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Yen Yen
Rating Details »
- Nearest Transit:
-
Church Ave (F)
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Street
- Attire:
- Casual
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Takes Reservations:
- No
- Delivery:
- Yes
- Take-out:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Good for:
- Lunch, Dinner
- Alcohol:
- Full Bar
11 reviews for Yen Yen
Finally some decent Chinese delivery in Ditmas Park. Home sick and needing soup and noodles, I found Yen Yen's menu online and read some good reviews. Chicken rice soup hit the spot and wasn't too salty. Fried dumplings were a delivery blessing - not on par with really excellent dumplings, but mercifully void of that thick dough-verkill that plagues every other Chinese place in the hood. Veggie Mei Fun was also better than most local fare - good veggie assortment and taste other than saltiness.
For the same price as the other places (with the exception of more pricey but more creative House Specialties), Yen Yen is definitely the way to go. It's not authentic by any means, but it's much better than just-edible delivery. Such a relief!
I'm recently unemployed, so I'm also recently really lazy. Don't leave the house much. It's pretty amazing how many menus get slipped under my door yet I've never received one from the best Chinese place in the neighborhood. To order them I had to go to menupages and hope the menu was current. Now I have a hardcopy. I ordered the Peppercorn Chicken, Szechaun Bean Curd, and the Beef With Scented Ginger. All were very good, except I wish the bean curd was a little bit firmer. The Peppercorn Chicken was pleasantly surprising. Heres the link to it on menupags:
http://www.menupages.c...
Poor. I keep hearing about how great this place is. It's expensive, the produce isn't fresh, everything is greasy and worryingly viscous. I like how dark it is in there. That's about it. The lighting is better than at most chinese restaurants. I gave it two shots and won't be back.
We love Yen Yen. Best take out dumplings and beef and broccoli. We haven't ordered anything from Yen Yen that we dislike. We order at least 2X a month.
You can actually have a nice eat-in dinner there. Probably one of the nicer places to eat in Kensington (but that doesn't mean too much.)
Excellent seafood and lamb dishes (the local Pakistani influence), fun "umbrella" drinks, and spacious, quiet seating.
This is my favorite type of restaurant for just spending time at. Good combination of tasty food and reasonable prices.
A lot better than the other neighborly chinese food, but you definitely pay a lot more for it (mostly the entrees are more). Example: chicken & vegetables in black bean souce: $8 vs. Friendly's: $5. However, I often find it's worth it as it blows Friendly's right out of the water. It's not oily like Friendly's and it's real chicken (not that fake tasting chicken you normally get at Chinese places).
It's nice to dine in at Yen Yen since you can order fancy cocktails that come in cute tiki cups, and the pu-pu platter even comes with a live fire (watch out!).
They do have some more exotic dishes than other chinese food places - I have been wanting to try the lamb with fresh basil. Plus it's one of the few places in the 'hood where you can sit down, relax, and dine. If you do this and sit in the corner table under the plant it might even be considered a romantic date.
They accept CCs which is a plus. And they are friendly.
I think I mentioned previously that I hate restaurants with cutsey names. Seriously? Might as well call it the Hello Kitty Cafe and get it over with! So, imagine my surprise when I had one of the yummiest meals outside of Chinatown (and Asia) from a place called "Yen Yen".
All things were going against Yen Yen. I was in Brooklyn, it was 7 degrees out, and our friend had only just moved into the neighborhood and hadn't ordered from them before. I pick up the menu, and see that it's called "Yen Yen", and my heart sank. If I wasn't so hungry, I think I would have eaten her cactus instead. However, just as I was ready to give up in despair, I saw the one thing that gives me hope on a Chinese carry-out menu...
Engrish.
The carry-out menu, was bespeckled with engrish. You know what I mean - typos, misspellings, and wholesale slaughter of English grammar. My heart fluttered a bit. Any time an American-Chinese restaurant can't spell, or doesn't know the proper sentence structure for "shrimp fried rice", it means that the staff (and especially the chef) is filled with FOBs (Fresh Off the Boat). And FOBs = marvelously delicious food.
Now this indicator isn't always 100% accurate. Sometimes, it's just the result of staff who don't care, or perhaps a carry-over from the previous owner's menu. However, after noticing the engrish menu, I noticed that the menu contained more then the usual "kung pao chicken" and "moo-goo-gai-pan" offerings. The menu had clams in black bean sauce, and scallion pancakes, and lamb! Well! That sounds considerably more delicious then the cacti I had been eyeing.
The order was placed and 20 minutes later, the food was delivered. We ordered the Hunan Beef, which was delectably spicy - just enough to awaken your tastebuds, but not enough to sear your mouth. It rested on a bed of wonderfully fresh and tasty green beans. The Neptune's Delight (which I ordered, solely on the awesomeness of the name), was light and satisfying, packed with large scallops, shrimp and a mild but savory white seafood sauce. I wasn't that huge of a fan with the combination lo-mien. Although I liked the amount of veggies that were served in it, and I adored the amount of diced meats, the noodles had a slightly smoky flavor to it - not burnt, just as if someone added "liquid smoke" to the dish, which definitely didn't need it. However, the veggies were crisp, the noodles were just a toe-mark past al-dente (which is the proper Chinese way to serve noodles) and the meats were plentiful. With the exception of the smokiness of the dish, the flavors where pretty spot on. \
Used to the gigantic proportions that my local American-Chinese carry-out/delivery joint serves, I was a little disappointed at the size of the containers - which were about half the size of what I am used to, however, there was enough food to feed 3 starving girls - and there were still left overs! I think Yen-Yen's carry-out boxes are really mini-TARDISes in disguise! We just kept eating and eating, and there were still food in the boxes!
While I wouldn't give up a meal in NYC's Chinatown for Yen-Yen, if I'm hungry in Brooklyn, I would definitely make a bee-line for Yen-Yen. Yen-Yen = Yum-Yum!
This is my favorite Chinese take-out place in the neighborhood. The food is slightly more expensive than your average Chinese take-out hole-in-the-wall, but definitely worth the few extra bucks. I am a fan of breaded, fried... anything, and the General Tso's chicken here always meets my expectations. And, you can always ask for brown rice with any order.
One more thing: The people who work here are really great. We always get our deliveries in a timely fashion and they have never gotten our order wrong. If you feel like getting out, the restaurant is small, but clean and very welcoming. They even have a small bar area if you feel like throwin' a few back while you wait.
This place has all the typical drinks of a Tiki Oasis Hawaii hot spot. Not since I was a kid going to the local Chinese buffets in the suburbs with a bad fake ID have I been able to find a place where I can get the likes of drinks such as a "Fog Cutter" or a "Suffering Bastard", but Yen Yen reminds me of younger days. Good place for quick fix fry fill with the Sesame Chicken and an even better place for a brisk buzz with a scorpion bowl.
The food isn't half bad either; much better then your typical run of the mill hole in the wall Chinese food which seems to inhabit the Church Street Shopping District that is the Kensington area. They actually have a set of tables with low level lighting that make it feel like more of a restaurant then a greasy spoon. Worth the couple extra bucks if you want a remote place that you can sit down in and have a couple of drinks and relax.
I have lived across the street for years, and by far, these guys are the best!! You can get wasted at their small bar or when you dine in on their fruity and h"eavily loaded" mixed drinks for super cheap (between $5-$6 usually) along with getting the best Chinese food in the neighborhood (not that cheap gross MSG stuff, but the really good, sit down Chinese Food). The staff are friendly and fast. Worth the extra money! Check it out.
the twice cooked pork is pretty good and the scallion pancakes are a wee bit oily. this is the best chinese restaurant in the immediate neighborhood.
