Shen Cafe

Good food, comfortable dining room. Takes Apple Pay, which is always fun to use. We would eat here again.
Had schezuan beef and an Thai iced tea — both very tasty.

I want to love this place, but ultimately a restaurant has to be good at one thing– food. Great atmosphere, friendly service, great ingredients and reasonably prices. But the food…
Teriyaki chicken stick was good and the crab Rangoon was also good. Unfortunately, the orange chicken was not. Good crisp coating, but chicken was rubbery and flavor was weak. Couldn’t even finish it. It was too rubbery.
May be worth another shot, but not eager to waste the money.

It’s a damn shame that some others have had not so great experiences here, because I come in all the time and I love it every time. The milk teas are always fresh and the food is always good. There’s not much more to say other than I love this place.

Best Chinese food I’ve had in town. I will not go anywhere else now that I know this place exists. I like how the menu is set up with choose your protein then choose your sauce. I really dislike the typical Chinese restaurants with the giant menus so this is great. Plus you’re able to order just 2 rangoons. Chicken is excellent.

UPDATE — Now a month later.
Have orderd take out 3 times since last review.
The first 2 had no issues. Last night ordered same thing we always order… sweet & sout tofu blazing, almond tofu blazing and an extra side of white rice. Popped over to pick it up around 8PM. Again, the girl handling the front counter could not be more unfriendly and as always seemd bothered that I even came in. The restaurant was completely empty so the kitchen was by no means slammed.
Got the food home and opened it and the sweet and sour tofu was some other tofu with some brown sauce. My wife tried her almond tofu and it was not blazing spice. I ran the food back to get it fixed.
Got there and it seemed like the owners were having dinner in the front. I say this as I found out later that they were such. The unfriendly girl went and got the manager (I think owner as well and son of the people having the meal up front). I showed him my receipt clearly stated our order and showed him the food.
He was VERY apologetic about the issue. I relayed that my orders are routinely not correct and that we do love the food but that the consistency is really a downer and influences our frequency. He spoke to the people eating and identified that his father made the order and he sometimes does not check tickets clearly and that they would fix the issue. He refunded my bill in full and made new orders for us. He gave us the old food to take too. I feel he did 100% the right thing and was attentive to the issue. Got home and found he had put in 2 Ragoons. A nice gesture. However as my wife and I are vegetarians and they had crab in them we could not eat but still a nice token.
I have not raised my score on Shen’s. I still see some room for improvement. The food is great. Consistency is not. The front of house could not be more detached from their customers. The unfriendly girl sat behind the counter on her phone and sipping through a straw during the whole discussion I had with the owner about my order and while I waited for the corrected food.
Shen’s… we appreciated your help with the issues but it would be even better if such was corrected and prevented going forward.

The interior looks nice. We were expecting the food to be good, and it looked good when we received it. However, the sauce was not good on either of our dishes. It tasted very salty and kind of off, like it was a premade sauce. This is a shame because I like the concept and the vegetables and meat appeared to be of good quality. The sauce really ruined it for us though and neither of us finished our meals. In sum, there are other options in the area for Asian food that do the sauce right.

Overall I had a great experience here. I have a special place in my heart for a local Chinese restaurant from my hometown and since I moved to Lincoln it has been difficult to find good places that compare in lincoln. This was previously Windchimes and I also remember that being a good place. The atmosphere here was great, some nice remodeling was done. I got the spiced chicken curry, and chose to have it blazing. Next time I will choose on fire because it was not hot enough, but I have a high tolerance for spice. If you can handle a lot of spice, I recommend going straight for the on fire option. Prices were reasonable and good portions for the amount you get. It is also nice that you can add sides for $ 2 including a soup, egg roll or crag Rangoon. The hot and sour soup was also very good. Service was good, we had a larger group and the waiter kept coming back to make sure everyone in our party had what they needed. I would come back to this place to try other things on the menu. 4.5 stars only because i cannot rate it higher than Hunans in Hastings.

Tried this place twice now. Not impressed. Had the veggie fried rice and eggrolls, as well as the tofu in sweet and sour sauce. Food was very bland. It was a carry out order and they didn’t include any utensils, napkins, or sauce in the bag, and one side was brown rice instead of the fried rice I ordered. The only upside was the milk tea: fresh brewed and very sweet, just like it is in Asia. I would only come back for the tea.

Good food, but a very unfriendly staff. They make the restaurant just as much as the food does.

Good food, plenty of seating, quick service, very friendly staff. I came here after leaving hungry from the China House. Here I ordered sweet n sour chicken and some other chicken, that was served up looking like General’s chicken. Whatever, I was hungry.

I saw the Shen Café from the outside and thought it looked interesting and that it may be more than just typical generic Chinese food. I was wrong.
I got the Gengis Beef with fried rice and while the meat and onions weren’t too bad, the fried rice was bland as hell. Picture cold rice with some soy sauce on it, and that’s the rice. But the strangest thing was the addition of weird freeze dried rice puffs that looked like mini packing peanuts. It was beyond bizarre and I have no idea why they were on my plate. The crab rangoons were way too sweet and the egg roll just tasted greasy and bland.
The inside is really pretty, which is the only reason it gets two stars. However, the men’s bathroom was apparently appalling, so there’s that. Basically, if you want good Chinese, you’re better off going across the street to HyVee.

Not bad and close to where I live. My wife picked up some food here and it was ok. I am not a huge Chinese food fan so it does take a considerable amount of work to impress me. The price is good and the food is good. We got takeout so the service doesn’t really apply here.

Went in and got dinner to-​go. Very friendly and the place is clean. Makes me want to go dine-​in next time. Food was great!

Works kinda like Chipotle, pick Ur ingredients but its on a Shiney board so it’s hard to read. We got ours to go, it was past 8. Sauce was too thick and was overly salty, the price is cheap and they give you more rice than meat (I’m Asian but I still prefer meat over rice). Soup is not good, tastes like it’s from out of a can or made from powder.

Oooooo… it’s so swanky in here. Feels upscale yet all their meals are under $ 10. Did I mention how swanky it is.

Nice place really close to me i never knew about. Clean, comfortable dining, friendly service and really good boba and thai tea.

Service was fantastic and food was great. Some of the freshest Chinese my wife and I have had. Ordered the mix of shrimp, beef, and chicken with Szechuan sauce. My wife got Kung Pao shrimp. Both were delicious.
On our way out we each got bubble tea — was the best we’ve had. Tea is brewed fresh for each order and it isn’t too sweet. Great way to finish the meal. We’d recommend the Thai black tea.
Peter is a recent grad from UNL who started this restaurant with his family. He’s got a great, modern vision for where Chinese food can go. Great addition to Lincoln’s restaurants.

First off its nice to find a place with gluten free chinese food. Since I’ve been gluten free, chinese food has been difficult to come by. Many places either just are not sure about the gluten free status of their dishes or its just a no based on all the sauces. Shen café has which sauces are gluten free right on their menu board so its very simple to navigate.
You walk in and the atmosphere has a modern feel to it with energizing colors. I haven’t been in when its been too busy yet so I’ve been able to order quickly and food comes promptly. Once I ate there and another time I got take out.
I’ve been pleased with the food both times. You can choose your meat, vegetables and then the sauce you want, so rather than there being a menu with specific dishes it is a make your own combination type of place. They also have loose tea which I love.
Both times I’ve eaten here I haven’t gotten sick afterwards so thats a pretty good sign that their gluten free status is legit and cross contamination must be pretty well controlled.
Food is also pretty affordable and portion sizes are good. I definitely think this is a nice Chinese place in Lincoln and certainly a great place for anyone trying to avoid gluten. Sadly my favorite Chinese food items are still off limits.

This place is Chinese in the Chipotle model. Choose your meat, your sauce, your rice, then add extras like soup, egg roll or won ton. The also have bowls of lo mein or rice.
Everything is made after you order. Egg roll was Just out of the fryer. Too hot too eat.
The hot & sour soup was brothy not gelatinous like most Chinese places.
I got the Ghengis Kahn steak and made it Blazing. Steak was really tender and the sauce a little sweet. Spouse got veggies in Shen Sauce. Shen is yummy brown sauce with a hint of ginger.
Good value. Three courses for each of us for $ 25. The have beer too.
Try it!

Quick lunch with good fast Chinese food. A build your own style menu, you get choice of protein, sauce and sides. Great deal with the two for two giving you multiple choices for sides at two bucks.
Friendly owners with a great concept and vision for something unique. Strong offering back to the community with donations to local charities.
My companion changed his order to what I had and they had to resubmit the order. But they gave us the sesame chicken that was accidentally made in addition to the noodles.
Owner said loyalty was important to him. I agree, excellent approach. Keep the food top quality and you will have a customer for life.