Chin's Kitchen Reviews

Hidden in the heart of the Hollywood district, this small place has the best Cantonese dishes I have tasted for years, and the prices are incredibly low.

Take out only...old school Portland.

I really enjoyed the Seafood Dumplings (as did my friend), and the Beef Noodle Soup. Both dishes were delicious. My friend had one of the lunch specials, and said that the food was 10 times better than the old restaurant. I can only say that i really enjoyed the food, and the Delightful service. Our waitress was so nice and personable and gracious. She really enjoys providing the best service she can, and she excelled at it. Both my friend and i had a wonderful experience. I highly recommend this restaurant, you will enjoy it.

Hidden in the Hollywood district of Portland, you get good Cantonese food. I have never been disappointed here. Five of us ate for under $35 plus tip, and we had food to take home.

Have ordered from here before was great and was always to my place within 20 mins. I ordered again tonight and it took over an hour to get the food and the food was cold and they forgot all the sauces for the pot stickers and much more. And the food was so oily I could taste the oil. Tonight it gets a star rating of a 1. It's disappointing tonight.

This is a regular place for us and our order is always the same, a large order of orange chicken, a large order of dumplings. usually the pork and chive, and two orders of purple rice. It is always more than enough for the two of us. The orange chicken is always crisp and tangy, the rice perfectly prepared and the dumplings, made fresh every day, are pillows of absolute heaven that melt in your mouth. Eferything on menu available for take out.

We ordered the two of the dumpling sampler for the four of us along with 4 other dishes, none of which made a to go container. The food, service and atmosphere were all wonderfully Asian without pretense. I would go back to Chins in a heartbeat.

My wife and I love this place - it's been under new management and the family that runs it are really great folks. The know us by name and communicate through WeChat :) Don't miss the handmade dumplings - a favorite of our young daughter - and I'm a big fan of the Cumin Beef although my wife thinks it's a little strongly flavored. The beef noodle soup is delicious and the other dishes we've tried are good as well - very authentic northern chinese. Parking is a bit of a pain in the neck, but as a bonus you can go shopping at Trader Joes after dinner. :)

Our family had lunch today at Chin’s Kitchen. We decided to try this place based on an article about this historical Chinese-American restaurant that my wife read in the “Portland Restaurant Guide”. Coming from Vancouver, British Columbia, we’re used to eating some of the best and most authentic Asian food available on the west coast of North America, but in general we find it difficult to get the same high quality Chinese food when we visit the US. Nevertheless we’re always on the hunt for new Chinese restaurants to try in an effort to dispel our biases! Chin’s Kitchen is a delightful blend of a vintage Chinese-American place (it first opened in 1949) which has been reimagined into one serving authentic northern Chinese style dishes. Don’t expect to order egg foo yong or chop suey - they aren’t on the menu! Instead try some of the steamed dumplings and the excellent beef noodle soup (which other reviewers have documented). Northern Chinese flavours tend to emphasize garlic, leeks & vinegar-based sauces which are great to experience when it’s cold outside. The noodles are definitely hand-made & have great texture. Since we ate late in the afternoon when the place wasn’t too busy and the service was efficient given the level of business for that time of day. Our server was very friendly as well. Overall, Chin’s Kitchen is a neat little place to try if you want something different. The original neon sign is still outside the restaurant too, which adds a cool touch to things.

We ordered an assortment of dumplings and each kind was delicious. The sauce was good too. They give you little plates of nuts and some veges before you order, which was nice. The service was great. Wonderful, classic restaurant!

I ordered Kung Pao Chicken and rice, and it's the best I've had in Portland in ages! Lots of vegetables and chicken with a delicious spicy sauce! I got another meal out of the leftovers!

We really wanted some good fried shrimp so we thought we'd give it a try and get food to go. The place was empty except for the staff, maybe three people but we never saw the third person. Kinda scary with lots of linoleum and an odd assortment of decorations. Christmas stuff still up in March. Not a good start, but we thought maybe the effort is in the food. We ordered some fairly standard food, Kung Pao Chicken, Mu Shu Pork and Fried Shrimp. We waited a reasonable amount of time and our order was ready and presented to us in a large bag. Arrived home, unbagged and guess what, no Fried Shrimp. Some mystery red sauce, no hot mustard. Disappointed! The Kung Pao Chicken was not spicy or in possession of any real flavor. More disappointed! The Mu Shu Pork was tasteless, mostly cabbage, some mystery bone shards and served with... wait for it, not Mandarin pancakes but standard flour tortillas. Very disappointed! We called and negotiated regarding the missing shrimp, no we were not going to drive 20 minutes back for our shrimp. They agreed to deliver them and an hour and a half later they did. Lukewarm, greasy fried shrimp and nothing else. We're done.

This was our second visit to Chin's, and it was even better than our first. The dumplings were very good, and the service was excellent. A few more folks dining than before the Oregonian's Best 40 Restaurants review, but still no wait on a weekday night.

interesting well prepared Chinese food....modest setting, good prices......excellent value Used to be ordinary uninteresting Chinese until new folks took over......now it is very tadty

This place, an old-school American Chinese establishment (open since the 1940s) with abundant mid-century neon out front, recently changed hands and has been completely revamped into a critical darling. They've become especially famous for their various dumplings, as well as a number of Northern Chinese offerings. Unfortunately we had a frustrating lunch during our visit -- our server, a man who looked to be in his early 20s, seemed to be new, which could be the problem. We were immediately seated, but then it took him a good ten minutes for him to bring us water and give us menus, and then another long wait before taking our order. During midday they offer a number of traditional lunch specials, which we chose, along with hot tea and some of their signature dumplings. We had to ask two more times for the tea, which never did arrive, and one of us got our lunch a good ten minutes before the other one did. After that the dumplings arrived and they, as I mentioned, were excellent. I have no clue what was wrong that day but since the place has such a strong reputation I assume we hit on an off day, when they were breaking in a new server. If we visit again we'll definitely get the dumplings and probably try to go at night.

We ordered vegetarian dumplings, tofu mixed vegetables, and garlic green beans. The quantity and quality of each dish was wonderful. The service was attentive and responsive. We only knew this restaurant had been in the neighborhood for decades -- and we were both pleased and are determined to go back soon.

After living in Portland for 4 years, we have yet to find decent Chinese food in this city. So on the way home tonight we saw the giant neon sign above their restaurant and thought it was worth a shot to check out. Disclaimer: They tout themselves as "Portland's Oldest Chinese Restaurant," which we mistakenly thought they were credible. Not so much. The place reminded me a bit of daycare combined with a filthy little casino. The place was clearly a family operation which is OK- but was a bit turned off by seeing the first booth in the restaurant occupied by kids toys and arts & craft supplies. What I assume was the daughter - who may have been 14 years old -not be able to answer basic questions about the menu - was a major turnoff. We ended up deciding to order our stuff to go. It was cooked up quickly, I will give them that. However, when we got home, we soon realized that the cashew chicken didn't come with rice. Second, the hot sour soup was made of the same stuff - minus the chicken! It had all sorts of vegetables in it - and was only "hot" by definition as it was nearly boiling when we opened the container. Although the cashew chicken didn't taste bad - it lacked both cashews and chicken. Both the soup (which was more like a vegetable stew) and chicken had tons of those little corn cobs and celery in them. It just wasn't good. That said, we rolled the dice and lost this time... If you are reading this, drive 5 more minutes up Halsey and stop at the Lucky House. The food is better, the place is cleaner, and you actually get rice with with your Chinese food. What a concept!

We'd read the rave up reviews and so came for dinner. Service was very pleasant. The place is small, clean --but had really nice metal chopsticks already set out. That scores a plus for us... As everybody must know by now, two sisters from Harbin had taken over an aging Chinese-American restaurant. We ordered the pork and leek dumplings, port ribs, cumin beef, and cold lotus root, and rice. All were fine. The lotus root was particularly interesting -- mildly spiced with whole star anise and peppers, tasty. The cumin beef was nice and moist but we should have asked for it to be spicier -- we tried to explain that we are not into Americanized food and turned down the suggestion of orange beef, at which point our server suggested the pork ribs. They were braised and rather subtle in flavor. Very meaty. The dumplings were also very good, but need to come back and try some other varieties. We really wanted to try their sweet and sour dishes but none were available. Hun hao chr fan!

We went to this place for my mother's birthday. Three of us were served quickly... my mother's food arrived THIRTY minutes later. This, after we asked the staff four times where her food was and observed 12 other meals, two of which were for the dish my mother had ordered, being delivered. The apologized, but did not discount the check at all. The food was OK, but I will never, ever go there again.

Different menu from the usual Chinese restaurant. Specializes in cuisine of Harbin, northern China. Service is attentive. We tried seven or eight dishes and all were great! The dumplings were the best we ever had. We plan to return. You want to eat here.

Everything I have eaten here is Delicious. This is Authentic Northern Chinese food done fabulously well. The staff are very friendly, and are happy to describe their dishes. the description makes my mouth water, and i can't wait to try all of the dishes. You will be well fed and satisfied, and have a great and memorable gastronomic experience. Please go here, you, and your appetite will be glad you did.

Don't miss out. Don't be fooled. This restaurant has new owners, new menu and new chef - only the name and address are the same. We have been watching this place be remodeled and we've been waiting. Would they be open tonight? Yes! We came to celebrate and it was a double pleasure. Celebrate our own occasion and celebrate this new restaurant (with the old name) that had just opened yesterday. How nice that it was a genuine pleasure and oh so tasty. After we ordered (which took awhile for the choices were from Northeastern China and new to us), they brought two small plates of complimentary appetizers to go with our beer. One was fresh pickled white radish and carrot and another of freshly heated, lightly oiled and salted peanuts. Then Wendy Li, the manager and hostess, brought the cold platter of clear noodles marinated in a piquant sauce unique to their home town of Harbin that was a stunning arrangement of julienned veggies. Wendy graciously taught us how to toss the noodles and veggies all together. This was followed with stir fried fresh Chinese greens as well as green beans with a very generous amount of tender chicken. While we had trouble choosing our menu for tonight, we didn't need to stress for we knew we'd be back. We didn't have to try everything tonight. How lucky that we live nearby! For those who don't live in Portland's Hollywood District, it is located right between the Hollywood Theater and Trader Joe's. The Transit Center is about 2 blocks away.

The Beef Noodle soup is fantastic!! Hand made noodles in a broth that is phenomenally delicious. Served with fall-apart beef (yum) and bok choy. Perfection is a bowl. The dumplings are also fantastic. I have them everytime I go, and they are always deliciously tasty, with a great dipping sauce. another favorite to try. You WILL be back.

It is what it claims to be: authentic Northern Chinese cooking, done very well. The menu is varied enough to stand up to repeat visits without being the multiple page effort some Chinese places present, which is a guarantee that most things are not cooked fresh. Be prepared if you think all Chinese food is the same. It's not. If you are used to more delicate Hong-Kong style food, you will find the noodles heavier and chewier, and the dumpling skins a little thicker. We were full after sharing just a plate of the seafood dumplings which come 10 to an order! Service is friendly and being able to see the ladies at work in the kitchen is an added reassurance of the quality of what you are eating. I am not going to do a full review but let me just say that anyone who goes to Shandong, which is another Northern Chinese restaurant nearby, is making a huge mistake. We found the food there to be inedible. Chin's Kitchen is vastly superior.

Wow! I love dumplings, so have sampled many in Portland, San Francisco and China. These are as good as any I've eaten. Had the seafood and pork, and the pork and green bean, but I imagine they are all wonderful. All the dishes I saw on other tables looked delicious as well. I know very little about cooking from the far north of China (cooks come from Harbin), and I am looking forward to learning about it through sampling. How lucky is our neighborhood that these owners chose this location! And how cool is it that they are preserving and refurbishing the old neon sign, which was the best feature of the old restaurant.

We only had a short time in Portland before going to the airport. I read good things about Chin’s, and it was an easy 20 minute drive to return the car. Though this is the oldest Chinese restaurant in Portland, I read that new owners bought it a little over a year ago. They serve food from northern China. I adore dumplings and loved that they had a bunch of choices for filling. We got a combo to try two kinds. The seafood dumpling was out of this world and tasted so fresh. I liked the pork and cabbage too, but it was more traditional. We got noodles with pork and tofu. They come out with the bowl and ask if you want all the sauce added. The sauce has the proteins so we said yes. The thick noodles were so slippery and tasted like nothing that I have ever had before. It was divine. The two of us ate everything and rolled out the door. Most of the Cantonese and Mandarin food at home is too sweet. This food has more sour flavors. W ould go back in a heartbeat.