After reading the Isthmus review on Chen's, we thought we'd give it a try and were sadly disappointed. I tried the beef brisket soup and my partner tried the chicken soup. We shared an order of beef dumplings. The BB soup was tasteless, oily, overloaded with tomatoes, and the brisket was minimal and what was present was fatty leather. The chicken soup suffered the same fate; tasteless, oily, tomatoey, and the chicken was rubber. The hallmark noodles present in both dishes were unremarkable. There were a lot of them- and we felt guilty leaving most behind- but a little more care in preparation of the signature meats, a little more spice, and a lot less tomato and oil might have helped the cause.
Now, the dumplings...I guess they might have been tastier if served hot and fully cooked but cold lumps of what can only be described as "gooey globs" wrapped in some sort of meat product with salt water dipping sauce were painful.
As was the bill which weighed in at $32.
Service? Meh.
Atmosphere? Cold and cramped.
Visit again? Probably not. Too many other new options to try on State Street.
Thoughts during lunch? Why did Disco Fries have to be closed...