debo wrote:I have been perusing this thread for years--YEARS--waiting for an opportunity to go to Katy's (we don't have a car and we live on the North Side)

That sucks. Only because i live on the northside and do have a car. Because of it's distance from me and the people i associate with - i've eaten at Katy's only alone. Next time, don't be shy. I've learned that the people on this board are always up for roadie to get some food.

As for Katy's - I went yesterday. Got the dumplings and the chicken fried noodles. Beautiful.

For me, a trip to Ikea doesn't seem complete without eating there. I always ask for extra lingonberries. I believe they are currently running a special on Swedish Prime Rib.

-ramon

kuhdo wrote:In the refrigerator case can be found little plastic containers of what might be the very best pickles ever. Almost impossibly crunchy, and with a perfect balance of hot and sweet. Really remarkable, and unlike any pickles to be had elsewhere.

Yes Sir Senator!

How I missed Katy's pickles in the past is beyond me, had a terrific pickle heavy lunch, took a container home and had pickle, Katy's dumplings* and steamed rice for dinner. Katy's twice in a day is a damn good eating day. My wife gave a big thumbs up to the pickle as well.

Enjoy,
Gary

*Bought a bag of pork dumplings and cooked them pot sticker style at home.

Dayum!!

Katy's was the absolute #1 place on my "must try" list, so when the call came in this morning, I was happy to drop everything and take the cruise southward down I-294 and I-88 to Westmont. It's Christmas break at school, so the wife and son tagged along. Traffic was clear and I think we made it from Deerfield to Katy's in about 35 minutes. The drive was more than worth it, as the food really exceeded my expectations . . .


The awesome pickles about which G Wiv, Kuhdo and others have posted above.



Cold beef tendon salad



Shredded Pork stir-fried with Pancake



Dan Dan Noodles



Szechuan Cold Noodles



Stir Fried Noodles with Dry Chili



Stir Fried Noodles with Dry Chili, up close



Beef Tendon Noodle Soup



Potstickers



Menu


I'm not 100% sure on what each of the dishes was (since I missed part of the ordering). I've indicated that in the captions below each picture and would greatly appreciate it if anyone could help me fill in the blanks or correct any errors.

I just cannot believe how delicious everything was. I especially loved the pickles, the pancake and beef tendon noodle soup. My "least favorite" was probably the potsticker and that was only because the seasoning in the filling didn't completely speak to me. But still, they were perfectly prepared, piping hot and among the best renditions I've ever tasted. The textures of both the noodle and the filling were immensely satisfying. Yes, that was the 'worst' item

My only disappointment was not seeing the GNR award hanging on the door . . . and the fact that Katy's is about 30 miles from my house. Still, I make almost that exact same drive to Vie on a regular basis and Katy's is certainly worth the drive, too, in its own right. In fact, I'm going to be thinking about this lunch constantly, until I get back there. The perfectly dense texture of that delicious pancake will not soon be forgotten.

=R=

I believe what you're calling Szechuan soup is Dan Dan noodles.

Jazzfood wrote:I believe what you're calling Szechuan soup is Dan Dan noodles.

Thanks. I've gone back and edited that one.

=R=

Katy's was really on yesterday. I wasn't sure what to expect because we had a rather large group and I didn't know if Katy's would be able to rise to the occasion and be able to serve us efficiently. I shouldn't have worried at all. They were able to handle our party with no problems at all. Mr. Red Shirt was wearing earth tones rather than his customary red and seemed to be doing the cooking as well.

Ronnie, here are a couple more corrections for your pictures.

Combination Fried Noodles is actually Stir Fried Noodles with Dry Chili
Cold Noodles with Meat is actually Szechwan Cold Noodles

stevez wrote:Katy's was really on yesterday. I wasn't sure what to expect because we had a rather large group and I didn't know if Katy's would be able to rise to the occasion and be able to serve us efficiently. I shouldn't have worried at all. They were able to handle our party with no problems at all. Mr. Red Shirt was wearing earth tones rather than his customary red and seemed to be doing the cooking as well.

Ronnie, here are a couple more corrections for your pictures.

Combination Fried Noodles is actually Stir Fried Noodles with Dry Chili
Cold Noodles with Meat is actually Szechwan Cold Noodles

Thanks, Steve. I've gone back and made some additional edits.

Boy, on a gray, snowy day like this one, it'd be so great to have Katy's -- or something like it -- nearby.

=R=

Great to see you all, and thanks for inviting me. As I have said before, I work about 15 minutes from Katy's and am often able and happy to meet fellow LTH'ers there for lunch. Just PM me if you are in the neighborhood and interested in some company.

I believe the Pot Sticker issue had to do with my ordering - I did not specify anything when I ordered, so they served us chicken pot stickers, as opposed to pork. Some at the table loved the chicken, though I found it a bit mushy and bleh. Be sure to specify what pot stickers when ordering.

So Ronnie, did you go to "Happiness is Pets?" and commune with puppies?

Mr Red Shirt suggested I try the beef and onion dumplings to take home, which were crazy good.They reminded me of soup dumplings,there was so much natural broth inside to burn my mouth.
It was near closing time
The staff and their friends were feasting on some nice looking fresh pancakes
which they were wrapping the sliced pork in. I will have to ask for some next time....

That looks really good.

With the cold noodles, is the meat cold too?

Snark wrote:That looks really good.

With the cold noodles, is the meat cold too?

It is.

(That's my favorite dish there, with the possible exception of the pickles.)

My favorite is the beef noodle soup. It is something that I find my self ordering even when I walk in wanting to try something else. I have been like 5 times. I got the soup 4 times and the szechwan cold noodles once.

Any suggestions for my next dish?

The pork with pancake is fabulous. My favorite. Its more like noodle like pancakes, the pancake part is somewhat of a misnomer.

toria wrote:The pork with pancake is fabulous. My favorite. Its more like noodle like pancakes, the pancake part is somewhat of a misnomer.

This would be my choice, too. It starts out as a pancake and gets cut into noodle-like strips before being served. That's why it's called a pancake even though it doesn't appear to be one.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:

toria wrote:The pork with pancake is fabulous. My favorite. Its more like noodle like pancakes, the pancake part is somewhat of a misnomer.

This would be my choice, too. It starts out as a pancake and gets cut into noodle-like strips before being served. That's why it's called a pancake even though it doesn't appear to be one.

=R=

Indeed, and as said many times so far it is delicious!

Living only ten minutes from Katy's I find myself eating this quite often.

noodle pancake sounds like a winner. thanks. I just have to tell myself through ordering, don't get the crazy good soup. try something different.

KSeecs if I lived that close - soup for the first visit of the week and try something else on the second. ha ha ha

My favorite dish is the stir-fried noodles with dry chili.

toria & ronnie_suburban & KSeecs - what a rec!!

I went for an early dinner today. I did get the soup, but got the Pork with pancake side. It was great! munched on that a bit with a friend. she ate most of it and I had my soup. Next time, it will just be the pork and something else.

Thanks for the suggestions.

We went back for a return trip Saturday for lunch, it was actually our second choice since Fabulous Noodles didnt open until 11:30, and we wanted to eat and get out of the suburbs, so we settled on Katty's. Had the spicy noodles dish again, and it was good as usual(the noodles are increadible, the Krab should be left out of the dish, and the heavy presence of ginger makes the dish kind of one dimensional), and we also had some of the pork dumplings which were good as usual.

With the above said I wish we would have waited the 30 mins. for Fabulous Noodles to open, I would have had a better lunch. Katy's is still one of the top three for Chineses in the burbs, or city, but Fabulous Noodles is the best in my humble opinion, and for the items I like, and have ordered.

I have been eyeing this thread for some time, and I finally will make it to Westmont for noodles on Friday. It doesn't appear that Katy's has a liquor license. Does Katy's allow BYOB? I am meeting some friends and would like to whip up a batch of Mai Tais.

The one time I was at Katy's I brought a bottle of wine. I asked if they'd mind if I opened it, and they said yes, they'd mind.

CTB wrote:I have been eyeing this thread for some time, and I finally will make it to Westmont for noodles on Friday. It doesn't appear that Katy's has a liquor license. Does Katy's allow BYOB? I am meeting some friends and would like to whip up a batch of Mai Tais.

I used to manage a restaurant in Westmont. The town has very strict liquor laws. DO NOT BYOB! You will end up with a bunch of drinks you won't be able to enjoy.

Flip

I find it pretty funny that you can't enjoy a brew with your noodles but 50 yards away you can buy as many bongs as you can carry at the smoke shop next door.

True enough. It's also ironic that Mr. Red Shirt has been known to have some cans of Bud chilling in the kitchen to slake a thirst that must come honestly from the volcanic wok setup.

Had a wonderful introduction to Katy's on Tuesday for lunch. My group (myself, my brother and my father) met up with, amongst others, GWiv, ronnie_suburban, and stevez for a light and dainty pre-Stockholm flight lunch. After begging Gary to take the ordering reins, we ended up with some sort of LTH-tribal feast-type offering of incredible noodle-based dishes.

I didn't have a camera (and would undoutedly have forgotten to take photos as soon as the food started coming...) but we essentially ordered the same food as ronnie_suburban posted above. I have no reference points from previous meals but if Katy's wasn't hitting on full cylinders, I'm almost thankful for that. After an hour of stuffing my face, I reluctantly looked at the clock and the rapidly accumulating snow and decided that we had to leave in order to make my flight.

Katy's truly is a Chicagoland gem and will remain high on my must-visit restaurants. Thank you LTH for the introduction!

I hadn't been to Katy's for a while so I stopped in at about 2:30 today (Saturday) for a leisurely late lunch. I wasn't in a seafood mood, so I asked to have the stir fry noodles with dry chili, but with the pork from the pork&pancake instead of the seafood. It took a minute of talking and pointing at pieces of the menu board with both Mr. Red Shirt (in purple today) and his helper Lisa, but eventually we got it all figured out.

Soon after my food came out, the place completely filled up. I was at one of the four-tops because the deuce near the cooler was being taken by a friend of Mr. Red Shirt's having a gigantic meal of soup and cold pork. I took a picture of my lunch with my cellphone and sent it to a Chinese friend living in Atlanta, who called me to tell me that it looked fantastic and wanting to know what city I was in this weekend to get such a dish. When i said "westmont," she sighed and said that she needed to get to Chicago soon!

One family of four came in with notes from Dolinksky's writeup. They looked a little confused, and as I always do with people who are confused at Katy's, I point them to the right side of the menu board and suggest that they have noodles either in or out of soup. They settled on triple delight for the adults, and fried rice for the girls, and seemed very happy when I was leaving.

Can someone recommend a noodle soup that is mild in taste (not spicy)?

So far I have tried Katy's fried rice, boiled & fried dumplings/potstickers, fried onion pancake w/pork, and the fried noodles w/chicken & beef. Really enjoyed all of those.

I also tried the beef noodle soup, I'm not sure what "mild spicy" is supposed to mean or whether this was just a chef mistake but it was so spicy that a little sniff made my eyes water, a little spoonful of the broth was all I could take. (Tho the noodles and meat were OK)

So, I would like to try another soup, since I really like their noodles and pretty much everything else there, I just need a suggestion on which one. Hot in temperature mild in flavor... with noodles. Any ideas?

thanks,/pbz

Dan Dan noodle bowl should be great for you (ask for it with extra broth, and extra pork, if you like).

Katy's is closed on Wednesday.

This has been a public service announcement.