Swen Chinese Restaurant

Giving it a 4 to show my support for Asian food in this part of the state! It’s basic Chinese food. There won’t be anything mind-​blowing or strange or new to discover. Their options are simple but they do simple well. There is a bit of authenticity in the food if you explore beyond the Lunch Special portion of the menu.
The restaurant is a little murky and it doesn’t feel clean but that doesn’t seem to affect the quality of the food. The employees are knowledgeable about their menu and super nice.
Fish in black bean sauce — It’s the goopy fried fish I remember in the fishes dishes back in California. It’s hot and nice for a cold day.
Sauteed fish — I liked this even more with the fish being grilled. Any more sauce and it would feel thick soup, which again, on a cold day, tastes comforting yet healthy.
They’re the only restaurant in Tuscaloosa that serves phở. I’ll need to come back and try it. They don’t have the mint leaves to go with it, which doesn’t bother me since I don’t use it in my phở anyway.

I came here for lunch to catch the lunch special. What’s great about that is that it lasts until 3:00 p.m. Food is alright nothing that stands out from other places in town. This place does serve phở which is nice. It is I’m a great location on campus. Parking can be shoddy if it’s busy in the area. Service is alright, bunch of college kids working mostly. All in all not a bad place to get Chinese food.

Very good Chinese food! I had a new entrée called Yum Yum chicken with steamed rice and it was delicious. The staff were very friendly and our waitress was one of the best we’ve experienced anywhere. She was very attentive and sweet.

The food and service is amazing here. Our waiter Mason is awesome. He did a fantastic job. I highly recommend this place.

Great food. Great delivery through Crimson2Go. On time. Hot food. Great hot and sour soup. MaPoTofu is the best! Never physically been there

ehhh… should have gone to Mr. Chens.

I don’t think of Chinese food when traveling in Alabama, but after a long, frustrating day of driving I wanted some comfort food that would remind me of Los Angeles. Chen’s was not the best I’ve eaten – I definitely should have requested soy sauce for the watery wanton soup – but the shrimp lo mein hit the spot, even if the noodles were not the soft kind I’m used to. I’d definitely try other dishes, though, and the price was fair.

never thought I’d live to taste orange chicken better than Panda’s. Through Crimson2Go, their food arrives around 30 min after you place your order which is awesome. The fried rice on the side is literally just rice that has been singed a little in the frying pan but it’s not bad. The crab Rangoon and potstickers are awesome as well. definitely recommend to any college student looking for a tasty cheap meal.

The best Chinese food in Tuscaloosa! The atmosphere is acceptable, but the service is good overall.

Great place for having lunch. Pricing is modest, the service usually fast. Will come back!

Me and some friends went there to eat and we had baby roaches crawling over our table. Fucking gross

3 ½ stars food was good service was ok not expensive. But you get what you pay for

Nice place to sit outside for lunch on a sunny day. Good, cheap food — we are BIG Asian food eaters in our home town of Dallas. Swen was a very nice find in a college town.
Good wine and fast, friendly service. We will come back!

Having lived practically on the strip for a year I have surprisingly just eaten at Swen for the first time. I dined in during the lunch hour and was pleased to see the restaurant was bigger than it looked on the outside and had an average lunch crowd. My dining guest and I sat, ordered and ate relatively quickly which I enjoyed.
I had a combination lunch special (choose 2 for $ 10.50) consisting of of the combination fried rice and the orange chicken. These came with a mediocre egg roll and your normal hot and sour soup.
The fried rice was good. Nothing more nothing less with an adequate distribution of all the meats. The orange chicken was interesting in a good way. It had pieces or orange rind and some dried red chili peppers for some heat. I didn’t expect this to have much orange flavor but compared to what I’ve tried in malls it was quite flavorful. What I didn’t enjoy was my side of fried rice which was dry.
To get my seal of approval a restaurant needs to impress me. Swen did not, however being cheap and taking bama cash in a college town I may find myself eating here once or twice in the future.

A nice, cozy spot on the strip, Swen is a great stop for a quick meal.
My waiter was awesome, but Treebeard would have chided him for being hasty. Literally. He sat me down, and asked me if I was ready to order.
?
The place was basically empty, but it was like the Talladega pit crew in there.
I ordered, ate, and paid in under twelve parsecs. Yeah. Last time I checked that’s a record.
I’ve had better Chinese food, and eaten in cleaner joints, but I would come here again.
It’s CHEAP!
The portions, as custom with typical Asian restaurants, are Hut-​like. A mound of rice like a fist accompanies the entrée.
I ordered the General Chicken with fried rice, and it came with an egg roll and soup.
–The chicken and its sauce were the best part of the meal. It was better than a buffet, but not as good as something from Ichiban.
–The rice. was. dry.
–The egg roll. Tasteless.
–The soup was nice. It was definitely sour and hot, and a bit spicy. I would get it again.
They take Bamacash for all you students out there who don’t have a job or any money because you decided to stick around in T-​town for the fun and your parents won’t pay for you sojourn any longer.
Cool staff, decent food, cheap prices. Hey, it’s a college town.

Living around the corner from the Tuscaloosa strip, there’s a huge array of restaurants to choose from in a pretty small area (even more if you venture to include some of downtown in the mix), but more often than not, Swen was where my lovely bride and I ended up eating.
The waitstaff is friendly and laid-​back, the lunch menu is extensive and inexpensive, and the food is solidly good American Chinese fare. The sweet and sour chicken commonly graced our table with its presence, as did the sesame chicken, General Tso’s chicken, orange beef, and others. Each order is abundant with meat and vegetables, and the steamed or fried rice accompanying it is a generous portion, too.
Weekends get pretty busy, and they’re inundated like everyone else on a Gameday. Weeknights are moderate, and a seat’s not too hard to come by. The best time as far as level of business and food/​price tradeoff is concerned is definitely lunch.

Swen serves up average Americanized-​Cantonese fare. This is not a bad thing, especially on The Strip. I stop in two or three times a month because average Chinese is something of a rarity in Tuscaloosa. You won’t be blown away by the food, but you will never walk away disappointed either.
The soups are especially nice at Swen. The egg-​drop soup is quite good, the hot-​and-​sour soup is pretty popular, and they have a very unique take on wanton soup that involves a clear broth, loads of carrots and cabbage, and even some chicken (making it something approximating Vietnamese phở).
Perhaps Swen’s biggest advantage is its service. You are always seated quickly by Swen’s efficient wait staff. They are cordial and quick to refill your water glass.
The only reason that i do not dine at Swen more often is that I find their prices to be a bit high. Lunch is a good value, but I end up paying about $ 1.50 per item more than I think I should at dinner.

They have a pleasant space and service, but I’d be happier with a threadbare Chinese restaurant with no service and good food.
The quality of my food was on par with buffet food, not cooked to order food. Indeed, I would not be surprised at all if it had been sitting around in a vat for quite a while. And it was bland.
I’m not going to return, and I only went once, so I can’t say if this is telling, but the fact that it was at the beginning of lunch in the summer doldrums suggests that what I got should be about as good as it gets.

It’s good and it’s cheap. If you’re lucky, the sweetest lady in the world (owner) will wait on you. I usually end up hitting this place once a week for my MSG fix. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but it doesn’t really have to be. It is what it is… and it’s satisfying.