Same delicious food, new location! I was excited to hear that Chou's expanded their locations, opening up a second restaurant in Tempe. The restaurant seems more spacious and has better ambiance than the Chandler location, with more tables and decor.
We browsed through the menu and decided on the xiao long bao, eggplant with minced pork in garlic sauce, and mapo tofu. The eggplant and tofu came out first. The eggplant was tender with a slightly crisp outer layer from frying with a concentrated brown garlic sauce. The mapo tofu was light on ground meat, but had very fresh tasting tofu and a tongue numbing, flavorful sauce with Sichuan peppercorns. The xiao long bao came out piping hot, a pretty good rendition of this dish, holding the requisite savory broth hidden inside the small dumplings.
Service was good and we were checked up on as needed. Our server spoke both fluent English and Mandarin Chinese.
Overall 4.5/5. I'll definitely be back!