I tend to break down Chinese restaurants into three categories:
Chinese take outs (you’ll see the neon signs saying New York Style Chinese Takeout at these places – New York meaning “Americanized – often a miss in terms of quality and a menu full of general tso’s chicken and pork fried rice with chicken wings combos ),
Traditional Cantonese sit down restaurants (you’ll find some form of beef chow fun, salt and pepper squid, and possibly dim sum at these establishments),
and the increasingly less rare,
“Other Chinese cuisine” restaurant (Sichuan, Shanghainese, Taiwanese, etc).
I’d file Chan’s under traditional Cantonese sit down restaurant —
1. Dim sum on the weekends? Check.
2. Lazy susans on the tables for family style banquets? Check.
3. Seemingly callous waitresses? Double check.
The decor is rather minimal, like walking into someone’s house for a dinner party and there’s not really enough space for everyone.
The food here is solid Cantonese fare – you’ve got your pan fried noodles to dim sum via cart on the weekends. For dinner, it gets a bit fancier with dishes like Cantonese style pan fried steak, salt baked chicken, sweet and sour pork chops, and even abalone, the exceptionally pungent mollusk that the Cantonese go crazy for.
I was at Chan’s recently for a banquet with some friends – the brothers of Pi Delta Psi Fraternity at the University of Central Florida to be exact – who held an end of the semester banquet at the restaurant with quite a list of about 7 banquet dishes for just $25. Call ahead to find out if you can organize something like this there because it’s got great value if you have a group of 10 or so per table.
