Chen's Garden - Berkeley

Hole in the wall place with amazing Chinese food. Large servings, fairly rapid service. Small dining area is frequently packed.

Very good food and awesome lunch special...one of dah fav local restaurants

Whoa! They have fish maw soup! I 'm not used to seeing these kinds of ingredients outside of Chinatowns. I was so happy! The salt and pepper tofu was perfect--crispy on the outside and blisteringly hot on the inside. It wasn 't too salty, either. The green beans were crunchy and delicious. My kid couldn 't get enough of the seafood and tofu soup, which had some of the wispy bits of egg like egg drop soup except, you know, not dyed yellow. Food was copious for the price. Looking forward to going back!Earlier, we had the pan fried noodles as a pick-up order and the person on the phone asked if we 'd be eating it right away or if we 'd be eating it later, so she 'd pack it accordingly. We said we 'd be eating it later so she put the sauce into a container separate from the pan fried noodles. This was thoughtful, since it ended up being perfectly crispy with the right amount of chewiness when we put it together later.I really appreciated all the bok choy in the noodles. I 'm tired of places that put in a ton of waxy white cabbage and carrots as filler. The number of shrimp wasn 't skimpy, and they were juicy and big, not those sad wee ones. I 'm looking forward to coming back to try more things!Google Chinese restaurants 3.5 rule if you get a chance.

Gotta love little hole in the wall places, the food was amazing and a dozen people came in to pick up while I was waiting for mine.

Food was okay, but service was super slow. Then again, I might have come during the rush.