Chia Asian Bistro

Great food and they come in huge dinner sizes. I think that the food came out rather quickly and the service was pleasant and polite. I think the server was being trained because she didn’t know the menu as well as we would have liked but when she does learn it she will good to go.
Overall i give the performance a great review and the actual restaurant itself was well put together and clean so that was pretty good too. I would go back because i plan on moving to the area.
Good experience.

Chia Asian Bistro is a restaurant unlike any other. Why? They managed to do the impossible: they simultaneously rushed and ignored us through our nearly two-​hour meal.
[8:35pm]
Our party of three walked into the restaurant and were seated immediately. There were only 3 – 4 occupied tables on a Friday night. The waitress brought over menus & wine glasses for our BYOB wine.
And then the wait began.
[8:55pm]
Our waitress didn’t come back to our table for 20 minutes. And when she did, she told us that the menu is now sushi-​only, as the regular kitchen closes at 9pm. This would’ve been nice to know, say, when we sat down. We could have ordered from the normal menu if she hadn’t ignored us! But luckily, we only wanted sushi, and we proceeded to give our orders with no complaint. The waitress knew shockingly little about the menu; she couldn’t tell us what was in a Spider roll, or a Boston roll, and had to check with the kitchen. My friend asked for brown rice in his sushi, and was told «We don’t do that.»
[9:45pm]
Our sushi rolls — five in all — arrived 45 minutes later. My friend asked for a menu to order one more roll. The waitress warned him that the sushi kitchen was closing in 10 minutes. She went to the table next to us, where a couple ordered sushi. They were given the same warning. The couple asked for brown rice in his sushi roll … AND SHE SAID YES.
The waitress returned to the kitchen for a few minutes (to submit the couple’s order), then came back to take my friend’s order. Or did she?
[9:55pm]
«Sorry. I can’t take your order anymore. The kitchen is closed now.»
I mean … I’ve never been treated so poorly at a restaurant. The staff is embarrassingly ignorant to their own menu, and shockingly bad at service and time management. My friend asked for a dietary modification, and was lied to. Why?
Unfortunately, time — much like my patience — has run out for Chia Asian Bistro.

This is a decent sit-​down Asian place. The food was tasty but the atmosphere is kind of bizarre. Although it seems like they’re trying to go for a somewhat upscale vibe, they’ve put half of the kitchen in the front of the restaurant. We were there at prime dinnertime on a Saturday night and the place was practically empty.
We had a roll of sushi as an appetizer, and then Chinese/​Thai for entrees. The pad thai was meh, but my chicken with eggplant was pretty tasty. Definitely generally higher quality Chinese than your usual delivery place, but there’s better sushi and Thai in either direction on Bloomfield Ave.

My boyfriend and I have really come to love Chia! Everything we order is always delicious! About ten friends came to visit our new apartment in Montclair and we chose to bring the crew here. They were very accommodating and everyone enjoyed their meal. We are always so shocked how dead it is there knowing how good the food is!

Sad that people’s experiences aren’t as tasty and timely as ours. Pork dumplings, scallion pancakes, General Tso’s chicken and the eggplant dish have all been great! We have no complaints. I’ve developed food allergies and I have no issues with these dishes. I’m pretty sure nearly everything is made from scratch. We always have leftovers that just don’t sit in the fridge then to the trash. I eat them which is RARE! (leftovers aren’t the best for people with food allergies, but I have no problem!)

CHIA! i can’t believe i’ve never eaten here before, it’s practically right across the street from the crib.
so, me and my favorite person on the planet were walking back home after a bit of a late night xmas shopping excursion Saturday night at Anthro and Urban. we were hungry. we were walking to EB. on the way, we pass by a window where we see an empty sushi bar…
1. we love good sushi.
2. we haven’t had sushi in a minute.
3. it’s cold and EB is another block away
so we decide to duck in here and check it out.
the place seemed empty, because no one was at the sushi bar, but i guess this place is much larger than it appears as there were some parties going on there around the other side. we asked how late they were open — 10:30pm. it was 9:45, so we had time, but we were told all we could have was sushi due to the parties going on. that’s all we wanted so that was just fine with us.
mi favorita got a cup of green tea, that seemed to have a leak in the bottom. no complaints; we found it quite humorous. we then ordered 4 rolls:
Crazy Roll (like how i like my women, nahmean?) this was our fave.
–whitefish, salmon, eel, kani, asparagus and tobiko deep fried
MJ Roll (i don’t think this was in reference to Michael Jackson, i mean, i didn’t see any sequins or little boys around…)
–shrimp tempura and cucumber topped w/​spicy (not really. at all.) snow crab
Angel Roll (not the one with all the video blogs)
–pepper tuna and cucumber topped w/​eel and special sauce
No.9 Roll
–shrimp tempura and cucumber topped w/​salmon and avocado
the sushi chef was very nice, and busy making platter after platter the whole time we were there. our waitress was equally as nice.
we had a great time. we had great sushi. we loved it.
and they didn’t rush us at all even though it was pushing towards 11pm by the time we left. i’ll definitely be back.

Lured in by the duck tacos (duck slut I am) for a quckie lunch, very disapointing, did not taste of duck at all, just a gloopy quick fried pile two flour torillas and a bit of mango salsa on the side. A side of sesame noodles — basically lo mein sesame flavor — just could not eat these as there was so much sauce on them. Deep sigh!

The good:
1) Mango milk tea. With tapioca balls. Nom nom nom.
2) Green tea ice cream for dessert!
3) Duck tacos. They had wonderful flavor!
4) Chicken lettuce wraps. I want the recipe for these, they were great, with a kind of smoky flavor and a sweet sauce!
Actually come to think of it. I can’t see anything negative about this place, I don’t know why it’s getting so much hate. The sushi was pretty good, not the best but definitely not bad. And the service was great!

Ordered vegetable lo mein. Not good, tasted synthetic and slimy. Would hate to try their sushi!

I was not impressed with this restaurant. Food was bland, not authentic tasting at all, sushi was not exciting or fresh, and service was slow (and there were only two groups in the restaurant at the time.) I won’t be going back again.

Ordered dinner delivery from Chia. Sadly, it was pretty horrible. My summer rolls looked beautiful, but had way to much rice noodle filler. Im not even sure they remembered to put anything else in them. The peanut «sauce» that normally accompanies these rolls was a very think paste, like cement, that was not a sauce at all. I literally had to gently spread it onto the rolls so that the told didn’t tear. Ick.
My main course was their simple grilled salmon. It was drier than any fish I have ever consumed. Inedible. The sauteed spinach that came with it had no flavor and was just soaked with oil. I had ordered a tuna and avacado handroll too. The tuna was pale, almost gray. Disgusting.
I would not recommend this. You are better off ordering fast food. Atleast that food is more edible, albeit unhealthy and probably low quality.

We sat at the sushi bar since that was the only thing we were in the mood for. We know nothing of its «pan-​Asian» menu. This review is strictly for the sushi. It started off great. GF’s spicy tuna roll and spicy tuna roll special request concoction was delicious. My order took forever! Not sure why, but I almost got excited, thinking he must be preparing something super fresh. Well, they were out of uni, which is always a heart-​breaker for me. The hamachi and hotate were good, but the amaebi was slightly seared on the bottom and the fried heads that came with them were GINORMOUS and had a putrid flavor. There’s no way those heads came off the same sweet shrimp. I’ve had enough to know. And for those who know me and my reviews, you’d know I make a fuss about ANY Asian establishment that charges for tea. That’s pretty much all we ordered and it came out to fifty bucks. We don’t mind paying more for top notch quality, but for what it is, WAAAAY overpriced.

I stopped in here quickly to grab a roll to go for my movie at the Clearview.
I got a simple Philadelphia roll. Good. No fireworks. Six bucks. Sushi dude behind the bar was nice.
Better review to come once I actually sit inside for more than ten minutes, but so far so good!

My friends and I, with my husband came here before a concert to have a quick meal. We figured, sushi/​sashimi do not require cooking so we’ll probably be out of there in no time. Wrong!!!
Our appetizers came out fast (probably 10 minutes after our orders were taken — the restaurant was empty when we got there). 50 minutes later, our sashimi/​sushi rolls still weren’t out (I asked them if we can cancel since it was only 15 minutes more before the concert). They said it was ready, and brought the rolls for myself and husband 5 minutes later. At 5 minutes before the concert, my friends’ orders were still not out (but according to them, they were ready). We had to cancel the order.
It was very annoying. Too bad, their food is decent! I guess if you have lots of time to spare, this restaurant shouldn’t be bad at all. But for show goers — go somewhere else if you only have a little over an hour before the show.

I’ve been here twice so far here are the pro’s & cons:
Pros: The duck tacos are definitely worth trying, the Chinese sausage fried rice was out of this world (very tasty). Also they carry a selection of high grade teas. The restaurant has a nice laid back atmosphere.
Con’s: I had the Kimchi fired rice but, it could have had more Kimchi in it, and the Lemongrass chicken was kind of bland, The first time I came it was on a Tuesday night and there was only two other tables full, the second time was on a Saturday and we were the only people there for the entire time.
Although I was not disappointed… I just don’t see myself going back a third time.

My husband and I went to Chia for dinner on a Thursday night, there was only one other table occupied. The food was good, but not significantly better than fast food chinese. And the menu is very small. Next time I get a jonesing for chinese food I’ll try Sesame.

We went on a Saturday for lunch when there was a prix fixe menu. For $ 12.00 we had our choice of four soups (hot and sour, miso, chicken rice and chicken noodle), appetizers (dumplings, spring rolls, chicken egg roll) and several entrees with choice of protein (e.g., General Tso’s, Coconut Curry, Eggplant in Garlic Sauce). Everything was very good and fresh. Hot tea was a choice of flavors with fresh hot water served regularly.
Can’t wait to try the dinner menu!