Chow's Asian Bistro

I've been coming to Chow's for years and it's always a great treat! The wait staff are always attentive and friendly and the food is consistently delicious. We normally order the same things, though have tried many of the items on their vast menu. The walnut shrimp and beef and broccoli are the 2 staples that I would recommend. The egg rolls and chicken low mein are also very good but their pot stickers are awesome! The garlic chili oil that comes with them is delicious and really elevates the flavor of the pot stickers. Rice may be an extra charge so ask before ordering, as they ask you if you want it as you order.

Very good, very tasty. Fresh, good service.

Honestly, the best moo shu I’ve ever had. The sauce and the mandarin pancakes combo is impeccable. This is a staple of my favorite takeout in Santa Fe.

I was excited to try this place on a recommendation from a local friend, so I went there Sunday night, January 2, 2022. The food was pretty good, but a few things probably need attention:

I know that high-quality jasmine rice is used, but charging extra for the rice (both white and brown) seems unfair. It would at least
be better if the customer was told ahead of time that there would be an extra fee for rice.

I ordered the spicy chicken and orange chicken and ranch spring rolls. I think the best dish was the orange chicken. Very tasty and big portions! No complaints on this one at all. Really good!

The spicy chicken entrée was very spicy and had an inordinate amount of red chili peppers in it. See the pictures. Also, what doesn’t show in the picture are the large chunks of garlic in the dish. The garlic was mostly raw, maybe sautéed a little bit. Although I love garlic and I love spicy, this combination was too much for me. I don’t know what happened with the chili peppers. It seems that the chef may have overdone it on my dish. Again, see the attached photos to give you an idea of how much there was.

The ranch spring roll was fairly good. My complaint would be that it had mostly lettuce in it. The lettuce comprised about 80-85% of the volume. The other 15-20% was rice noodles and carrots. The dipping sauce had a strong garlic flavor, which I didn’t really mind. I was expecting peanut sauce, but maybe that's what they serve here.

Would I come back? Yes, I think maybe the place is better than I experienced. They had a busy night of takeout and I waited about 30 minutes for my meal to be prepared. Perhaps the chef was in a hurry or just made some uncommon mistakes. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, but wanted to report what I found.