Joy Yee’s Noodle Shop

Reviewing their smoothies
Delicious and fresh, under $ 5
I swear there were 100 choices
Kiwi mango was literally the entire fruit pieces

My last review was two years ago, and nothing has changed, thankfully! They are consistently good food, and their delivery is often freakishly fast!

This is my go-​to spot when I need some pan-​Asian food. I love the garlic shrimp and the spicy calamari. Also can’t forget my mango avocado smoothie w lychee popping boba! Clean spot w great service just wish the seats were more comfy.

I absolutely love Joyee. The menu looks kind of expensive but that’s because the portions are huge. You could easily share with another person. Also their menu is super long and has plenty of options. Famous for their smoothies, don’t leave without one!

My favorite of all the locations — spacious, fast service, and great location by the UIC area. Definitely and must try if youre in the area and craving asian food

If you are looking for authentic Chinese Food, this is NOT your place. This is a very chill, comfort restaurant to eat at with friends or to just get take-​out. My cousin Danny used to live right in front of this Joy Yee’s so whenever I visited his place, Joy Yee’s was our place to go. Let me tell you what this place is exceptional at.
First and foremost: Bubble Tea! They have a vast assortment of fruits so they can make plenty of different freezes. They are even willing to take fruit combinations that might not be on the menu, so just ask!
In terms of food, I’ve had at least half of the menu and let me tell you some of my personal favorites. A must-​get item here is the beef cubes over rice tomato. The price has gone up over the past couple years, but its still one of my favorite rice dishes and it just has comfort food written all over it. So try it!
I usually come here and order food for family style so here are my top selections my cousins and I usually get: Beef Cubes with Rice Tomato, General Tso’s Chicken, Shrimp and Lobster Sauce, and a vegetable dish that varies depending on my feel (also to help the veggies to meat ratio).
OH ALSO, the over rice dishes are just really good here so if you’re looking for some comfort food, get something like the pineapple shrimp fried rice!

Been here way too many times when I was a UIC student. Decent food — Asian fusion, a lot of Americanized dishes. Do not expect authentic Asian food. Their «phở» is definitely not worth ordering here. Sometimes, their kimchi dishes are used with unripe kimchi. Bad sanitation here, I’ve found little flies in my food few times.
Pluses: They make good bubble tea & UIC student discount w/​student ID if you dine in.

I’ve been to Joy Yee in Naperville, Chinatown, and this one. Of the three I had the worst experience at this one. For starters, I do love this location. It’s huge, it’s clean, it has good service, but like every other Joy Yee the food is cheap but served in huge portions that are always super mediocre. If you’re with a group of people who want to eat Asian food but can’t decide on exactly what kind, take them here. The menu is massive and serves everything from Korean to Chinese to Vietnamese and everything in between. You should definitely also plan on eating family style because the portions are easily enough for 2 – 3 people to share.
The last time I ate here it was with a large group (15+) people. Service was fine, we all got our food in a reasonable amount of time, but that’s where the good basically ends. I ordered the pineapple chicken fried rice and got pretty sick. I wasn’t the only person in our group who didn’t feel so hot after the meal. I feel like the others who got sick also ordered rice dishes as well, so maybe the oil or rice they used were too old? Either way, this was probably the only bad experience I’ve had at a Joy Yee and I’ve been eating at the restaurant since I was in high school.
Would I go back to Joy Yee again? Honestly probably yes, but I’m forever wary of the food now. The smoothies however, are still a go!

Good location, large seating area, super fast service, and very clean and modern feel to the restaurant. Really liked the food we ordered, which included the fan favorite beef cubes over tomato rice. The dish has one of the best flavor combinations I have tried in a while and the sauce that comes with the beef cubes is absolutely delicious. The drink I ordered was one of the specials (because there were almost too many choices!) and was super duper good. Who knew that coconut milk could really work as a base of a boba drink — plus the grass jelly, green tea pearls, and fruit on top really rounded out the flavors.
Now onto the not so good stuff, the rice was somewhat undercooked for both dishes the gf and I ordered. Also the Korean spicy seafood soup only came with tofu and shrimp… no fish, no squid, no mussels, not even imitation crab. The lack of seafood was quite disappointing, but I was too busy enjoying the beef cubes to notice much. The next time I’m in town, I’ll definitely be back to try more of their extensive menu.

No matter how full you are, you have to get a bubble tea. My favorite was always the almond milk boba tea! The cup sizes are huge (they always lasted me atleast 2 days). If you’re looking for a freeze, the mango lychee is an absolute MUST.
Also, if you’re a UIC student, show your ID card and get a discount!

I actually have yet to eat here so am commenting on only the smoothie/​drink side but AMAZING. All of their bubble tea and freeze options are amazing. Best combo I’ve tried so far is mango and passion fruit freeze with strawberry and lychee POPPING BOBA. Don’t get me wrong, the original tapioca is great too… but adding the popping boba in is little bursts of fruit surprise. Only downside is a credit card minimum of $ 10, but get some friend or get bubble tea for a friend as well

The menu was huge with lots of pictures. However, the waiter wasn’t really able to help us navigate it, given we were vegetarian. Good portions overall for the price.

Been to 3 different Joy Yee locations, Chinatown, Naperville and now UIC area and one thing for sure is that the food is consistently good at all restaurants. Portions are huge and one entrée can easily feed 2 to 3 people. Best to come with a group and eat family style so you can try a bunch of stuff. Menu is also huge (literally) with pages and pages of pictures. My favorite is the butter shrimp, crispy fried served with sweet and sour sauce and the chap chae. The bubble tea smoothies are the best! Real fruit and fresh ingredients. Even if you are dining in, ask for to go cup for smoothies cuz you won’t be able to finish.

Disappointing. We go to one or another Joy Yee’s all the time, but probably won’t return to this one any time soon. Long story short: employees playing around rather than paying attention to customers. Shouting at one another adding to the noise problem in the place. One guy took our order, somebody else delivered it and we never saw either one of them again. By this time there were two people working in the dining room — only one of whom, as far as we could tell, could understand English (at least he didn’t seem to understand about our missing order, or didn’t care). The other guy came around finally, but by then we had finished our dinner and didn’t want the missing item. We heard two other tables complaining to him about missing dishes, they had the same missing servers (who were probably in the back playing around with the other workers. Management: pay attention.

Ordered a banana, tapioca, and ice cream smoothie. The bananas they used weren’t ripe and should not have been used. My smoothie tasted bitter because of it. The ice cream machine has clearly not been cleaned in a while. The only thing that was ok was the tapioca, although messing that up would just be comical.

Anytime I go to any Joy Yee’s, I usually get the same thing so this may not be the best of food reviews. Anyway, came here on New Years day at 11am after a night of partying and obviously my group was the only one here. The workers were just sitting out in the main dining room cutting up veggies for the day which was nice to see, since now you know it’s all fresh.
Anyway, like all my Filipino friends that go here, we all would recommend getting beef cubes with tomato rice. I’m not even really sure what they do to it, might just be the sauce or something, but it’s delicious. For the last few years it’s usually all I ever order. Throw on some crab ragoons which are alright, not the best but doable. The menu is just way too big that you’ll probably never try everything.
Obviously get a bubble tea before you leave. You see all the fresh fruit behind the counter so you know it’s not the powder that some other places use.

Delicious smoothies & drinks and really yummy Asian fusion/​pan Asian food (they have a huge menu). Not meant to be super authentic, but if you’re looking for that type of thing this is your spot!
Service here is okay. It’s very casual and prompt, nothing spectacular but I’ve got no complaints.
Some favorites:
–crab rangoon
–phở
–chicken chow fun (YUMYUMYUM SO GOOD)
–beef cubes with tomato sauce over rice (I know, it sounds interesting, but it’s actually SOOOOOO good.)
This location is BYOB. Bring your own wine opener though, they don’t have any at the restaurant.

Terrible Service! I never felt so disappointed at the service in a restaurant. I ordered the red bean with coconut milk, which is one of my favorite drinks. However, they brought me a cup of drink in brown. It didn’t look like the coconut milk with red bean I ever drinked. After having a taste, I asked the waiter if they made a mistake because I can tell the difference and it didn’t have the coconut milk flavor at all. Then the waiter took it back to the drink kitchen and got back soon saying «Nothing is wrong. This is red bean with coconut milk.» I tried to convince myself that it could be the correct one while it didn’t taste like that at all. Then one of my friend decided to order another cup of red bean with coconut milk just to check if it would be the same. It turned out to be a different one just as it usually looked like. Then I asked the waiter again by showing the difference of the two ones. To my surprise, the waiter said the same thing once again in a terrible attitude. When he came back for the check, I said «I am sure this is not the drink I ordered» while he replied «The kitchen is closed, we can make it for you next time you come and order it.» This is so irritating. He didn’t even apologize for their mistake. What if I am allergic to the unknown one they served me? As I had made the payment which automatically included the 18% service fee, I didn’t say anything more. But I still feel so irritated at such terrible service. I should not have paid for the wrong drink which I didn’t really drink. I regret not doing that and not talking to the manager. By the way, the waiter is the tall Asian man.
In the photo below, the one on the left was the «Red bean with coconut milk» they served me, and the one on the right was the Red bean with coconut milk they served my friend. I guess anyone can tell the difference.

Fist time dining here and it will not be my last. I tell ya that the portions are large enough to share with 3 people. My mistake was going in starving because I ordered everything off the menu. We started with a pineapple lemonade and a strawberry lemonade. (Sooo good) We ordered the crab rangoon, chicken wonton soup, (Small portion, 3 people ate from it), beef ribs, mongolian beef, spicy basil chicken and chicken fried rice. Everything was so good. For 3 people, this was a ton of food. We ended up taking 60% of the food home.

Huge portions and tasty items! Their service could use some help though. I have seen people here on their phones while waiting on a table. Ordering over the phone can be somewhat difficult at times as it is usually very loud there and sometimes I have a very difficult time understanding them. sorry :/
Do get the beef cubes with tomato, delicious!
I do really appreciate that they confirm the location calling. There is another location not far from here, so when placing an order for pick up they will state their address and it’s happened before that I called the wrong location.

The food is great but the service sucks.
I went to have a nice dinner before studying for finals. Just ordered orange chicken with rice, the way they serve their tables is a bit different from other restaurants. Someone comes to initially take your order, someone else brings it to you, then another person asks if you need anything else, another person brings you the check and so on.
The lady who initially took my order only did just that, and picked up the check. When I didn’t leave a tip because all of the servers were rude and didn’t stop by for 5 minutes (I had to go refill my own water cup) she hounded me saying if you’re not going to tip you should order out. Why won’t you leave me a tip? The wages suck here and we live off of tips.
The couple that sat next to me was utterly shocked at her attitude towards me. I understand how servers get their money, I’m no idiot. However, just because you get a shitty wage doesn’t mean I have to pick up the restaurants slack and pay you out of pocket. ESPECIALLY, if the service sucked as well as my experience. I’m a firm believer in working for your money. Had she been courteous and attentive I would of tipped her what she deserved. Not for taking my order and giving me the check.
I should have not paid for my food at all and walked out. I regret not doing that, never the less I would have felt terrible and reluctantly paid anyway.

The service was ok. They came often but sorta unfriendly. They didn’t smile or anything. They did their job and that was it.
The food is good. Great portions for the price. It’s like family style. You order and entrée and can share it with everybody.
Got the sesame chicken. It was really good. I liked how they had a lot of sauce. The fried batter on the chicken was nice and crispy but not too crispy. I don’t like mine when it’s all soggy.
Also had the honey peppered steak. You must get this one! It’s really good. The meat is cooked right and the sauce is just great.
You can get one of their soups that say it serves 2 – 4 but really it can serve an entire village. It’s huge!
The ambience is good. Nice and clean.
Would come back.

Since I came back from China I have a new perspective on food and the art and effort they put into it. Joy Yee has some really intricate dishes and amazing smoothies/​bubble teas. They do have simple generic stuff on the menu like the ‘beef and broccoli’ and ‘orange chicken’ but, this is a place to venture.
So many noodles, so many meats cooked many ways, so many rice dishes, the options are overwhelming but look into it.
The prices are beyond reasonable, and a great place to go with friends where everyone picks something and you all get some small plates and have an experience.
Cons: There seems to be a language barrier with a lot of the staff. (Which I personally do not see as a con.) I am listing it because I know how frustrating it can be when ordering. This place is always busy and the staff is doing their best.
So, be patient these people are working hard.
Also, the house hot tea is terrible. Which is irrelevant because they have like 150 smoothies and bubble teas and they are not worried about the hot leaf water kind. (Which I am not mad at them at all. I was just salty since I had a sore throat drinking that swamp tea while my boyfriend is looking through the lavish fruit options and different tapioca options)

I have an extreme love-​hate relationship with Joy Yee.
On one end, you got a vast selection of Asian dishes to pick from. Most of it would be Chinese American, but if you’re feeling Thai, Viet, or Singaporean, there is likely to be some rendition of their national dish here for you to eat. However, with so many options, you know Joy Yee probably won’t be specializing in anything particularly amazing.
First experience, I ordered some brisket noodle soup for lunch. The brisket was awfully chewy, hard, and overall not good. The soup came with thick rice noodles instead of thin egg noodles, which was disappointing. Plus a lack of vegetables in the soup made it nearly inedible.
Second time, I just got a $ 4.50 boba, a strawberry-​mint concoction. Given it was a hot day and it’s large portion, I was extremely satisfied with the drink. Chock full of sugar, yes. But it was still a treat and decent quality boba in the UIC area.
Third time, I was craving for some calamari so I ordered their Thai Fried rendition off the seafood menu. At $ 15, it was rather steep, but the take out included a very large helping of squid. However, it was pretty bland, with little to no real salt-​pepper seasoning that I expected. I also ordered a small Wonton Chicken Soup, which I have to say was probably the best thing I’ve gotten from Joy Yee.
So I’ve had some terrible experiences, and some decent ones. Overall, I think my love for Asian food helped push Joy Yee over to the 3 star side, but rest assure, a lot of their food is pretty unimaginative and lacks flavor. Despite the few gems here and there, make sure you are ready for basic quality Asian food and decent potion sizes.

I wanted to love this place but I think my experience was just like the reviews — hit or miss.
Love the drinks! Two stars just for the drinks! Got my favorite — taro with boba. This is the first place I’ve been to in the city that has good boba. Most places don’t cook it right but here it was the perfect texture & taste (trust me, there’s a difference).
The food was just ok. I had the beef vermicelli bowl with egg roll. The egg roll was doughy & not light or crispy whatsoever. The beef was seasoned with a thick sauce. The sauce for the bowl was not your typical fish sauce vermicelli noodle bowl sauce. Very strange.
My friend had a dish that was titled «lemongrass» something. She said it had no lemongrass flavor at all. My other friend loved his dish so again, hit or miss.
The waiter was impatient with us when we had questions about the menu. It was pretty slow yet they had 4 – 5 waiters just standing at the register doing nothing. The most irritating thing — when they dropped the check off they lingered around waiting for us to pull our cards out. Chill out buddy it’s not like you need the table.
I’ll definitely be back for the drinks thou it might take some convincing to stay for the food.

I went to UIC for undergrad and this was practically on the campus. It was a very popular location because it was great food for a great price, not to mention the huge portion sizes. For $ 10 – 15 you basically get two meals! The food was always great and the service wasn’t bad either. The bubble tea is really good too! The fruit is definitely fresh in all of their smoothies.
The only bad thing I have to say is that the menu is way TOO large and can be intimidating. I’ve tried to venture out before but I find myself overwhelmed with the number of options. That usually leads me right back to square one where I either order my orange chicken extra spicy with fresh jalapenos or spicy basil chicken (also extra spicy). I have had more entrees than just those two, but those were my most common. I went here for 4 years and due to my somewhat short-​term memory I cannot recall the names or distinctive flavors of those dishes.
I do suggest trying the spicy basil chicken!!! If any other fellow Unilocalers have suggestions on new entrees to try, do share!

Be prepared to go on a journey, a journey that will take your tastebuds to places they’ve never imagined before, Frodo-​style. Minus the old wizard with the pointy hat/​long beard and the life threatening task of destroying the most powerful sorcerer of all time.
That aside, this place wow’ed me even upon opening the menu. One of the perks is that everything (EVERYTHING) comes with a picture, so you know exactly what you’re getting. Of course, there is the classic beef cubes, tender little cutlets steeped in a mouth-​watering sauce, so delectable that sweet little cherubims will come and serenade you with each bite. However, another suggestion of mine is the Pork and Sugar Cane Shrimp. It comes with noodles, pork, sauce, and a shrimp patty skewered by a real sugar cane. The shrimp is P-​A-​C-​K-​E-​D with flavor, and the whole symphony of flavors come together when you pour the sauce over it.
Also, if you came and didn’t get the bubble tea (or any other kind of specialty drink), I’m sorry, but turn around and go back because you didn’t actually get a Joy Yee’s experience. It’s amazing. All for an affordable price.

They have very good drinks like smoothies, milk tea, huge selections of drinks, large cups and decent prices, their food is ok but not impressive, I think food price is a little bit high, and it’s so authentic Chinese, more like mixture of different counties in asian, I recommend try out their drinks^^

Pro: Great for large groups as there are many tables inside and there are many types of Asian dishes so it accommodates everyone.
Pro: My favorite thing about here is that they make FRESH fruit smoothies.
Personal rant: The only problem I have with this place is the amount of food items in the menu. It’s too huge for me and I become very indecisive. Like over 50 different type of dishes type of deal here, no joke. I feel like when the menu is that huge, those businesses don’t have signature dishes that everyone should go for. As a result, everything taste mediocre.

Could someone please tell them to change their chairs!!!~ Seriously, who was the designer who thought that these would be perfect and comfy for their customers? I wore shorts the day we went and I had marks all over my legs after lunch! I saw so many people with that issue…
Anyway, their menu is HUGE. I think they could benefit from downsizing their menu, actually. Some of their dishes are lacking and just doesn’t really seem to make the mark as far as flavors go. I think if the kitchen is overwhelmed with so many different dishes that it needs to push out, the dishes are not as thoughtful or flavorful as it could be.
We ordered the beef cubes, wonton noodle soup, and string beans. All were pretty good, just not phenomenal… know what I mean? We were craving some soup, though, so I guess it somewhat satisfied our craving for a little…
I think I’ll come back for bubble tea, but I don’t necessarily crave any of the other dishes. At least it’s close to home and work for me, just in case I need to eat some Chinese food quick style.