Katy’s Dumpling House

The service was slow. Could not get a drink order for over 5 minutes. The beer was warm.
The inside was disgusting. Greasy handprints on the windows. The booth we sat in was falling apart. Did not even want to touch the salt n pepper shakers.
But the food was decent. If I were to return it would be take out only. But my previous comments leave me wondering what the kitchen was like…

Just to let you know — Chinese restaurant owners tell people restaurant is closed for remodeling, good chance it’s probably not going to reopen. Check out Three Happiness in Chinatown, same thing and they have been an staple down there for like 40 years. I hope they both reopen but doubt it.

Was going to finish my review of this place and found out it is closed but might have a new location in Oak Park? Not sure but I’m posting my review anyway in case it reopens.
1. Service — My husband and I got seated right away. They kept coming back to see if we were ready to order but once the order was placed, we didn’t see them again except when our food was hurriedly placed on our table. We had to ask several times for tea and water refills. They were quick to take our money though.
2. Cleanliness — Most Asian restaurants are definitely not A+ for cleanliness. What we didn’t expect was the bug found in the sweet and sour sauce. All the condiments on the table looked like they haven’t been refilled or cleaned in days. And our table was sticky. Eww.
3. Food — We got our Beef Noodle soup and the flavor and noodles were amazing. The beef in the soup was questionable. I asked our server what cut of beef was used and when he went to the back to ask, we could hear them laughing. Rude. He immediately came back out to tell us that they don’t know. Seriously, how do you not know what you’re serving people? Our pan-​seared, shrimp and chive dumplings and our pan-​seared pork and fennel dumplings were soggy. We could not see or taste the shrimp. It was mostly chive. It was the same with the fennel. It was a major disappointment considering it’s called a dumpling house.
4. Overall — The Beef Noodle Soup was the highlight even though I would not eat the beef. Would not go here again.

I effin love this place but on Tuesday they had signs in their windows, they were not open and I wonder if they are closed. I hope not! Best spicy Dan Dan noodles ever and the best Chinese dumplings in the area.

I ordered the lunch special — Mongolian Beef with crab rangoon and fried rice. Since I was feeling particularly hungry, I tacked on an order of egg drop soup.
The food is really very good. The egg drop soup has corn in it, something I’ve seen before but not often, which gives it a nice sweetness and texture.
The crab rangoon actually has bits of imitation crab within that you can taste — again, something I’ve seen before, but it’d s nice change over the usual stuff you get at most places.
The fried rice that came with the lunch meal is nothing special. It’s not bad — it’s just nothing to write home about.
The Mongolian beef itself is quite delicious. The flavors are strong, but not overwhelming, and the sauce is begging to be drizzled over steamed rice. There’s quite a lot of onion in it, but it’s not being used to disguise a sad portion of meat. There is quite a lot of sauce puddled at the bottom of the styrofoam section where the entrée sits, and it does have a bit of an oily quality. Not unpleasant, though.
The delivery was very quick — the estimated time was 1:50, but it arrived earlier. The gentleman that delivered my food was very pleasant.
I will definitely order from here again.

I am totally bummed that this place has gone so downhill. I live too far away for takeout and the service here is totally dog buns. We got our water when we sat down and they took my order. They brought food. Then nothing. We sat there forever. The food is spicy, no water refills, no togo boxes for the extra food. I finally got up and went to the counter and paid there leaving my leftovers to go to waste. The entire time there were two staff members just sitting at a table on the other side of the restaurant. Not good.
This is the third time I have had this kind of service. I don’t think it is getting better so I am going to have to find another place. really bummed. They just need to clean better and take care of customers. I have never ditched a place for bad service and such good food.

Got spicy beef noodles here and they were the best damn spicy beef noodles I’ve ever had. Spicy and not too oily.
Ate here about an hour before close. We were the only table there and the staff was eating dinner while we were there. The food still came out quick.
Service here wasn’t a problem. It seems like at non Asian restaurants the servers come to you to make sure you’re happy. At Asian ones, as long as you let them know what you need, you’ll get what you want.

Not the best service but hey it’s a chinese restaurant. If the service is good then I get concerned that it’s not authentic. The food was amazing. I ordered my childhood favorite — pan fried dried beef noodle (literal translation from Chinese since I can never find it on the menu easily). The noodle have the pan fried wok taste to it which is hard to find it cooked right in the US. I do miss the food in China. The steamed dumpling is good. I also had the beef fried rice which is good… and for my one random dish everytime I eat out… I go the pork kidney in chili sauce which is yummy granted a bit spicy for my taste bud even though it only have one chili sign next to it. I am happy that I found an authentic Chinese restaurant near me. The only down side is that I will have to speak mandarin to order or else I would get some weird looks… I am cantonese.

My favorite Chinese food place in the area closed a few years ago (Grand Mandarin Express — why did you leave me???), and I have been trying to replace it ever since. See Thru Kitchen is okay, but I wanted to find something great and decided to give this place a try — big mistake.
I placed my order online so I know the exact time — I received confirmation that it was placed at 7:16 p.m. and my delivery was scheduled for 8:01 p.m. (according to the email). 45 minutes is a bit of a wait for Chinese food, especially since they are close by, but not a big deal. A few minutes later I received a phone call from them asking for a credit card number… online it said just to present it to the driver, but again no big deal.
Unfortunately it didn’t show up on time and as more time passed I called the restaurant and was told the driver was on the way. This is 5 minutes from my house and yes it’s Naperville and there is traffic, but at this time at night it’s not that bad. I called back yet again after the driver STILL hadn’t arrived and was told they were busy — then why did you say it would be here in 45 minutes? The driver arrived exactly at 8:40 p.m., unapologetic, almost an hour and a half after I placed my order.
I was hoping the food would at least be good after the wait, but sadly it wasn’t. The chicken fried rice did have generous portions of chicken, but it was almost soggy — even being hungry, I was only able to get down a few bites before giving up.
If you are looking for good Chinese food in Naperville, this is not it.

I went there once and I’m not a fan of the service, but am a fan of the food. We had ordered in (we were starving and wanted the food to be ready when we got there) and when we got there, they sat us immediately and brought us our food. However, we finished our meal within 20 minutes and no one came during that time to check in on us. My hubby had dropped a chopstick and wanted another one, and I was eating spicy food so I ran out of water. By the 30 minute mark, we were sitting there, waiting for someone to bring us a check and so we could get doggy bags. I kept trying to wave people down but with no success. I finally got up and went to the desk to ask for the check. I normally pay with credit card but because they took forever (there were only 4 other tables in the restaurant), I paid with cash so we could just leave.
As for the food,
Their boiled dumplings are delicious!
The spicy beef noodle soup– I don’t like spicy food, I mainly just get this dish for the chewy homemade noodles… it was good though! I read the dan dan noodles are the same noodles… maybe I will check that out next time.
My hubby got the kung pao chicken (extra spicy). He said it was good but that it was hardly spicy at all.
I wouldn’t dine in again, but I’d be willing to get take out.

Katy’s Dumpling House is delicious! I love this place so much!
It’s funny, because a lot of the good items on the Chinese menu are not available on the English menu, so I’m not sure about the exact translations. The only solution is to learn how to read Chinese. Just kidding; the ones below should be right, though.
Here are my recommendations for food:
–Scallion Pancake (fried dough with green onion, very tasty)
–Fried Pancake (sort of like a thick noodle dish, any meat goes well with this)
–Any noodle soup
If you don’t like any of the above, their lunch specials are a great deal. It comes with fried rice, egg rolls or crab rangoon, and your choice of soup! It is actually so great.
TL;DR Their dough products and noodles are the best. Go for those!

Lured by the dan dan noodle hype, I made my way over to Katy’s to check things out.
The dan dan noodles were mouth puckeringly salty but the noodles were chewy and cooked just right. I couldn’t help drinking several cups of water while I tried out these salt bomb noodles. Sure they were kinda spicy but I felt like a deer licking a salt block. No thanks, I won’t be ordering that ever again.
I also tried the beef noodle soup and while this was a little on the salty side, it had a lot of rich flavor, spiciness, and minced vegetables to balance out the grease. The noodles were the same chewy ones they use in the dan dan noodles. I’d have to say this is one of the best beef noodle soups I’ve tasted to date and would order again. Thinking of those soft chunks of beef is making my mouth water.
They were out of steamed dumplings. How is a dumpling house out of dumplings? After several trips back to our table by our non-​English speaking server, the manager/​owner came over and confirmed the lack of inventory. We ordered pot stickers instead and received 7 fairly standard pan fried pork dumplings. It was good but nothing I’d have to order again.
I’m just disappointed that I drove all the way down there to eat a bowl of salt but at the same time I’m happy I found a place that makes some damn good beef noodle soup. If I’m in the area I’d definitely stop in for some but no more special trips.

Sometimes when you’re so hungry you’d gnaw your foot off, you make bad food decisions. My bad decision had three words: Katy’s Dumpling House.
I arrived and asked to be seated in a booth, in which I was granted a sticky tablecloth, taped up seat, and dusty salt and pepper shakers. Five minutes later I was brought a glass of water by a young man, who I would presume to be my server. I honestly wouldn’t know because he never introduced himself nor asked me if I wanted anything to drink (besides the obligatory water). I’ll call him Mr. MIA and No-​Name.
After looking over the menu, I knew right away I wanted to try the chicken with hot dried pepper since Angela P. raved about it. For an appetizer I chose the scallion pancake. No-​Name stared at me blankly, and walked away. I guess he didn’t need to write my order down due to the simplicity, but this guy had no personality.
I looked around, and noticed how dark and dingy this place is. Two large chandelier looking lamps were what lit the dining area, but two of the lights in one of the lamps were out, making it feel every more dark and depressing.
My appetizer arrived a little less than five minutes after I ordered. It was an odd array of eight pie shaped wedges of deep fried bread and I guess some scallions were in there somewhere. There was no sauce presented with them for dipping so I had to make do with soy sauce, as it was the only thing on my table besides the dusty salt and pepper shakers and aged packets of Sweet n’ Low and sugar. I also noticed I wasn’t given any silverware or napkins, so I swiped napkins, a fork, and a jar of hot pepper oil off of the empty table next to me. As other patrons were seated, they were given chopsticks, but they did have the option to use the silverware at their properly set table.
The scallion pancake was so flavorless, I had to douse it with hot pepper oil and soy sauce to bring it a step above deep fried cardboard. For real, this was absurd. I hardly EVER use soy sauce on my food. The amount I consumed today would equate to a decade’s worth that I’ve ever used. I managed to nibble through four of the eight «pancakes» before asking No-​Name to box it up for me. This happened to be at the same time he brought my entrée out, as he didn’t bother checking up on me to see how the appetizer was. Or refill my water. Or offer more napkins.
The Chicken with Hot Dried Pepper had a lovely presentation, but the meal itself was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced. I knew the dish would be spicy, so like Angela P., I too picked around the chiles and ate the chicken. Or tried to. You know that scene in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, when Clark goes to cut the turkey and at first slice a big puff of steam escapes and it’s bone dry inside? That’s how this chicken was, only I wasn’t lucky enough to get steam to escape. I did hear a few pieces «hiss» though as I stabbed them with my fork.
At this point, I was completely out of water, so I pushed my glass to the edge of the table, hoping No-​Name would come refill it. He never did. In fact, no one ever did. Christ on a cracker, I ordered one of your spiciest meals (designated by three chili peppers), do you think I’m superwoman and can eat everything without washing it down? Ugh!
I was completely fed up at this point and decided to just get the hell out of Dante’s Eighth Circle of Hell. Mr. MIA comes by, completely bypasses me, and proceeds to help the patrons seated behind me. I just looked at him and said «CHECK!» He looked at me like I basically told him to f*ck off, and a few minutes later some girl scurries up to my table, whips the check on the table and rushes off again. I put some cash on the tray with the check, and immediately my waiter scoops it up. Yeah, no doubt that’s all he was waiting for; you could practically see dollar signs in his pupils, like a damn cartoon. Thank god I had enough cash on me ’cause there’s no way in this eighth circle of hell would I have given them plastic.
I then waited longer for someone to walk by so I could get a box. Finally an older man was running by to get the phone and I quickly yelled «canigetaboxplease?» in one breath. He muttered «sure» and rolled his eyes before making a beeline for that ever important phone call. My box magically appeared by the same girl who brought my check. I packed up what I could, threw a dollar on the table (roughly a 7% tip– he’s lucky he even got that) and rushed out the door. As expected, I wasn’t told «Thank you», or «Have a nice night» or anything that would entice me to come back. I drove off & stopped somewhere else for something to eat before tossing my lousy leftovers in the trash. Too bad I didn’t see any homeless people around, otherwise I would have given them my leftovers. Then again, I wouldn’t pass them off onto my worst enemy.
You couldn’t pay me to come back here.

Katy’s Dumpling House has been on my radar for awhile, so I didn’t hesitate to drive a little out of my way to pick up lunch for the two of us. Now that I’ve tried their food, it’s going to remain on my go-​to list for lunch specials when I’m at work and desperately need to escape the office.
The Chicken with Dry Red Chilies was so good. It is definitely a spicy dish, but I picked out the dried chilies and just ate the chicken. The chilies gave the crunchy chicken a fiery spice that I really liked. If I’d eaten the chilies too, my head may have exploded.
The lunch specials come with fried rice and a side — your choice of soup, crab Rangoon or eggroll. I had the crab Rangoon, which was just okay. It was mostly crunchy dough without much filling.
We also tried the Dan Dan Noodles. Wow, Unilocalers are really spot on about Katy’s. I got the Dan Dan Noodles and the Chicken with Chilies just because you all said it was so good. The noodles were a bit oily (and spicy!), a really good dish although a little hard to eat as the noodles stuck together making it a tad difficult to share. Hooray for two spicy dishes at a Chinese place though, seems those are hard to find.
The potstickers and dumplings were a little bit disappointing to me. I felt that they were both bland. The pork and chive potstickers had good flavor, but weren’t very crispy, and the beef and scallion dumplings were bland and doughy. I know dumplings are supposed to be doughy, so it’s just a personal preference.
I ordered online, a simple process, and picked up my food about 20 – 30 minutes later. There weren’t many people dining in at the time, just a few in the mid-​afternoon. It’s a casual, if not slightly divey interior. The clientele also appeared to be mostly Asian, so that’s got to be a good sign, right?

My son and I tried this place because he too was attracted by the «Dumpling» in the name.
We saw signs that said steamed dumplings were the special, but then we’re told they’re out of them. It’s 5:30 and there are two other people in the whole restaurant.
We ordered some other dumplings from the menu, and they were good. There aren’t many dumplings on the menu though, so I’m not sure why they chose that name.
The wait staff were too young kids, most likely family members. Adequate service, but they are definitely not professional waiters/​waitresses.
No alchohol. I didn’t mind, but another customer seemed to.
I ordered the Kung Pow beef, denoted by only 1 chili pepper (out of three) on the menu. I was impressed because it was very spicy, just the way I like it. The beef was tender and juicy, and the sauce was fantastic.
My son ordered twice-​cooked pork because he had recently seen it prepared on a TV show and thought it looked good. It was nothing like he expected, and he did not enjoy it.
I wouldn’t go out of my way to come back, UNLESS I get a taste for spicy Chinese because that’s hard to find around here.
The TV was sort of loud, and it was blaring Chinese television.

Our family love to eat at this place. Their noodle are the best. We love spicy foods. The place is a little bit old especially the restroom but they try to keep it clean.
My kids like to eat general Tso chicken from this restaurant. We, the parents, like to order weird and extremely spicy food from their menu. We always order the spicy beef tendon. It’s so delicious.

Excellent food with way-​extended menu from Westmont location. Much bigger lobby with the basic décor. But definitely need more hands to improve the services.
They provide the beauty of Northern Chinese food to the equation, in addition of most common known Cantonese and Sichuan dishes. Northern Chinese are great on cooking noodles, dumplings, pancakes or buns which are made from flour. So you could never go wrong with orders like: Scallion pancakes, Beef noodle soup, Dumplings, Dan Dan noodle, or Pan fired pork buns.
Cumin lamb with bones was delicious unusual dish which on the heavy greasy side. The Northern smoked chicken was unique with nice smoking flavor. The stir-​fired green beans was a nice fresh veggie for kids and parents.
Every single carbs loaded dish was gone in the end. Pan fired pork buns was a new item on the menu and three kids finished 6 buns quickly. Those buns were bigger than I used to get from Shanghai. Chive dumplings were huge and juicy inside with the nice chewy dumpling wrappers. Beef noodle soup tasted as great as the westmont one. The Dan Dan noodle, however, was addictively spicy with homemade chewy noodles. It looked very innocent, white noodles with ground pork and boiled spinach on the top. Once I mixed it, it became such a spicy dish with an extremely pleasant smell from chili pepper and peppercorn. Once I started eating the noodles, I had to stop, made the ridiculous haha sound due to the burning sensation, fanned myself a bit, drank iced water to cook down, then picked up more noodle to start the cycle again.
Somehow, they only had a young waiter for the Sunday dinner time. There were about 4 or 5 tables. We waited a while for ordering food till we had to flag the manager over to get the order in. Then had to wait for the individual bowls for sharing the noodle soup. Then again to ask for the to go boxes and the check. The waiter was very nice actually once he had the time to fill up our water glasses.
Oh, I didn’t like whatever (Vinyl?) they put on the table instead of regular table clothe or glass. It looked cheap, felt sticky, and just no no…

I love the feeling of being well fed and getting a great bargain! And luckily, that’s how I felt after eating at Katy’s Dumpling House!
I knew Katy’s was going to be good for mainly two reason. 1) Duh, Unilocal Reviews and 2) When I walked in, I was it was like 98% Asians. It’s true… follow us Asians… we know where the authentic stuff is!
I got the Spicy Korean Noodle Soup and my man got a beef dish… not quite sure of the name… eh, it’s not important because I’m but not gonna lie, my soup out sung his dish– sorry babe. ;) My broth had beautiful flavors and the noodles were so fresh and delish! Plus, there was a plethora of seafood and veggies. One word: Slurp!
Oooh, and the best part of the meal was price! KDH is very affordable and dishes out great food. What else can you ask for?!? Nothing, really. The only issue… my waistline hating me for coming back for more!!!

Appetizers: There are about 4 different kinds of pot stickers/​dumplings offered on the menu and you have yours choice of either fried or steamed. The different options include pork/​chicken with bok choy, pork with chives, fennel or beef with scallion, and fish/​shrimp/​triple delight with chives. $ 6 — $ 8. Personally, I prefer the fried over the boiled.
The Dan Dan Noodle is pretty delicious (and very addicting!!). It’s all I order when I come here now. It comes with thick fat noodles covered in a spicy oil sauce topped with spinach. There isn’t much meat in it, but there are enough flavors to keep me happy. The spiciness of the dish hits me slowly but nicely. $ 7
Salt & Pepper Squid — Yum! A good mix of body and head, great salt & pepper taste. $ 10
Pork Egg Roll — Average, 2/​$ 3.
Curry Chicken — $ 6 — Not my kind of curry. I don’t think I’ve had Chinese curry before. It didn’t have any coconut milk in it. There were lots of chicken, mushrooms, bell peppers and onion.
The menu is pretty big offering noodle soup, fried noodles, chop suey, egg foo young and a variety of rice dishes. But if you ask me, there’s only one thing on the menu — DAN DAN NOODLES!
Conveniently located near a Binnys!

We had lunch yesterday at Katy’s and thought the beef noodle soup, which was recommended by our server was outstanding. Of course the noodles are homemade with a thick, dense and hearty texture. The beef broth was deep and complex albeit a little on the salty side. The beef pieces were incredibly tender and almost melted in your mouth. They also added bok choi and plenty of cilantro. I thought this was definitely the best dish we had during our meal. Make sure you order this soup spicy!
Katy’s is known for their dumplings, so we had to order 10 of the boiled pork and chive dumplings. These were delicious with a thick, starchy dough and plenty of pork, chive, and onion filling. 10 dumplings was plenty for the three of us, and I can’t believe they only charge $ 6.95 for this. Super cheap.
We also ordered the ma po tofu, which was good, but a little too oily for my taste. Plenty of tofu and an exceptionally spicy, which my wife loved. You almost needed a healthy serving of rice to absorb the oily sauce. Otherwise, this dish did have plenty of flavor and would have been a nice compliment to a dish like a pancake or Chinese broccoli.
Overall we had a great meal and they allowed us to BYOB a bottle of red wine for only a $ 5.00 corkage fee. If you are in the mood for awesome Chinese soup and dumplings make sure you add Katy’s to the top of your list.