Not a perfect place to take perspective clients to but it’s a fantastic place to have delicious Chinese meals with family and friends. Chef Chen is one of the best Chinese Restaurant that I have the pleasure to dine at… sure, the place looks empty sometimes but that’s due to their abundance of «take outs», which apparently their satisfied customers’ prefer. Some restaurants tend to over cook the string beans, not at Chef Chen… the string beans were crispy and tasty… the Mongolian Beef was just perfect, not extremely hot where you need a garden hose to wash away the hot chili… the Chow Fun was delicious because the noodles were cut much smaller rather than the usual humongous cuts that other restaurants usually serves… that requires a steak knife to cut with. The dishes we had were the «Mongolian Beef», «House Chow Fan», «Chicken w/String Beans» and «Fried Prawns». My family and I have been coming to Chef Chen’s Restaurant for the past several years, now, and we’ve always been more than satisfied of their Chinese dishes… due to being an Asian I have a little knowledge of how should a Chinese cuisine be prepared and taste. Either something has drastically changed or I have to assume that some of the positive reviews were by close friends of the management. I don’t know if this place is under new ownership or what given that it looks like it has been there for a while and has positive reviews in the recent (Feb ’ 15) past. We threw away most of the order - none of us was willing to even finish what was on our plate. Kept trying to find something in our order that would save the place, but frankly nothing was even OK. Even the shrimp chow fun was a complete fail - one needed a magnifying glass to find the odd shrimp in the carton. The potstickers were hard/crunchy and had a very peculiar flavor. I wasn’t setting the bar too high for take-out Chinese in Brentwood, but this place was a new low. If we hadn’t pre-ordered I would have walked away when there were no other customers in the restaurant at 6: 30pm on a Friday night. We placed a to-go order by phone based on average 4⁄ 5 reviews. Oh and the bathroom is filthy… which, in my experience of Chinese restaurants, means it’s probably filthy behind the scenes as well. At least I can share my experience with other Unilocalers and vow never to return. The check was $ 40 and I left feeling totally ripped off. How are they even stay in business if they have that many who people who find their food inedible?! If that’s the case why not just serve better food?! I’m not sure why I didn’t just pay for the beef dish and leave (still bad but, at least, edible).
I asked, «don’t you think it is wrong to charge us for food we cannot eat?» Her response was that she can’t do this for all guests as it would hurt her business. She didn’t offer to bring us something else or to remove it from the check, so I had to ask but she flat out refused. I’ve never had to send back food before and told the waitress as politely as I could that we couldn’t eat it. No sweetness, no other flavors whatsoever. The chicken pieces were stale, the batter was chewy, the walnuts were stale, and the sauce, well, wasn’t a sauce… just globs of mayonnaise barely mixed in with the chicken. View the online menu of Chef Chen and other restaurants in San Leandro, California. Neither of us could eat the Honey Walnut Chicken. More on this to come.Disgusting! We ordered two dishes of Honey Walnut Chicken (a fav) and Mongolian Beef. Camino and his team are working now to turn over the space, in hopes of opening in just a couple of months.
The new Imari is expected to open sometime this spring at 13050 San Vicente Boulevard, in the former Nagao space, which closed late last year after 22 years. Schlosser is Imari’s executive chef, and will continue to operate Shibumi as well.
Joining him in the kitchen is Japanese-taught Derek Wilcox, a master sushi chef in his own right, who hails from the acclaimed Shoji in New York City and will serve as the new restaurant’s chef de cuisine. Schlosser spent years learning and cooking at heralded restaurants across Japan, as discussed on a David Chang podcast episode several years ago. Imari will focus on the Japanese cuisine, traditions, and skills known as Washoku, a celebrated and UNESCO-recognized format often seen in Japanese culture around New Year celebrations. Philip Camino, the owner/operator behind a number of projects from Fellow in Westwood to the Hudson in West Hollywood, has lined up alongside Michelin-starred Shibumi chef David Schlosser for a brand new Japanese restaurant called Imari, and it looks to be ready as soon as this spring. Two big Los Angeles restaurant players are teaming up for what could be the most exciting new project of 2021.
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