Uncle Chen Restaurant

Best ever! The owner is really really nice, and the food is just spectacular! It is really traditional taste and good qualify!

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.

I don’t understand the negative reviews of this place. Like most people, I’ve had a lot of Chinese food in my life, and this is one of the best. Some recipes vary a little from other similar restaurants, but it all tastes great, cooked properly, with fresh ingredients. No mushy vegetables!
I prefer white rice that sticks together a little, more like Japanese rice, and that’s how they do their rice. It’s not Japanese rice, but I just don’t like every rice grain separate, so I love theirs.
I think maybe people prefer different styles of Chinese food, and there is a big difference between them. There is a huge difference between any style of American Chinese food and the food eaten in any of the 8 styles of Chinese cooking. Unless the restaurant claims to be truly authentic Chinese cuisine, any discussion of authenticity is deeply irrelevant and most likely the speaker is arrogantly trying to demonstrate superiority.
It’s a restaurant so the only thing that really matters is, Do you like the food? Yes, I love the food here, and I hope you do too.

If I could give this restaurant zero stars I would. We have ordered food from here about 5 times (and my husband has eaten here a couple of times too) and it’s my fault for continuing to try this horrible restaurant. The problem is there is is no other Chinese food near Carpinteria and nothing else delivers besides pizza so I keep hoping it will be good because I don’t want pizza… IT’S NOT! I just ordered beef and broccoli — beef is over cooked and so salty I cannot eat it and the broccoli is raw. Decided to try something new in hopes it might be good, shrimp in lobster sauce. Yeah it’s fishy shrimp with the poo line still in (so yuck), raw vegetables all in water. This is supposed to be the wonderful rich lobster sauce you usually get? Yeah WATER! Cream cheese wontons that are chewy not crispy and chowmein noodles that are horrible too. Panda Express seems like gourmet Chinese food compared to this and this is expensive! I have never written in for this restaurant because the people there are really nice but they should either learn how to cook good Chinese food or just STOP! I often review on Unilocal because I look to this site to provide the truth about services etc without compromise — I feel compelled to those hoping for good Chinese food to tell you to look anywhere else… Or just order pizza!

Uncle Chen’s is Carpinteria’s «go to» Chinese restaurant. Its prices are reasonable and it has an extensive menu. My favorite dish at the moment is shrimp with lobster sauce, but the moo goo gai pan is also very good. Just once did I receive a substandard shrimp with lobster sauce here. The sauce was very watery.
The staff is very friendly, and they prepare orders with lightning speed. I can call in an order and drive there within 15 minutes, and the order is complete and waiting for me.

Really enjoyed our meal at uncle Chen.
My boyfriend enjoyed his chicken friend rice and I enjoyed the Kung pao chicken. Staff was so kind!
I have tried the string beans before and they were amazing ! A great alternative to the usual restaurants in carp !

The owners the Lee family are so nice and such a wonderful part of our community!!! We love the green beans, cream cheese wontons, kungpo & soups. Almost every time we go there is a different large group of international Asian students that drive to our little town for the yummy food, which is a for sure compliment to chef Lee! The students always have a table filled with an assortment of hot pot food. We are so thankful to have Uncle Chen and the Lee family in Carpinteria!

Uncle Chen restaurant is great. The staff is super sweet and welcoming. I’ve personally never had even one bad experience here, so not sure what other Unilocalers are talking about. I’ve had the buffet quite a bit in the past, but currently I order veggie dishes. Mostly the sautéed mixed veggie with brown rice. I’ve also had the vegetarian chicken, and tofu dishes. I always love everything. Even my boyfriend who is not usually the biggest fan of Chinese food loves everything he’s had.
I guess if you are looking for a mile long buffet you could be disappointed because it is a smaller version.
I particularly love the delivery service when I feel like chillin at home. Ive never had to wait long for them to arrive.
My experience has always been fresh, hot food, and friendly service.

Really nice place. Greatest food and greatest service, trust me, this is definitely a good choice!

All of the other asian food places in Carp are closed on a Friday at 4pm… Thanks for saving our lives Uncle Chen! We were starving. Great chow mein!

Not bad. Ordered some chow fun and broccoli beef to go on a recent Sunday night. Good flavor, big portions. This isn’t gourmet, and keep in mind that you’re not in LA or the Bay Area, but it’s just fine and the only Chinese in town.

Loved this place. While the food may not be traditional Chinese food, I would say nothing in the states is. However the service and portion size for what you pay for is really reasonable. I have ordered from here many times and love everything. The Szechwan style eggplant is one of my favorites, as well as the Mongolian beef. I would recommend uncle chens over a lot of other places in SB county!

Traveling through Carpinteria, I checked into the Holiday Inn for our overnight. It was 8:30 pm and me and the girls were hungry but didn’t want to go out. We ordered Chicken stir fry, fried rice and egg rolls from this amazing place. Delivery was fast, hot and not expensive at all. The 4 of us enjoyed every bite and were delighted that they sent flatware and paper plates and napkins. Definitely recommend!

Not great. Beef was too mushy in the Mongolian beef and broccoli beef, orange chicken was too tart, and the sweet and sour shrimp was chock full of breading. Fried rice was just rice with soy sauce tossed around in a wok.
Service was good, but would not return for the food unless huge improvements are made.

For an Asian place in a mostly White area, this restaurant is not as bad as some other Unilocalers 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 :)

Gross chicken, tastes like they get there food from the freezer section at the grocery store, bland, mushy, spongy… Thumbs down

Just finished lunch today and boy what a mistake coming here,.I am one to not bitch about every little thing about food specially when I know how restaurants work hard to gain customers however The sesame chicken lunch I had was just plain awful! It’s really unfortunate places like this exist and even more unfortunate that people, perhaps because they don’t have other choices in Chinese food in the area, will continue to eat and support a place that makes subpar food. The chicken served to me had already been cooked and thrown back in the fryer again just to get crispiness back to serve to me. There will be people day tripping around Carpinteria that will eat in here and quite possibly (and hopefully not) experience the same thing I did however I would urged the locals to stay away.

The wait staff and owners are really nice. The food, sadly, isn’t very good. It’s both bland and greasy. I wish the food would improve because it’s a nice addition to Carpinteria.
We ordered the head on salt and pepper shrimp and they were fishy and rubbery. Probably frozen.
The orange chicken was bland and mostly breading, no meat.
The rainbow shrimp is good! Garlic sauce with shrimp and veggies. Pretty good dish!
Hopefully it improves although it’s been this way for many years.

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!

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!