leftovers).
If you’re looking for a nice, relatively quick meal, Chang an is the way to go!

Great Drinks and Great Food
I always seem to run into friends here when I come here. That alone says to me it must be a great place. Great buffet. Strong drinks.

I had lunch here with a friend; we chose it quickly after finding the place we had intended was not open. That was the first mistake. The second was ordering the buffet without scrutinizing it first.
This was the grimmest Chinese buffet I have ever had. Very slim pickings required scraping the bottoms of the steam trays. ‘Dim sum’ and dumplings were in a sodden mass in the steamer. The hot and sour soup was neither. The meats were cornstarch-​coated, the noodles cold and bland. No one seemed to be tending the buffet. Is lunch over in Concord at 1?
Never again

I was very pleased with the quality of the food at Chang An. You’ll be glad to know that the place puts on a fancy front, but the tastes are authentic –at least compared to the San Francisco Chinese food standards I grew up with; I’ve never been to China myself. Seems that the chefs at Chang An have, though! As we were leaving, I saw about 12 Chinese people hurry out of the kitchen, climb into a van and head home.
Front of house staff is snooty. I tried to say hello and goodbye multiple times to the 4 people sort of manning-​the-​gates and got no response. Our waiter, however, was professional and helpful.
They have a vast menu. I loved the veggie and tofu dishes we ordered, and my family was happily chomping down some orange chicken that didn’t make it home for leftovers. Brown rice is available, as are lighter calorie options. But you’ll notice that nothing is heavy, or gooey, or chewy, or slimy here. Everything felt fresh and cooked just enough.
I highly recommend starting with the hot and sour soup.