dan modern chinese - santa monica in Santa Monica

Very tasty food, but the prices are a bit on the higher end. We shared food. We enjoyed the crispy pork dumplings, because I was curious. They were hard to eat, but tasty. It comes with a hoison dipping sauce. I will not order these again because they were not THAT DELICIOUS and the presentation was not appealing. The shrimp fried noodles were bland so we asked for condiments and were brought chili oil. The noodles were flavorful! We would order these again. Overall the food was okay.Service is 5 plus star!!! Our server was very pleasant and prompt.Clean modern interior. The metal chairs where we sat by the window were not that comfortable and there was not place to put my hat or purse.There are 2 Gender Neutral bathrooms and I used both. One was dark and didnt seem clean. I was reminded of the bathroom stall down at the beach. The only illumination came from the mirror on the wall. The second one had lights and and seemed cleaner. This one had a urinal in addition to a regular toilet.We have been to the Dan Modern Chinese in Manhattan Beach and was very impressed there, so this is why we wanted to try the Santa Monica location.I want to like this Santa Monica location too, but I will have think about it.

Tasty dumplings! This is a fantastic lunch time spot. Soup dumplings are amazing and the noodles with short rib are delicious. Sizes are on the small side though so you’ll need to order a few if your hungry

Prices are ok but food quality is below average. The service needs to improve too.We had oxtail noodle but the meat didn’t seem like from oxtail. The meat texture didn’t seem like good fresh beef. The soup lacked flavor and the noodle was soggy, mushy, and disjointed. The Three Cup Chicken tasted average though adequately flavored. The chicken pieces were small. The steamed dumplings were not juicy, with part of the skin too dry and hard.While the service staff was polite, it took a long time for the food to be ready.The ambiance is fine and the location is convenient for Santa Monica visitors.

Absolutely wonderful food and service! We ordered a second round of shrimp fried rice (perfectly balanced taste and very fresh shrimps) and some garlic Bak Choy but the Bak Choy took a little long to arrive (20 mins?) we only made one reminder as it was a full house but the staff were extremely apologetic and waived the price of the dish! This is unheard of where I come from (Singapore) and was just incredible service recovery. Well done Dan Modern Chinese! Also, the garlic Bak Choy was possibly the best I’ve ever tasted!

Food was delicious! Got the scallion pancake as an appetizer which was okay! i also got the chicken soup dumplings, which I was SOOOO HAPPY to have found (since normally soup dumplings have pork in it)! It was really good and flavorful. The short rib and crab fried rice were both really good as well! Would definitely recommend the short rib fried rice and the chicken soup dumplings! The aesthetics were also so cute! Will definitely come back for more!

Food is great, I would go again. If you want to talk this is not the place. Sounds do bounce around the concrete floors and walls. Service was quick and fast. We had 6 people and no reservations. We had 2 different soup dumplings, Dan noodles, green beans, shrimp and shishito peppers, beef roll and one of the rice dishes. Everyone was happy and satisfied.

It’s a very bad experience. Salty and cold food with “slow” service. Especially that waitress. Every single dish was provided over5-10 minutes when the food is cold enough……. She was on the phone all the time ….. it’s the first time I had Cold Chinese food. Everyone love Chinese food should know how it tastes when it’s cold….I will never come back again.

⭕️ What we tried: ⁣🍜 Short Rib Dan Mein⁣🥟 Soup Dumplings⁣🍗 Three Cup Chicken⁣🥩 Beef Roll⁣♨️ Mapo Tofu ⁣————————————————————— ⁣🔆 we recently came back to Dan Modern Chinese for their Short Rib Dan Mein. This time we visited their new location in Santa Monica. It’s close to Third Street Promenade & Santa Monica Pier. We love their decor and wooden chandeliers. The food is good, as expected. We also got the soup dumplings and tried something new from the menu like the Beef Roll and Mapo Tofu. We recommend to eat the Mapo Tofu and the Three Cup Chicken with steamed rice so you can fully experience the flavors from each dish. ⁣⁣🔆 It was a pleasure visit. Can’t wait to go back. Enjoy our video and photos :) ⁣

The soup dumps were pretty solid in terms of execution, but flavor lacked. The crab meat variant was not super flavorful and just tasted like pork. Skins were the right type of thick though. The veggies were overly starchy, the cucumber salad very refreshing. Pan fried dumplings would be a pass for me next time, veggie filling wasnt bad. The Dan Dan noods were too sweet and saucy, I was expecting more spicy.

Let me preface by saying that we are Taiwanese in heritage and in culture, so we are familiar with how these dishes are meant to be.(This review is two parts: the experience, and the food. Skip to the second part if thats all youre interested in).The experience:My sister and I visited here earlier today shortly after they opened for the day (11am) at 11:30ish am on Sunday 8/29. The inside looked clean and tidy - nice. I used the bathroom and it looked like it hadnt been cleaned - trash bin was overflowing, toilet paper in the toilet bowl, paper on the ground. We decided to sit outside as it was a nice day. We ask to turn on the heat lamp that already beside the table. Dont get me wrong here, we didnt expect the process to turn it on to be silent but GOODNESS it was as if he tried to make the affair as loud and cringey as possible. It just didnt seem like he cared about our customer experience at all or regret joining the service industry. He was nice enough towards the end but he was not having a good morning.The food:Beef rolls were, honestly, not bad but the portion size was laughable, as if they decided not to serve HALF of it. Pretty much all of the other restaurants that serve this dish have 8 pieces, this one served 4. It looked like they just didnt serve the ends. Also, BONES - we got two bones in the roll! In my decades of ordering this, this is a first. It overall tasted good but paying $10.25 for that amount of food seemed like we were being taken advantage of.The pork xiao long bao was cooked well. But dont confuse that with it was good. The ratios of filling-skin-soup, as well as texture of it all was good. Shame all of it was bland. If you are going to come here and order this, I recommend adding the black vinegar - game changer. The ginger it came with was best part of that dish. $6.50 for 5 pieces? Not bad, price wise.For the short rib dan mein, Ill talk about the short rib and noodles separately then the dish as a whole. The short ribs were pretty tasty, good sized pieces, and cooked well. Not the kind of meat I expected but it worked. The noodles were thick and felt pretty doughy which happens to be how I like them so no complaints there. All together, it was alright. BUT another joke of a portion size for $16.50; absolutely not worth it.We also ordered the oxtail beef noodle soup for $10.25. Bland. It tasted super watered down, with the bulk of the flavor coming from oil and black pepper. The oxtail meat was good though. We actually meant to order the spicy one though. When we told the waiter that, he was nice enough to bring us a sample of the broth. It was spicy and VERY flavorful. Again, it wasnt the classic beef-noodle-soup broth we were expecting. My sister enjoyed it though. I wasnt sold.The shrimp fried rice came out so oily but thats probably why it tasted so good. This is the best thing we ordered. The rice was cooked well, good ratio of ingredients that wasnt shrimp; not much of that overall. This, we agreed that could order again....just not for $14.50. It came out in the same bowl as the dan mein so there was just not a lot volume-wise.One can only hope the Sawtelle and Pasadena locations are different. We really wanted to like this place but we were both so disappointed today that we wont be coming back. If were getting Chinese food, there are too many other good options to do this to ourselves again.