I got the Himokawa dipping udon set with tempura and it was so good! The noodles were perfectly cooked and chewy and the tempura were not greasy with a thin coating. The sauce that they gave to dip the udon was my favourite part. Loved the slight hint of yuzu! Near the end, the udon at the bottom were really difficult to separate so that’s the only thing that bothered me. We came at around 7:00pm on a Sunday and were lucky enough to get seated almost right away with around a 5 minute wait. They close a little early on Sunday at 8pm, so keep that in mind when visiting.

This place is very popular, and on weekends at lunchtime you’ll likely need to wait for a table unless you arrive right when it opens. That said, the wait usually isn’t too long. Their specialty is a variety of udon and cold noodle dishes—the noodles are springy and unique, and the toppings are well-seasoned without overwhelming the natural flavor of the noodles. The way the dishes are enjoyed also feels distinctive, making it a spot well worth visiting.

Qin Wu

Chef Tan serves bold, authentic Chinese flavors, especially Hunan/Sichuan dishes with real heat. Portions are generous, food is consistently flavorful, and the menu goes well beyond typical takeout. Great spot if you enjoy spicy, traditional Chinese cuisine.

王子业

Absolutely love this place! The food is always fresh, flavorful, and perfectly cooked. I’ve tried many Chinese restaurants in the area, but this one really stands out — especially their Kung Pao Chicken and Dumplings. The staff are friendly and the service is quick. Highly recommend for anyone craving authentic Chinese food!

Ana Butler

This restaurant belongs in this neighborhood. You'll feel the charges are justified. Staff members show incredible friendliness and accommodation, with prompt meal service. The kitchen delivers dishes both properly made and tasty. I've eaten at many places, but none compare to Chef Tan recently.

Wenlan

Authentic Chinese food, you know when you see stewed spicy frog on the menu, which I recommend. All dishes a bit on the spicy side. Love the chongqing chicken. Food is great. Atmosphere is meh, there's a light that has been flickering for a month at least, should get that fixed.

+1

Elisabeth Ivanov

Chef Tan delivers an unforgettable dining experience. The flavors are bold yet balanced, showcasing authentic Sichuan cooking with a modern touch. Every dish — from the dry chili chicken to the spicy fish — bursts with depth and complexity. The service is smooth and attentive without feeling rushed, and the space has a clean, contemporary feel that matches the food perfectly. If you’re craving something exciting and full of character, Chef Tan is a must-visit. 🌶️🥢

Positive Space

Great spot for dinner! Wide range of unique and tasty dishes, quick service, and a cozy atmosphere. We came on a Saturday night around 8pm - no wait. The menu has clear photos, spice level indicators, and what we got looked just like the pictures. Perfect if you want flavorful food without surprises. Mongolian beef ended up being my favorite 😋

Vivien Li

The decor and lighting was perfect. The servers were very attentive and friendly. The food is pretty authentic. Favorite stand out dishes are the fried chicken and the fried fish is very good.

Kevin Zeng

Good food. Hot pot or just dishes of sichuan style meal. Inside is well decorated and clean. Here is the deal. You leave a 5 star and get to spin the wheel for a freebie but my 5 star is well earned. Food is delicious. The portion is generous with quality produces. I love the tofu dish. Service is great. They come along and ask how we doing all the time.

+27

Anwei Chai

Another great place to get spicy Sichuan food. Compared to another nearby Sichuan restaurant in the same street, I definitely prefer this one. It's spicy but not spicy only, it retains the other flavor of the ingredients very well. The rice noodles are quite good as well. So is the green mustard, very refreshing. There's also a hot pot place here but in the basement. Will give it a try next time.

xcxgmail Cxx

We had a perfect Chinese New Year dinner at Chef Tan! Every time I want to have a decent Chinese feast with a group of friends, I would go to Chef Tan. A full array of Szechuan food and snacks with friendly staff! Steam sea bass Peking Duck Spicy beef Spicy chicken with celery

+6

Alex Zhang

This is a very good home cook style sichuan and human style mix restaurant. It’s nothing fancy, not fusion but a good old traditional flavor. A lot of dishes are at a very reasonable price. I was here on a Sunday for lunch it was not busy and we got our food really fast. There are four of us sharing a table and ordered a lot of food. My favorites are the Sichuan style fried chicken it’s boneless and really crispy with a lot of flavor. The dry fried string bean taste really good and authentic. LOVE the hengyang special rice noodle, the noodle is cooked to perfection and it has a little numbing peppercorn flavor to it. We Also tried variety of other appetizer and main dishes they are all very authentic and delicious. Service was great our waitress keeps coming up to keep our water cup full. Didn’t have to wait long for our food.

+8

Hsin Yi Wei

We were there for 99 Hotpot and realized it’s closed, so we decided to give Chef Tan East Village a try. They did lots of renovation and the decor became brighter & much cozier. The staff was friendly, attentive and served everything quickly. They recommended us to try some signature dishes from their various menu. We got Chongqing Style Fried Chicken, Griddle Beef, Steamed Eggplant with Minced Pork, Vegetarian String Beans, Wonton in Chili Oil and Scallion Fried Rice to share with a group of four. The portion was great enough with a reasonable price and the taste was overall authentic & delicious. Our favorites were the crispy fried chicken and flavorful eggplant. My friend who loves spicy food was extremely satisfied with their appetizing chili oil. We were a little sad that 99 hotpot was closed but happy to see Chef Tan as a great replacement in the neighborhood. It would definitely be our go-to place and highly recommended.

+13

Shim

St Marks area has some quality Chinese restaurants and Chef Tan gives all the other places a run for their money. Very pleasantly surprised by the quality and service. Most of the entrees were delicious, one item was a miss but we didn’t mind too much while we were busy stuffing our face with everything else we ordered. Definitely try the century egg with egg plant and the special rice noodle, and get ready to say mmmmmmmmm.

+8

Good place to grab a quick meal, either by yourself or with one other friend (bar-style seating). The udon portion doesn’t look like much, but was surprisingly filling with the tempura. Delicious, though not at Raku quality.

Came here at 5pm on a Friday alone and no wait at all. The menu is simple, focusing on Himokawa udon sets. The tempura here is well made and not overly greasy, pairing well with the dipping sauce. The only drawback was the saltiness of the hot broth - I tried drinking it alone and it was unbearable. Considering this wasn’t the cold dipping noodles, I assumed that this broth would be less concentrated and more clear. Service was great and as a solo diner, I didn’t feel rushed at all. Overall, I would recommend people to visit at least once, but would personally not rush back.

the tempura has a light, thin batter that pairs nicely with the dipping sauce, making it very refreshing. The wide udon noodles have an interesting texture, but the soup base itself is a bit underwhelming.

Overall a decent meal. The cold noodle set with the katsu is a must get. The soup noodle is very salty and mid but that comes with Japanese soup I guess. It’s a bit pricey but decent experience

Visited on a weekend afternoon after hearing about their flat udon noodles served tsukemen-style. The place has a Japanese bar vibe with only counter seating—no tables. Ordering is done by scanning a QR code at your seat, but I found it uncomfortable that you’re asked to tip before your food even arrives. My friend got the hot udon and I had the tsuke cold udon. Both came with six flat noodles and tempura. The food tasted good, but the portion felt small for the price, which was disappointing. The biggest letdown was that there’s no restroom available. It’s worth trying once for the unique noodles, but I probably won’t be back.

Udon noodle was great. But the chicken broth was salty in my taste. I liked the cold fish broth udon better. Their shrimp tempura was salty as well. It was a good shrimp tho. I would've ordered 5 myself if it wasnt salty. There can be a wait so I recommend going in a bit earlier than usual dinner time if going for dinner.

Andy Liu

Rating: 8/10 Date Last Visited: 9/7/2025 We ordered the String Beans ($15), Lotus Root ($15), Braised Pork in Mao’s Style ($20), Chongqing Style Fried Chicken ($20), Fish ($22), Cabbage ($14), Scallion Pancake (free from leaving a review), Braised Spare Ribs ($22), and Eggplant ($15). All the meat entrees were delicious - the braised pork was fatty and savory, the fried chicken was fried well, the fish was flavored well from the soup, and the spare ribs had great texture and taste. The veggies were also solid - my favorite being the eggplant and cabbage. Even though they’re simple, they’re cooked so well and taste amazing. They let you spin a wheel for a free appetizer if you leave a review, so we had a scallion pancake that was standard. The portion sizes are pretty decent for the size. This place has good service and is a great place for a family style meal. Overall, I would recommend if you’re looking for a place to do family style with good Chinese food.

+4

Jennifer

The food was good, and the lunch special was a great deal. We also ordered extra veggie fried rice, which was tasty. I loved the mango green tea with jelly. It was very refreshing! The atmosphere was nice, but they left the door open, making it uncomfortably cold since it was a chilly day. The service was friendly but not very attentive. Overall, it's a decent spot for a meal, especially if you're looking for a good lunch deal!

Jing Shu

Food is tasty, but a little bit too salty and feels like too much msg was added. We ordered spicy chicken, lotus root, eggplant with century egg, cabbage. All of them are pretty good.

the noodles were unique - we tried the signature dipping set and broth set. my favorite was the sweet potato tempura. we waited almost an hour on saturday evening.

The udon texture is great—nice and chewy but not overly so. Tempura is also solid, especially the bacon one. It’s my first time trying bacon tempura and it was surprisingly good. The dipping udon broth is flavorful, and with all the extra seasonings, you can switch up the taste, which is fun. But the hot soup version was way too salty for me. That said, the set costs around $22–23 and only comes with six noodles… I mean, seriously? I’m not even exaggerating—it was literally six noodles.

Ph Linh Ng

The food is good but a bit of higher price. We come during dinner time but the first floor is quite vacant. The food is well-seasoned and feel authentic to me. We come back for the beef noodles. Expect the actual price to be much more than the one listed on the menu (the tip percentage + tax is high). The portion is decent.

Cee Que

Pros: the mapo tofu was good, nice flavor and not overwhelmingly spicy. Nice decor and atmosphere inside the restaurant. Cons: jellyfish appetizer was too tough to eat, disappointing. Wait staff took the order and disappeared. Had to get up out of my seat (after waiting a long time) and look for someone to get my check. The woman who rang me up grumbled and scowled as she did so. Haven't encountered 'service' like that in quite a while (fortunately). Overall: wouldn't recommend. Plenty of other Schezuan restaurants in the area with better food and service.

Ana Brütt

We wanted to try different food and we saw the restaurant had good reviews, so we decided to give it a try. We asked for sauteed frog, lamb, squid and eggplant. The frog was so spicy, but so spicy we could not eat it. The lamb was also spicy, but less than the frog and it tasted good, so we ate it all. The squid was too hard, not tasty at all. We didn't finish it either. The eggplant was good to relief the spicy. But it wasn't a good experience. We feel we should have been warned about the extreme level of spicyness of the frog. That would prevent us from ordering it and maybe have a better experience. It was sad that the staff saw all the food in the table and didn't ask if there was something wrong, it's like they don't care. I do not recommend this place.

Bob Kamp

Unfortunately, I'm not able to review their food because we were never served any or even our drinks order of a beer and a diet coke. It was a quiet Sunday evening and there were only two other people on the first floor of the restaurant with us. We were given water with the menus, but after placing our order, we were completely ignored by the young staff. We assumed that there wasn't any owner or manager present because the team of 4 servers were gathered together at a booth chatting and scrolling on their phones. After 30 minutes of not getting our drinks, food or even being acknowledged that we were in the restaurant, we left so we could get a drink prior the show we were seeing that night. The menu did offer some very interesting options and the decor was very nice, but the management needs to be top of unsupervised staff.