Chuanr

Pros– The food was visually appealing, our waitress was very nice and efficient, and the pork kabob was tasty.
Cons– First of all, the menu was confusing and lacked any pictures. I ordered something that I didn’t know was soup. It didn’t specify in the menu. As for the kabobs, the beef kabob was overcooked and extremely chewy, and the lamb kabob was overly seasoned. I wouldn’t come here again.

price is a little bit high. They do have combos! check out the combos!

Kabobs + malatang are seriously two of my favorite things. Chuar does the kabobs well, but the malatang needs some work. Also, the price is pretty expensive for what you are getting. The service was SO incredible slow though. Please fix that!
If I’m craving for some kabobs, I’ll hit up Chuar again.

Save your money guys!!! I just wasted mine! For some skewers that dont even smell like theyre grilled!!! Worst taste took one bite and left! The smell is so weird !! Everything taste the same no difference no matter what meat you get! Worst service too! Waitress smells like cigarettes and has her headphones on!

I love grilled food. Unfortunately this place is deceptive.
They advertised grill food but the items on skewers are not grilled. What they do is fry them up and put the food on skewers and claim that it is grilled. I can tell by the taste and the extra grease. Grilled food has a unique flavor that is absorbed from smoking the wood.
I ordered a large variety of grilled items and they all have this crisco flavor to it.
The other disappointment after putting the fried food on skewers is that they sprinkle way too much nasty herbal seasoning of anise, cumin, and probably cardamon… It gives it a very strong pungent flavor. I had to wash that seasoning off with my water.
Chicken fried rice was good.
I had good waiting service.

Only ordered the skewers from here. They come a little salty so you don’t need to add anything to them. Fairly small but tasty overall. The pork belly skewers were very good and would recommend those.
Service was a little slow during lunch hours.
We asked for white rice (which is free) and they said it wasn’t cooked yet so they gave us stir fried noodles w/​soy sauce, free of cost. So although the service was a little slow, they were still polite and efficient.

I have been waiting 45 minutes for take out which used to take me only 15 minutes … And I bet they forgot my order

Good skews, a bit salty, you may need to ask for white rice (which is free). I ordered lamb, beef, chicken hearts and stuff, and some veggies. The hot pot is yummy. You can order whatever you want in your soup with the minimum of $ 6. The broth is flavorful. If you can’t eat spicy, stay with mild broth.
My only complaint is the service. She doesn’t speak much English. It’s kinda difficult to ask questions. We came for lunch. We want to order the lunch special $ 5.95, but the server didn’t explain to us that we can only order certain skews to get the discount. We ended up paying more than expected. However, it’s good food, so we’ll come back.

Overall food was great I was just full couldn’t finish staff is nice and sweet atmosphere is better than traditional more of an hip style I like it haha.

Very good korean bbq kabobs! Def will be back!^^ oh as a note… they have a sign inside saying if you check in on Unilocal or Facebook that you get a free drink… keep in mind that it’s for actual sodas only.

If you make a Togo order, make sure to check it before you go. I ordered 10 chuanr today, after I got home opened it, just 5 chuanr! I don’t they are in purpose or not. However, its taste is good although.

I don’t know what else to say except the BBQ flavor of th lamb, beef and chicken are all the same and it leave a pretty bad after taste… I wouldn’t come back here. It put Chinese BBQ to shame… It’s nothing even close to the Chinese BBQ I enjoy so much

I’m writing this review for the lamb skewer alone. I have never tried anything else when I come here.
Overall, I felt like they gave me a fair portion for the price that I paid. The seasoning was a bit on the salty side but then again this is beer food so that was expected. I think you should come here for social events. Great foods and great atmosphere.
The service is somewhat lacking. Hiring more waiters or waitresses would fix this problem

This is the perfect place for dinner or late night snack! Our weekly hangout place! Make sure you try the pork belly, spicy duck neck, egg plant, and the famous Pineapple Sweet Rice Bowl!

It is unfortunate that Chuanr’s reviews on Unilocal were mostly negative because I did enjoy my meal there with my family. I appreciate the place wants to start a new style of eating by offering different types of kebab. I liked their lamb kabeb, which was flavorful but not too spicy. One thing that I will suggest is to actually give more meat because some portion of the skewer only had fat. We also tried other things, such as mushroom, corn, potato, and rice cake. Although the seasonings were all very similar for each kind, they did taste differently based on their original flavor. I like the option here to have some light dishes instead of ordering large amount of food each time. The food is definitely good. The service is great too. I wish they will be able to attract more younger people and stay in business.

The problem with Chuanr is the quirkiness that it tries to live on.
Maybe the name should be something that people from that ethnic region can recognize or even say. After talking to the staff, I’m led to believe it means the stick in to the meat, which causes the hole.
And then there is the food, a hotpot that doesnt come with the heater elements. Just a big bowl of mala spiced soup. Yeah, prob should change the name to Mala Soup?
I’m just not big on any of this stuff. Duck neck with dry spicy mix taste like chewing on goat tail with much less meat. The grittiness of the spices is all you get, and I would imaging it would be like eating the barley after the beer is strained away.
Mala soup is a pretty expensive concoction for the size that it comes with. Basically this is like a hotpot for one. And you get a list of the side meats and tofu like dimsum or real hotpots.
Confusing as heck, mediocre food, lack of customers. So the positive out of this place is: Your the first in line?

This place is bursting full of flavor! They have non-​spicy, mild, medium and really spicy for different tastes. Even the mild is spicy for me so I usually get non-​spicy.
Pretty much everything we got were on sticks, except for the spicy soup, eggplant and shells.
If you order 10 sticks of the same meat you get a discount.
Rice is complementary and pretty good, and necessary to help eat all the flavorful dishes.

I was so excited to try this place because I’ve been craving lamb and beef skewers but had been hit with disappointment. Unless you have an appetite for inconsistent food, on a diet, or love of sodium and 3 hours to spare for dinner, I don’t recommend coming here. Feel free to continue to read on for more details about our dinner experience.
Why is there only 1 cook on a Friday night?! Service is terrible! We had ordered lamb and beef skewers and they were so salty we couldn’t even tell if the flavor was good. Ordered the oysters in garlic sauce and it was literally all garlic and chili. Worst $ 7 ever spent. Eggplant was mediocre. Hot hot soup thingy was not even hot. To top it all off Not sure what we were thinking ordering the pineapple sticky rice. Visualize a mixture of rice porridge with oatmeal consistency on top of a cored out pineapple. Our tab was $ 40 for 2 people and we aren’t even full because the portions are so small.
The only thing I enjoyed about this dinner was the Jay Chou playlist.

Service is kind of impolite.
The portions are small for the price, especially for Houston…
But they offer ma la tang (hot pot with your choice of whatever skewers cooked in whatever sauce) here and it seems to be a popular choice!
In terms of the grill, we got take out, and there were 2 other parties in the restaurant. It looks like they only have one grill in the open space outside that would typically be the bar, and the orders were backing up quickly. Took us a long time to get our food. I can’t imagine if the dining area ever gets filled. People would be waiting hours for a few skewers.
In the end, I did like the flavors of the meat. They had nice flavor and were very tender. Is it worth putting up with the slow and rude service? …Questionable.
Also, I still think for any Westerner’s sake, they should have spelled it the way it’s pronounced, like «Chuar» instead of this weird technically correct pinyin version… So. FYI.

Grand Opening 4÷14÷2014.
First and most important of all, Chuanr is BYOB. Be sure to bring a case of Shiner or whatever you like to drink. The food (from the grill and seafood) goes really well with beer.
Chuanr serves Grilled Meats/​Seafood/​Vegetables, Hotpot, and Seafood (choice of 3 sauces). Most of the foods can be ordered to your preference in level of spiciness: Mild, Medium, or Hot. Overall, the Grilled foods are visually small. However you pay accordingly. The skewers are mostly under a dollar. The Hotpot is cooked for you after you choose the ingredients you want. The Seafood comes in 13 spice mix, garlic, or black pepper with salt.
Jumbo Shrimp (choice of 3 sauces): the garlic sauce was delicious with the jumbo shrimp. however i will try the shrimp with the 13 spice mix next time.
Crawfish (choice of 3 sauces): i want to say that the 13 spice mix is the best choice of the 3 sauces available. the crawfish were kinda small but that may be because i ordered them 30 min from closing time.
Grilled Oysters with Garlic Sauce: an order comes with 6 so it’s good for sharing. dont order if you do not like garlic.
Grilled Mussels with Garlic Sauce: same as the oysters but with mussels.
Baked Eggplant: i believe they put a mixture of meat and garlic on top with a red sauce. i will definitely get this again.
Grilled Lamb Skewers: dont get this if you dont like gamey food. i like to get this with the medium spiciness seasoning. that way it doesnt mask the flavor of the lamb.
Grilled Chicken Heart Skewers: i love eating chicken hearts because as everyone knows, for every chicken heart you eat, you gain the power of one more chicken. jk. i just like the texture and with the really spicy seasoning.
Grilled Squid Leg Skewers: a lot of time went into making this one. there were many folds.
This place gets only 4 stars as the skewers are visually lacking and I haven’t tried the Hotpot items yet. Every group except for ours ordered the Hotpot. It accounts for half the items on the menu.