Chow

Can it be true? Please say it ain’t so! My favorite noodle house closed. boo hoo :(
No more Chow specialty soup! What’s a girl to do now when she craves delicious vegetable and tofu soup with udon noodles. Guess it’s time to find another noodle house; I can only hope it is as good as Chow was.
This is unbearable news :*(

I see that this place has very mixed reviews – either people love it or hate it, and well, I am one of those who love it! The couple of times I’ve been here, I’ve gotten excellent service and excellent food! I love their Green Curry, is to die for! Spicy in the perfect level, not too much, not bland at all!
Their appetizers are delicious too, especially the shrimp and the cheese wontons. Very affordable too.
Try their flavored sake!
I am a fan indeed!

Sunday Service= excellent. Great atmosphere with the most chill and friendly staff. The service was top notch; hospitable, timely, courteous.
Food = SomTum (papaya salad) was delish as were the spring rolls (which were cooked perfectly– not dripping with oil!). I ordered the Drunken Noodles (note that meals come mild– if you like spice, ask they take it up a notch!). The drunken noodles were great! The BF ordered Massaman Chicken (this is a relatively hard to find Thai dish) which was so incredibley good!
After living in Thailand, I have a pretty HIGH standard for Thai food and CHOW was right on par! Grab a beer Chang for the full Thai experience! If you are not crazy about Thai, they have a really great menu of staple Vietnamese and Chinese dishes as well!
I give this place a 5 for great service, great food– huge selection-​great portions-​reasonable prices, and a great atmosphere! CHOW and Enjoy!

I’ve enjoyed Chow in the past, especially when they first opened. The husband and I were there on Friday night and we had pretty good meals, although service took forever. I also didn’t like that the poured the beer into a glass from a can/​bottle and brought it to you, so you couldn’t even make sure you were getting the right beer. He ordered Sapporo and ended up with what tasted like Asahi. Not a big deal, nothing to give only 1 star over, but that’s because I haven’t talked about the leftovers.
My husband took my leftovers with him to work Monday. When he was eating them, he came across a large, spiral-​shaped metal shaving at least a half-​inch long. How I didn’t see this I’ll never know, but I guess I’m lucky I don’t inhale my food and that he wasn’t inhaling it that day either. Needless to say, we’re not going back. I’m not a fan of places where things that shouldn’t be in your dish end up there, especially dangerous things like scrap metal.

I really like this place… prices are VERY reasonable, and I think the place over all is lovely — they really opened up the space, and cleaned it up. This place is owned by the same restauranteurs as Celadon (for those who are familiar, some of the dishes are the same, and at a cheaper price!) — and Celadon has not disappeared… last I saw, it had moved down the street on 5^th (?) with a totally new look (still great food, just different ambiance)… but this isn’t a review for them… it’s for Chow — which I think its a great noodle place! And I like the concept — noodles from different Asian countries.
I usually get the Pad Thai which was yum yum good… but I do realize Pad Thai is pretty difficult to mess up… so I’ve also tried the Garlic noodles w/​shrimp… also really delish… it is kinda greasy, but not disgusting… oh and a dessert — banana eggrolls w/​lychee ice cream — sounds weird, and looks kinda weird (cuz the ice cream was green!!) but it was soooo goooooood.
Also, the times I’ve gone (around lunch), the place is never packed… on the contrary, there were lots of tables open, and service was prompt! I can see it getting crowded maybe at dinner, as it is a small space… but that’s how Celadon was when it was in the space too, so it couldn’t be as bad as that… All in all, great experience

My favorite drunken noodles in Hillcrest! I can’t handle spicy food, but I still manage to force myself past that because I love drunken noodles. The pad thai is very good as well. I wish there were more options on the menu. I’m a late eater, so open till 11 is awesome for me. The service has always been nice and on top of keeping my water glass filled (so important!).
Oh, but I don’t like wire chairs. Booth only for me, please.

I can’t help but feel that the reviews here are sub-​par, so I thought I’d chime in with my experiences.
The bottom line: I’ve been here a handful of times for lunch (really great lunch prices) with different people (who’ve all liked it) and had a pretty representative sampling of the thai food (appetizers, soups, entrees, etc) they have to offer. And you know what? It’s all been really, really great. As has the service, and I’ve never had to wait.
Some things that really stand out to me about the food: The noodles taste really fresh: I swear I can taste packaging at a lot of places. Not here. The drunken noodles are also among the best I’ve had in San Diego. They actually have a lot of flavor instead of compensating for a lack of it with spiciness. More generally speaking, everything is fresh and flavorful and if it weren’t kind of far from me I’d probably eat here more. Even my Texas-​raised, meat-​and-​potatoes dad liked it!

It is so validating to see that Unilocalers (more or less) agree with me on this one. I had heard good things about this place from friends. Clearly I should’ve checked with Unilocal first.
First of all, we were told there would be a 5-​minute wait. WRONG — we waited for 25 minutes before we were seated. Dude, just pony up and tell me that I’ll be standing around drooling over other people’s entrees for half an hour. True, I’ll likely leave, but I’ll respect you more.
Secondly, there was something resembling snot all over the tablecloth. Too bad the paper mats couldn’t cover that crap up. The waitress was only able to rustle up TWO glasses of water (there were 3 of us), and decided to give us the wrong menus because the «right ones are too complicated.»
Yes, really.
When she finally brought us our food, she looked horror-​struck at one of the empty plates, which also had a snot-​stain, made a snorting noise, and took it away. She never brought us a new one. That left us with 2 plates for 3 people. COME ON!!!
The saving grace of Chow is that the chow was actually good. We had the Drunken Noodles, 360 degree chicken (still haven’t figured out if that’s a temperature or the angle at which the food is supposed to be served), and pineapple fried rice. Which, by the way, was supposed to come in a pineapple. It was served on a pineapple-​shaped TRAY. Y’know, just, FYI.
Bottom line: Order take-​out and use your own utensils.

My boyfriend totally digs this place, so we eat here a lot. I like it ok. The service and ambience are great, plenty of tasty drink selections, and the menu has an interesting set up. The pork gyoza are wonderfully tender, moist, and savory, we get them every time we go. My man gett this spicy beef noodle soup that’s also very good. I had the drunken noodles, a little sweet, not as spicy and flavorful as I would like. I have had a couple other equally-​unmemorable noodle dishes. Dessert comes with the meal, free. It’s this amazing coconut-​condensed milk with little heavenly balls of tapioca soup-​like concoction. It’s yummy, eat it.

Their website is awesome (if they still have it up.) The menu is awesome (pick an Asian country!) Actually eating it and being there? Hmm…
Luckily, the first dish I had really was delicious and I finished every bit of morsel on my plate. (Vietnamese shaken 360 beef or something like that.) My sister’s drunken noodles was good, too. Their Thai iced tea comes in a tall glass and is sweet enough to my liking.
Not so luckily, every time I went after that, the quality in their food started to downgrade. Ramen was okay,. I think had the Chow Fun and it tasted like they cooked it in corn starch. I ended up sharing my friend’s ramen instead.
On another visit, my friend had the shaken beef (still delicious) and I decided to try their Pad Thai … I’ve had better. Their water kind of tastes like grass or something. I’d opt for an iced tea next time.
It looks like a hip and modern place with huge windows looking out into the street. I’ve come at lunch, lunch-​dinner, and dinner time and it’s never busy (good thing or bad thing?) You usually have to get your server’s attention when you’re ready to order. If not, you’ll keep on sitting there starving!
& Random: C’mon, $ 9 for Phở when everywhere else its $ 5?

I have gone through a myriad of emotions about this place since it opened. Here they are in chronological order:
1. Anger (Where did Celadon go???)
2. Anticipation (Hmmm…same owners, I like their other two restaurants… maybe this will be okay.)
3. Happiness with the new menu (Yum, tom yum with noodle soup! Fantastic spring rolls! Reasonably priced.)
4. Sadness and confusion when they changed the menu (Yuck, where’d my three favorite things go?)
5. Disappointment (Wow, everything is really expensive now, and the quality has gone down quite a bit.)
I have hope that it will improve again; the family that owns Chow is very saavy about what works and what doesn’t and they have been in San Diego a long time. I just won’t be back until I get a recommendation from someone, since the last two times I ate there I wasn’t very impressed, and my group ended up spending about $ 35 each for dinner and one drink. Blah.

I’ve been wanting to try this place for a while. But, because the service was so horrible, I never got to actually eat the food.
The restaurant was not overly busy, not even the sign of it having been super busy.
We walk in, get seated, and continue to wait for 10minutes before I finally asked someone if he is our server. Hesitantly, he says yes. I say, well I’d like to order some sake and Phở, my bf then orders, and the dude disappears for another 10 minutes — no joke.
Then, he has the nerve to come back and tell me he forgot what we ordered. I began to ask him if he needed to write it down this time, but decided to just leave instead.
WTF? Worst service ever. I may go back to try the food, but I’m hesitant. Plus, $ 9 for a bowl of Phở – ridiculous. And, you can only buy sake by the bottle!

Get the Thai Coconut Vermicelli soup! It’s not on the lunch menu, but you can get it anytime of day. Huge bowl of yummy broth and noodles, comes with a plate of veggies to add as you please. Comes spicy unless you request otherwise!
I’m there once a week, ordering this every time!

Chow is this little, hip Thai/​Vietnamese/​Chinese eatery on University, right between 5^th and 6^th street in Hillcrest. Not too far from the HILLCREST sign, it’s in prime location! I saw a review of this place in the San Diego Union Tribune and boy, it seemed like a good place to try. The pictures looked tasty and the review was positive.
Food:
I wasn’t very impressed with the food at Chow. We tried the coconut fried shrimp, the Japanese fried chicken, the Green Curry lunch special and the Drunken Noodles.
The only thing I liked was the Green Curry. Served in a bowl, they give you lots of «stuff,» including bamboo shoots, chicken slices, eggplant, red bell peppers and basil leaves. There is a good ratio of stuff to curry sauce, so this is definitely a dish to get when you come. The spiciness is at best, mild, so they give you 3 side cannisters of spices if you want to spice it up. The curry has a nice coconut milk base and curry flavor. Served over a scoop of Jasmine rice, and this dish is quite tasty.
Now for the other dishes… not so good. The drunken noodles were overly-​drenched in a ketchup-​like sauce, and it seemed like the cook was a bit heavy-​handed when preparing this dish. Even in this heavy ketchup-​based sauce, I felt like this dish had no flavor! There was no spice! There were hardly any veggies except for a few shrunken basil leaves! I’ve had Drunken Noodles at other Thai restaurants, and this place was pretty bad. Pretty bad (with emphasis!).
Then the coconut fried shrimp was okay — a bit too much batter, and less coconut. It was served with sweet & sour sauce. I thought the Japanese fried chicken would be different… or even special, but in fact, it was just small pieces of chicken fried and served with the same sweet & sour sauce. What’s Japanese about that??!
Price:
Very affordable. If you go for lunch, the lunch specials are a good deal, and you get soup, egg roll and decent portions for under $ 8 – 9 dollars.
Ambience:
Small restaurant, but tastefully decorated. It is modern sheik, with white walls, silver/​metal wire chairs and funky black & white booth seating. The bathroom is nice — green wall paper with different textures. Restoration Hardware liquid soap and lotion as well. The toilet paper holder needs to be fixed though, because it is extremely flimsy and will fall over when you pull the toilet paper. The toilet flush knob is upside down too! In any case, I liked the bathroom.
Service:
Very good. Our waiter was attentive and friendly. He didn’t smother us with attention (yay). Food came out fast and hot.
All in all, Chow is not someplace you would go if you were craving authentic Thai/​Vietnamese/​Chinese food. I guess you could come here for a casual lunch or first date, but other than that, I don’t think this place delivers.

Chow has left a sour taste in my mouth since first and only time I’ve eaten there.
I was extremely excited about a restaurant that offered ramen right in the heart of hillcrest.
Upon ordering said ramen, I nearly cried into my bowl. Weak bland broth. With shitaki mushrooms, which are altogether too distracting in texture to truly compliment the noodles. The Cha Shu pork was more like carnitas, boiled in some sort of sweet and sour broth, it fell apart in my bowl like mush, rather than melting in my mouth.
The only saving grace of the entire bowl was the soft boiled egg. That was a pleasure, it broke and intermingled with my noodles wonderfully.
Points for a nice interior and all… but messing up a simple bowl of ramen that badly isn’t an easy task.

I walked in to Chow and was surprised by how chic and hip (bordering on fru fru) the place is… and it did made me want to like it purely for the novelty factor… for the clean feel of the space, the gorgeous art on the walls… and for the abundant natural light that poured into the dining room on a sunny afternoon. The concept of starchy comfort food amidst sleek mid-​modern décor is not a bad idea, but unfortunately, the point of failure came with the food.
There’s a small part of me that want to give it an extra star for the effort, but the food is just not that good, and I must abide by my food-​centric senses. I felt the ingridents were sub-​optimal and the way they came together was unspectacular. A real disappointment.
I really do want to go back just to sit in the space, but I won’t. The food simply doesn’t warrant it.

This place sucks, especially in comparison to other SD Thai restaurants.
One star for the wine selection.
My Pinot Grigio was good (Esperto, I think).
One star for the way they fry tofu.
Crispy and delicious, in thin strips. Also, you get a few crispy wanton strips with your meal, but only a few.
Minus one star for the ambience.
Too bright, too sparse. Nice art on the walls, but it feels like one big, white room. Better for lunch than dinner. Also, the chairs are uncomfortable, and at least 3 of the 4 chairs at my table were broken to some degree.
Minus one star for the service.
Just plain mediocre. Sat us right next to another couple even though there were plenty of free tables with more privacy. Took my partner’s plate away well before I was done (I hate that!!). Got my order wrong (I asked for spicy and got bland) and gave me grief when I asked for spicy condiments even though they have spicy condiment caddies ready and waiting in the kitchen. He wanted to take my food back to the kitchen so the cook could make it spicy. That is weird, and I was seriously starving so I just wanted to throw some hot sauce on it and stuff my face.
Minus one star for the food.
Bland, bland, bland. Yeah, the tofu was good, but that was about it. First of all, they don’t have Panang curry which is the best Thai dish ever. WTF. I got a different curry which had very little spice or flavor. The server told me that the cook forgot to make it #8 spicy like I asked. My partner’s hot basil had no taste either. I usually take lots of bites of his hot basil at other restaurants, but one was more than enough at Chow.
Also, I was mad they didn’t have mock duck like a lot of other local Thai places do.
What makes me so mad about Chow is that there are so many GREAT Thai restaurants in Hillcrest that I expected any new competitors to bring it, and they so did not. It’s like if some random backyard gymnast tried to compete in the Olympics against Mary Lou Retton! What are they thinking? And Celadon was so good! I don’t get it!
Skip it, seriously. Go to Lotus Thai, Amarin, Bai Yook, Bangkok Spices, Thai Time, or Asian Bistro!

I really wanted to like Chow. Noodles are one of my top comfort foods and here were all kinds of noodles together in one place. What’s not to like, right? Unfortunately the food at Chow is undistinguised. Nothing on the menu stands out as interesting or innovative, and I expect that most of the dishes can be found better (and possibly cheaper) elsewhere. In particular, the drunken noodles I had recently were puddled with oil, slightly mushy, and a little too sour. The menu seems like something put together for folks who are scared to venture on to Convoy St.
Their décor is clean and modern without being stark, and the service is generally friendly. I also appreciate the relatively lower prices compared to other Hillcrest restaurants. Chow’s concept isn’t bad, but the food simply doesn’t motivate return visits.

My first experience at CHOW was similar to Becky K’s…I felt like I wanted to like it but a few things were «off.» Mediocre to good food but something just didn’t feel quite right about this place. I have tried a few things at Rama and really enjoyed them so I was hoping to have a similar experience here (same owners from what I understand). Maybe it was just an off night for me…
For starters, the restaurant is very small and tables are tight. I don’t often mind this if the lighting and atmosphere are done right but with the stark white walls and tables, the overly-​bright lighted bar and the blaring sounds of traffic through the large open windows from University, I felt otherwise. The décor is modern and I like the red and black accent colors but again, too much white… turn down that darn lighted bar and throw a few candles on the tables or something. Honestly, I don’t know why it bothered me so much, it just did.
The service was a bit odd too. Although they were attentive, the staff that waited on our table also seemed a bit indifferent and not very personable. We asked a few questions about menu items and what was recommended but nothing was very well explained.
We finally decided on two apps: crab rangoon and a chicken dish-​the name escapes me-​it was bits of fried chicken in a kind of a teriyaki-​type sauce. Both were good but not spectacular and I was expecting a lighter batter on the chicken instead of the thick, crispy one that it came with. I did like the sauces/​seasonings they brought out to the table when our apps arrived. A soy sauce, a chilli sauce, a vinegar/​pepper sauce and another dry chilli seasoning-​all of them were good.
Onto the entrees. My husband chose the 360 Degree Beef and I chose the Miso Udon. He loved his dish– the beef was tender and flavorful and the sauce was sweet but light. My soup was ok just not very flavorful. I thought it was bland compared to most miso but it did have nice chunks of tofu and greens along with thick udon floating around in it.
All-​in-​all, I would say my first trip here was just ok. I will go back in hopes of finding menu items that I really enjoy and hopefully the whole dining experience from atmosphere, to staff, to food will be better. Until then… three stars.

Damn, Alex Thao does it again! First Celadon, then Rama and now Chow. He must have the golden touch. The combination of tasty food and unmistakable style adds up to another successful restaurant venture.
When Celadon moved up the street to another location, Chow moved in. The old space got a complete makeover and now has modern, sleek, bright décor.
The menu has a few of the same items that it’s predecessor served (drunken noodles, yellow curry, tom kha) and lots of new noodle soups and dry noodle dishes. I, for one, am lazy and thus thrilled that I can get a yummy bowl of noodles without having to drag my ass all the way to Convoy. As a vegetarian, I am also happy to report that Chow has a veggie version, or can make one, of just about all of their dishes.
The staff is friendly and attentive. The prices are decent ($ 6-​$ 9). Since Chow is new, not too many people were there at dinner time on Saturday night, so waiting for a table, at least for now, is not a problem.