Chew Man Chu

440 S Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19147

I was in the area and not in the mood for Korean, so we stopped by Chew Man Chu to check it out. Ain't nothing wrong with good Asian food.

Mind you, one of the crazy women who work at my hair cutter was saying that she was there opening night and "everyone" was there. With this nugget in the back of my mind, I was expecting a little bit Pearl, a little bit PF Changs, and a dash of Mad River. And that's pretty much exactly what I got. I'm not really sure what the decor is -- it's not really cheeky; it's not really d-bag-y; it's not really modern. The centerpiece of the room is a large fluorescent table that I'd personally be scared would irradiate my food. So I'm taking a point off for decor.

Wait staff were nice, eager, helpful. Not amazing but certainly serviceable.

As far as food goes, I was expecting full on Asian. I got Chinese with a hint of Thai. Very few Korean, Japanese, Malaysia, Cambodian dishes, etc. Now that's fine in my book, but they go to great lengths to make the place sound pan-Asian. Not pan-Asian.

We started with the steamed veggie dumplings, which to me were under-seasoned although not bad. We also had the chicken moo shu, which came with a giant fried egg on top. The moo shu was a solid version -- well seasoned and not greasy. However, the surprisingly large chicken chunks kind of threw me off as too chewy for the dish. We also tried the tofu green curry which had a great curry and coconut flavor, enriched with basil.

Portions are huge, and are brought out as they're ready. Frankly, this creates a little bit of a problem, as we received our curry about 5 mins before the rice came out. The dumplings were also the second dish to come out -- I would have preferred a true appetizer course. Oh well.

So I found this place overall "meh." Nothing outstanding, but nothing horrible. It's well priced and a lot nicer than your run-of-the-mill Chinese joint, but I'm not going out of my way to go back.