Mr. Chens Authentic Chinese Cooking

Maybe I should not eat Chinese cooking, after having come back from the Bay area and Vancouver.? hmm.
Everything was prepared perfect, unfortunately nothing had any spices or flavor. Not sure how that happens. Noodles in my lo mein were cooked perfectly, the dish had no taste.
The hot/​sour soup was hot, but neither sour nor anything.
Pan friend dumplings were perfect and tasted great.
Still looking for good Chinese in the BHM.

Great service, very friendly. The food is okay, I would choose Red Pearl and Black Pearl over Mr Chen. The egg roll is just average, General Tso is yum. The Chow Fun only had spiciness, which over took the natural taste of the vegetables.

This place is really good! And I’ve ate a lot of Chinese food since my grandmother was an amazing cook (Chinese food) and I am spoiled by lots of Chinese food in NYC. The food was fresh and not too salty and oily. Got the shredded pork in garlic sauce not spicy. The authenticness shows up in that they use pickled cabbage finely diced which is a popular Chinese ingredient. Staff was extremely friendly and pleasant sit down restaurant, and family friendly (baby liked the food too).

Kung Pao Chicken finally has some pow! It was the perfect level of spice — enough to burn, but not enough to negate the over all flavor of the dish.
The sautéed broccoli was good, but I still prefer the sautéed green beans. The latter had more flavor due to garlic.

I like eggplant with garlic a lot. It’s really good cooking. There is spicy pic on this menu. But it’s not super spicy. It’s good. Spring roll is better than egg roll. Everytime when I go, I order this.
This is not include lunch menu. I wish include lunch menu!!!

I can only give my opinion based on one experience. I will revise the review once I have made more visits. We did not arrive until 3:00 PM, and, maybe some of the items were left over. I don’t know.
The egg roll did not seem fresh and I did not care for the taste. I got General Tso’s chicken, although I would have rather had Mongolian beef. I got the chicken dish because it was marked spicy whereas the beef was not. The dish was so mild I could only tell it was supposed to be spicy by the peppers I could see in it. I had to ask for some hot sauce. The sauce on the chicken was overly sweet. That alone was a deal breaker for me. In addition, though, the chicken tasted old. It also had too much dark meat chicken in it for my taste. It was crunchy and it was apparent the dish had been cooked to order.
My wife, however, thought her shrimp dish was excellent. I did not taste it, so I do not know.
I will try this place sometime in the future, but I was not impressed.

Very good food at moderate prices. Some of the best Chinese I’ve had in the metro area.

Service at it’s finest!
I went into this restaurant looking for an impossible dish to prepare at the last moment and the manager Linda was over the top accommodating! Because of the last minute request, she was unable to prepare the dish in her restaurant, but she called her «friends in the business» and tried her hardest to find a place that could prepare this dish for us. I was so grateful for this kindness! Even after she found out we were out of towners leaving the area that night, she still tried to find a restaurant to make this dish on our route home.
The locals that were dining there all looked super happy and comfortable. I saw her and another worker going around to tables talking with the customers. I get a feeling this is super authentic cooking as advertised and they will do anything in their power to make sure you leave happy! I wish I was a local and could actually eat some of their great smelling food!
Thank you, Linda!

I’ve been here a couple of times now and have felt somewhat misled by all of the glowing reviews of this place.
First off, the egg rolls are amazing. Best I’ve had in Birmingham and I’ve eaten just about every egg roll in the area. They’re made fresh and you can tell the filling is actual food, not the blended mush most Chinese places like to fill their rolls with.
The pan fried dumplings are not good. We ordered a plate of 8 and about half were falling about before being picked up. The wrappers were torn and loose. Very disappointing, especially considering how easy dumplings are to make.
The lunch specials are fine. You get a meat, rice, and an egg roll for about $ 7. The portion is not very large though and for 1 – 2 dollars more you can get the dinner portion for double the size.
I had the pork and squid entrée, which was labeled as spicy. It was the most disappointing part of the meal. The sauce was like extremely watered down Tobasco sauce. Most of the plate was filled with lettuce. The squid was overcooked and rubbery. I will not order that again.
Service this time was good. The waitress came by just enough times to not be a bother. We got in and out at lunchtime in about 45 minutes. However, last time we were here it took double the time.
I will likely not be back to Mr. Chens. The food just doesn’t compare to the other «authentic» Chinese places in the area. It’s mediocre. Maybe that’s a recent development because the pictures here on Unilocal all look superb. It didn’t look anything like that in person.
3 stars for that egg roll and today’s service.

I give this place zero stars, I ordered general Taos tofu. Which tasted like a stir fry tofu with maple syrup. I asked for brown rice which they did not have any. I ask to exchange my order which I was given a hard time by both the waitress and manager. Therefore in the end I sat at the table with no food while I waited for others to finish. The manager had no qualms about me sitting here with nothing. Needless to say I won’t be back. As I’m starving and pregnant.

Mr. Chen’s is my go to for chinese food in Bham. They do it well. That pineapple shrimp is just mmmm mmm!!! The dumplings and the veggies were all tasty as well. If you’re feeling adventurous, you got to try to the fried intestines. It’s an acquired taste, but I like it! As true to their name, this is some pretty authentic chinese for me, well… as long as you’re not ordering beef n broccoli.

In birmingham, if you’ve tried one Chinese place you’ve tried them all. Except for Mr. Chen’s. In no particular order, Yummy, fast, clean, friendly. When it comes to Chinese food, for me, this is huge, it’s not greasy!

Tried Mr. Chen’s a few weeks ago. Not bad food but IMO definitely mediocre food for the price being paid. Other reviews gave me the impression that this wasn’t like any other Chinese food restaurant in town, but I was sadly disappointed to discover that it IS actually just like any other place in town — same food offerings, same food presentation and preparation. The service was great, mind you — our waiter was very attentive and friendly — so I don’t have any negatives to mention about that. But again, for the cost of dishes here, you’d expect there to be a bit more to offer; otherwise, what’s stopping someone from just driving a bit further to Hunan Garden or some other place.
I’ll probably go back simply because my wife didn’t get the chance to try it with me, and she’ll want to judge the experience for herself. But I can’t imagine I’ll make any extra visits considering its location isn’t in my circle of travel and that it didn’t really impress me enough to make any outside exceptions to that circle. As always though, YMMV —

I have no complaints. I’ve had takeout from here many times, but brought my cousin who was visiting Birmingham to dine in.
The service was as all service should be: not noticeable, but not lacking. The food is always great, an it is apparent that they care about the taste and presentation.
The place is small, but not clustered. It is a cozy little secret that you should try.

First time there and thought it was great. Super friendly staff. I had General Tso’s chicken and mom had chicken lo mein. Both were very large portions compared to other local establishments. The wait staff worked all together, so you were always getting water or anything else, if needed. Both meals were excellently flavored. They brought each out as they were ready. I prefer that so they are hot! I also ordered crab rangoon. Best I’ve had in a long time. Very light and flavorful. It was not crowded when we went, but I could see it being so at peak times. Was nice and clean and tastefully decorated. But I’m not there for the interior design. They had a steady stream of people doing takeout.
I will definitely be back for another visit.

Chicken chow fun– excellent. Chewy noodles, sautéed chicken, some vegs. Really good!

Still haven’t found a replacement for my old favorite Chinese place for lunch.
Service was average. Waited longer than would expect to be seated with ample available tables. Hostess actually pointed across the length of the seating area to direct me to my table instead of showing me to my seat.
Overall the restaurant did not seem busy enough to warrant length of time to order.
My Kung Pao Chicken had twice as much vegetables as chicken (this seems to be trend here, as previous visit found the same to be true of Cashew Chicken dish). Since I am not a fan of zucchini this left me to still be hungry immediately following lunch. Normally a typical Chinese lunch menu dish is sufficient. Additionally lunch special only included egg roll and steamed or fried rice. No soup.
Food itself was quite tasty. I will probably give it one more try before removing from my lunch rotation.

Heard this place was good, so we stopped in for some Chinese food and a Thai Bubble Tea.
Portion sizes were huge, and the quality was really great. I had General Tso’s chicken, and was surprised when I bit into my first piece to discover that it was mostly chicken with a pleasant amount of breading. So often, Chinese chicken dishes are largely breading with a little sketchy looking chicken inside. Not here. Awesome!
We did get a sesame chicken order which confused us… our experience was that sesame chicken was a brown chicken, but what we got was an orange colored chicken that looked like sweet and sour chicken with sesame seeds in the sauce. Not sure what happened there. It tasted different, but fine.
The service was nice, and she was really attentive to our needs. We asked for to-​go boxes, and she bought two large containers and a small container… exactly what we needed but hadn’t asked for specifically.
Overall it was a really great experience.
My only large complaint is that it is VERY loud, which makes conversation difficult. Most of the décor is solid, and I think it makes the dining area into a giant echo chamber.

Mom and I ordered delivery at Mr. Chens via an online delivery site. We are staying at a nearby hotel. Our food was promptly delivered and the delivery guy was very nice.
Unfortunately, no plastic forks, napkins or soy sauce were included. I clearly indicated that we were staying in a hotel. Fortunately, however, I packed some plastic forks. Leaving forks and soy sauce out of a delivery order to a hotel can practically ruin a meal.
The shrimp dish was so bland that it needed soy sauce or salt. The shrimp tasted fresh and I didn’t hate the dish, but it was just boring, bland and very watery. Mom seemed to like her Mongolian beef (one of her favorite dishes), but she didn’t think it was the best thing she had ever tasted, which is usually the case every time we eat out.
The spring rolls were just terrible. They were greasy and tasted as though they had been fried in very old grease.

Got some takeout from Mr. Cheng tonight for the first time. We ordered the eggplant with pork hot pot, beef with black bean sauce, and chow fun with pork. Restaurant looked pretty clean but had a health rating score of 88. Always makes me a little nervous to eat at places below 90 because I spent a day shadowing a restaurant inspector who said that more than 10 points off could be because of a big issue. But looked clean inside and took less than 15 minutes for our food to be ready.
The eggplant with pork hot pot = pretty good. Eggplant was really soft, just needed a little more seasoning/​spice.
Beef with black bean sauce = this was the best dish we ordered. Loved all the vegetables in this dish as well. The beef melted in my mouth and was perfectly cooked. Would order this again.
Chow fun with pork = it was the special of the day. Nothing to write home about. Again needed a little more spice.
This was a solid 3 star restaurant. Nothing bad but nothing amazing. I’d definitely go again and try some new dishes (steamed buns etc), would love to try the lunch special as well.