Nice pleasant surprise in a strip center. Waiter was very efficient and his suggestions taken. The Ma Po Tofu was served smoking hot both ways as I ordered it extra spicy. It was part of the lunch special with homemade spring roll, fried wonton and stir-fry noodles, and was enough for two meals. At $13.99 was a good value. Last time I went, I had the crispy fish fillet with hot garlic sauce. left me craving for more.... read more

Their food is fresh and amazing! Friendly helpful service and remember you and your usual order! Sit outside and enjoy the wonderful food and beautiful weather! We keep going back for more...can't get enough of it!!! read more

I know what you are thinking:) The food wasn't 5 starts to be really honest but the service was 10 stars. We have stayed at the Best Western Hotel and were really tired. So we decided to order for a delivery. A lady answered the phone and she was very helpful and kind on the phone. We ordered Mongolian beef and Kung pow chicken, they were okay. Not bad but definitely not like your typical Chinese food flavor somehow. The delivery came quickly and the food portion was pretty good so overall I had to give 5 stars to this business. read more

We have been coming here for years! Decent Chinese food for the Santa Barbara area, certainly not what we get in the SGV. The owners are nice people and the portions are generous. We recommend the chow mien and kung par chicken. Uncle Chen is a Carpinteria institution. read more

For an Asian place in a mostly White area, this restaurant is not as bad as some other Yelpers reviewed. I guess if u want something good, order real food on menu not the buffet section, you will enjoy it. We were not really hungry when we order but the dish came out better than expected. The service is good. Surprisingly, most servers are white in a Chinese setting like this :) read more

Uncle Chen Restaurant - Decent healthy steam fish in ginger onion soy sauce love the sauce on rice - Chinese Near Me - Carpinteria, California

Finally, a good fast food alternative for that coastal drive. Pretty easy in/out, despite the constant construction. Call in 20 minutes ahead, and grab it, for the road. I got my fave cashew chicken. Quality chunks of meat, and crunchy, fresh veggies, not overly-sauced. Reasonably priced. Can't wait to try more. read more

Loved Uncle Chen's! We were seeking a traditional Chinese Restaurant and stumbled across this gem. Don't let the exterior dissuade you-the food is very good with a full menu. We will be back! read more

Great food always! My favorite dishes are Rincon Rice, Salt n Pepper Ribs and Casitas Greens. Uncle Chen's uses the freshest best quality local vegetables. There are so many dishes to choose from that are delicious. Enjoy! read more

I ordered pan fried noodles and pineapple chicken for pick up. It was two giants bags due to everything being boxed up separately. I understand the need for this, but it didn't work out well for me where I'm staying as I had to basically build each dish. Food quality was mediocre. Agree with the other review that I should have just gotten Panda for half the price. Another disappointing thing was that on the phone I asked the difference between chow mein and pan fried noodles and the way it was explained, I thought I was getting the pan seared yummy noodles. Nope! I got all the way home and they were the hard crispy noodles... I don't even understand who eats their chow mein like that lol. Major pet peeve of mine with Chinese food. Anyways, I'll be giving my food to the others who live here if they'll even have it! read more

Uncle Chen Restaurant - Some serious take out! All this for around $20...even the plate ;) - Chinese Near Me - Carpinteria, California

Went there Saturday night for dinner. Had egg rolls, pot stickers, and general tso chicken. Egg rolls were nothing special, dumplings were okay, but the chicken was terrible. The sauce was really bad and was over fried. My friend had a different chicken dish and wasn't impressed either Was kinda pricy all things considered $40+ with 2 dishes & 2 appetizers for mediocre in house dinner. Not one to be harsh, but was bummed after I heard good things. Being from NYC I know the difference between bad Chinese food and good Chinese food. read more

Not only are the recipes delicious but the service is outstanding. My husband is handicapped and the owners are so helpful when he is picking up the order. The owners are an active part of the community. This restaurant is a big part of the community. read more

Our favorite Chinese restaurant! The restaurant has the best service of all the restaurants (American, Mexican, etc) that I have been too. The servers are friendly and always greet us with a smile on their faces, no matter how busy they are. Food is great! Not greasy. They are being creative in their menus so have none traditional Chinese food. However, if you are Chinese or prefer traditional Chinese dishes, they do have Chinese menus :). read more

This place has the best Chinese food ever. Hands down. I only come to Carp once a year to camp with my family and I make sure this is my first dinner every time. I've been coming to carp my whole life (34 years) and this has been and will be my fav, forever! read more

Unfortunately, the food was not tasty at all, egg flour soup looked like sweet and sour sour soup and had not flavor, but salty. I ordered the most common plates You can order anywhere, beef chow mein, orange chicken, kung pao chicken, broccoli beef, but so sorry to say, I had to throw lots of food away. I know it's located in very touristic area, but please improve your food making. Worse Chinese I have ever had. Don't recommend it. read more

This place is simply not good. I got sick eating here a couple years ago. I decided to try it again, maybe it was a fluke. We live in town and options are limited so we have it another shot. Big mistake! Service was good but the food is not tasty. Any other Chinese spot is better including Panda Express. I do not recommend to anyone, very disappointing. read more

This place has been here forever and it never disappoints! The portions are large and the price is just right! No complaints!will continue to be a loyal customer. :) read more

I think it's pretty tasty Chinese. The "casitas greens" is a healthy side option for including with any of the mains. I like the fried noodles. Delivery in town is usually quick. It's not gourmet but it's nice on a night when you don't want to cook and Chinese sounds good - occasionally I'm let down but usually it's a tasty meal with fresh ingredients. read more

Got a bunch of food to go. Tastes better than I remember it a couple of years ago. Kung pao chicken, beef and broccoli, and chicken chow mein were delicious. Friendly staff. Will be getting more food from here. Thanks Uncle Chen! read more

Uncle Chen Restaurant - Chinese Near Me - Carpinteria, California

Loved this place. Very reasonable and big portions. It's hard to feed a family of 5 on the road and keep everyone happy. It was also low key service. No upsells and people pushing more on us read more

Excellent food; excellent service. The restaurant uses no MSG in its cooking, and everything is fresh and made to order. The quality of ingredients is outstanding, the portions are sizable and the affordability is great. Two of us had an appetizer, two entrees and a beer for $40. The menu is comprehensive, which will please meat lovers, seafood lovers and vegetarians. If you are looking for good Chinese food, and a respite away from the Carpinteria beach area, we highly recommend Uncle Chen. read more

This place was amazing! We've been vacationing in Carpinteria for decades and have never eaten here. My only regret is not having tried this place sooner. The portions were great, food delicious and pricing very fair! We will be eating here again for sure! read more

Eh.. really nice staff but food was bland. Got their chicken chow mein and Kung pao chicken special dinners. The appetizers and soup was better then the entree. We will pass next time , I'm sorry to say. Also, takeout never had any utensils or napkins. Was a little frustrating read more

Delicious & warm food and staff is the best as always. Family friendly environment. Wish they had a dinner buffet. read more

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No I don't have a photo! But next time I order I will get one. Almost everything I order at Uncle Chen's is special but I do have a favorite. I call it my "feel better quick soup". I am highlighting it because people who may have tasted it elsewhere don't know what they are missing. And Uncle Chen if you change it you will break my heart. Uncle Chens makes the best Wor Wanton Soup I have had since my young adult years hanging out in Lower Manhattan and eating at a few favorite restaurants (now long gone in ChinaTown). I started going there on Wednesday nights with my two favorite Aunts. We would buy lovely Chinese Lounging pajamas or Reversible Silk Jackets and other wonderful things not to be found anywhere else. Then we would go get our War wanton soup and quietly joke that it was much better than Grandma's chicken soup for feeling better about everything. It had very plump stuffed wantons with well seasoned ground pork and crunchy Chinese root vegetables all wrapped in a delicate noodle skin. The soup was well flavored and loaded with succulent large shrimp, sliced white meat chicken, wonderful small whole mushrooms Bok Choi, sliced pork, and other crisp Chinese vegetables. But the best part of having the soup is something I have never had in any other local Chinese restaurant around here. That is their homemade fried flat noodles to either eat straight or throw into the soup mix. I do both. Other Local Chinese restaurants that event have crunchy noodles on the table tend to be the round tasteless type that taste like they come in a can and probably do. For me a finishing touch to this perfect soup with its fried noodles is a dash of hot mustard and two small dashes of their sweet and sour sauce. I have not tasted any Wor Wanton soup anywhere in this part of California that favorably compares! I have not tasted a Wor Wanton soup this good since the restaurants I remember from long ago in New York's China Town. read more

Ordered carry out and I must say the lady that took my order was so sweet, I couldn't get over how nice she was. My order took longer than she said but she was so apologetic she even gave me a free drink for waiting longer, I really didn't mind (even though I was hungry) because she was so nice! The food was great, very savory! Use to eating LA takeout and I must say this was the most flavorful Chinese food I've had in a long time! I'm a strong believer in supporting small businesses and small restaurants are going through so much, 10 extra minutes of patience was well worth it, let's be kind and not get so irritated for a longer wait time when these business owners are trying to keep their businesses afloat. read more

All there food has been great. Egg drop soup is amazing. Staff are very nice and friendly

Wanted some Chinese food and decided to try it. They don't use MSG which tells me they know how to cook. Shrimp and chicken chow mein are fantastic and the wonton soup is great. The lady up front (didn't get her name) was super nice. All around a great place to get Chinese food. Chicken Chow MeinEgg Rolls read more

This is honestly the best Chinese food I have had in a long time and I have eaten eat from NYC to Florida and anywhere in between. The staff is so friendly and the food comes out hot and fresh. The food is so flavorful that it cannot be mistaken for any cheap imitations at PF Chang or anywhere else that you may go to. Please if you have not tried this place and you live locally, please go to it. I love local places for food and I wish I lived closer, because this would be my place to eat. Enjoy it and savor it! read more

A family business, friendly owner and staff, food came out at a reasonable time, food tasted okay and could be better.

I absolutely love this place. The food is amazing. The lunch buffet gives a nice selection. The staff and service are exemplary! I make the drive up from Ventura and it is well worth it! read more

Just went here for lunch. It was quick. The food was good. It was a good value. There were lots of choices on the menu. Plenty of parking. And they were nice. What's not to like? read more

This place is so great. I go here when I want to eat a lot of really amazing food. The atmosphere is calm and tranquil with some classic Chinese music playing. The complimentary fried wontons they serve are delicious. The egg rolls have crispy outsides and a juicy, moist interior. The beef stick kabobs are sweet and tender. The paper wrapped chicken is always the star of my order. The beef broccoli is always perfectly seasoned and cooked. The broccoli in it is still crisp and fresh. The chow mein has a perfect consistency and a very nice flavor. Even the steamed rice is pretty good. Tsing Tao beer which is served here is light and crisp. Similar to an American light beer but with a little more flavor and less carbonation. This restaurant is really underrated. I think they deserve more business. Keep up the good work! read more

When it comes to rice I prefer Uncle Ben's to Uncle Chen's. This place is on the sadder side of restaurants as a whole. How do you have bad rice at an Chinese restaurant? The buffet was pretty bad it consisted of Jello , Ice burg lettuce, rice, and one or two unidentifiable dishes. Note to Uncle Chen: Get your shit together. read more

Ok, maybe this is a mistake to tell people how really good and fresh the food is at Uncle Chen's. I like the fact that we can get in without waiting. But to be fair, I have to tell you that none of the negative reviews I have seen below seem to be the same restaurant I go to. Hubby is Chinese-Hawaiian, so we know our way around a puu-puu platter. We dine often at Chinese restaurants in Los Angeles, so we are not un-initiated, if you catch my drift. Our food is always, always, always fresh and hot! (We never do the buffet; maybe that is the difference between us and the haters??) We order shrimp balls for our appetizers....they are AWESOME! Crunchy, hot, deep fried but NOT greasy pillows of shrimp heaven! Served with cocktail sauce or a sweet sauce, you can't go wrong with these. Only problem our family has, is leaving enough room for what is coming. Our family's list of favorites: Beef with broccoli, shrimp in black bean sauce, war won ton soup,almond duck/chicken, imperial soup, sweet and sour ribs, shrimp with snow peas, sesame chicken, moo-goo-gai pan, beef chow fun, shrimp egg foo young, peking duck, moo-shoo chicken and mongolian lamb. We usually get the steamed rice (Mom-in-law makes the best fried rice, so we are kinda spoiled!) and they always bring us the latest fresh fruit at the perfect ripeness for dessert, and all of the vegetables are at the peak of freshness and cooked tender-crisp. Tina is amazing; all the staff are amazing! They are friendly, and really want you to have a great dinner experience. (Most of them work 7 days a week.) They answer questions; make substitutions without rolling their eyes, and will do special orders even if it isn't on the menu, providing they have the ingredients. Buffet is for kids who haven't developed a palate for Chinese food or people eating on a budget. Not bad, just what it is. Order off the menu and ask for recommendations; they are more than willing to share their knowledge. Even if this means I have to wait for a table from now on. And we are rating the won-ton crispys? Really? Okay, I agree the carpet needs a good shampoo. Don't eat off it, okay?! BTW, I drive from Ventura for Uncle Chen's. There isn't anything close to this good in Ventura or Oxnard! If I don't go to Uncle Chen's, I go to L.A. read more

Okay, this place ain't that bad, as suggested by the two previous reviews. But I must warn you, 1) I dont' have that great of taste buds to sense real good Chinese food, but I have had my fair share. And 2) Yes Lexi (first review), I did spend a lot of time in the bathroom later that night, but then again I did have stomach problems prior when I ate there. Hm not the best nor worst place to get Chinese food. DO NOT get their sesame crispy chicken. OMG the most bland chicken ever!! The sauce was good, but once that taste was gone (within 2 seconds), it was just the bland ass tasting chicken. DO get their bean sprouts plate. It was pretty simple, yet good, stir fried in garlic and oyster sauce. Their pan friend chicken was aite, as well as their "dumplings", which seriously I think were Ling Ling Pot stickers. I think I am giving this place more credit because the services was real good. They did know the guy I was with because apparently he has been coming here for a very long time and met them in China (???). The server, Tina, would individually serve us and make sure everything was okay seriously like every five minutes. They even sent home with us a whole watermelon! Wowzers, so they were super nice. I don't think I'd come back here tho.... read more

So we ordered the poo poo platter which was really good! Moogoo Chicken was not bad but the sizzling rice soup was the best! Customer service was perfect.. I would go back again anytime :) read more

This place offers the worst of the worst of Americanized Chinese. Previously I'd been to the lunch buffet and swore I'd never return, but one of my co-workers insisted that dinner was a different matter. The dining room carpet was still repulsively grotty and the place still smelled of burned onions. I got the Special Dinner B to go. I started with the Hot and Sour Seafood soup. It didn't have any seafood in it. It was piping hot out of the styrofoam container but bland. The sourness was dull instead of tangy. There wasn't even a nibble of hottness, let alone a proper bite to offset the sour. I followed with the appetizers. Fried shrimp, BBQ Spare Ribs, Egg Roll, Paper Wrapped Chicken. The Chicken was the best of the bunch being at least inoffensively bland. Everything else was deep-fried and sodden with grease rendering it virtually indistinguishable. The shrimp was vulcanized and it's breading scorched to a dark brown. The flavor of the grease suggests that the deep fryer oil hasn't been changed this decade. The ribs were, I think, burned all to hell. It's hard to tell since they were also coated in a foul sauce that smelled of burning socks (no kidding). I didn't finish the ribs. The egg roll had a good crisp wrapper, but unfortunately the contents were best described as a slimy emulsion of grease and unidentifiable vegetal matter. For the main, I chose General Tso's Chicken. It's has a little chili beside it on the menu, signifying hot and spicy. It was not. Think instead dried out chicken remnants coated in scorched breading smothered in a slightly sweet but mostly gloppy sauce. Cornstarch is not a foundation for flavor. The fried rice tasted like scorched onions (clean your stove) and old grease. I also got some plain white rice since I figured the fried might not be all that good, and you can always pull dried white rice out of the fridge and use it to make your own fried rice. The white rice was dense (loft it when the rice cooker finishes and release some steam). I'm trying to find something positive to say about the place.The service was friendly. They included napkins and some of that awesome yellow mustard you can't hardly find in the grocery stores. read more

The food is always delicious and their customer service gets better is always amazing! Their lunch special options are great and filling!

I do not go here very often, but wanted to note that they do offer local delivery which is nice. While the food appeared to be traditional Chinese food, I thought some dishes tasted frozen and many were bland and the meat, in several items, was dry and unappetizing. The customer service wasn't impressive either. There are more delicious Chinese places to eat, China Palace in Montecito (less than ten minutes away) had me thinking I was literally eating in China!!!The food is magnificent and it's on Axxess! I recommend you take your money there, you will be glad you did! read more

We ordered delivery from our hotel room two nights in a row. Great service, good delivery food, and very inexpensive compared to other Chinese delivery I have ordered. read more

Uncle Chen Restaurant - Cashew chicken, rice, wonton strips- delivery to our hotel. - Chinese Near Me - Carpinteria, California