razbry wrote: I really felt for the server when the man of the family waxed on about how he missed the last Chinese restaurant that had been in that location, particularly one particular dish. Yadda Yadda Yadda.

yuck, Jins Mandarin was awful.

glad you enjoyed your meal at Katy's razbry.

jimswside wrote:

razbry wrote: I really felt for the server when the man of the family waxed on about how he missed the last Chinese restaurant that had been in that location, particularly one particular dish. Yadda Yadda Yadda.

yuck, Jins Mandarin was awful.

I thought Jin's lunch buffet was excellent. They had funky egg foo young sauce, but I liked the General Tao's chicken.

John Danza wrote:I thought Jin's lunch buffet was excellent. They had funky egg foo young sauce, but I liked the General Tao's chicken.

I tried their buffet, and carryout items a few times, and gave up on them back when I used to live within walking distance(average to below average ameri-chinese imho).

Obviously taste is to the individual, but I would chuckle if I heard a customer eating at Katy's lamenting the closing of Jin's.

jimswside wrote:
Obviously taste is to the individual, but I would chuckle if I heard a customer eating at Katy's lamenting the closing of Jin's.

Sadly on our trip to Katy's we had that experience, we overheard conversation at 3 tables close to us and all were complaining about the loss of Jin's. Two party's stopped right at the door, looked around and didn't see a buffet and left! Their loss.

LikestoEatout wrote:

jimswside wrote:
Obviously taste is to the individual, but I would chuckle if I heard a customer eating at Katy's lamenting the closing of Jin's.

Sadly on our trip to Katy's we had that experience, we overheard conversation at 3 tables close to us and all were complaining about the loss of Jin's. Two party's stopped right at the door, looked around and didn't see a buffet and left! Their loss.

Perhaps Katy's loss as well. The times I've been in there, the place has been 80%+ empty. Jin's was always packed at lunch, and there are a lot of chinese restaurants in the area that get a good deal of business. Perhaps they should start a lunch buffet to pull in customers. Otherwise, I suspect they won't be open long.

LikestoEatout wrote:

jimswside wrote:Obviously taste is to the individual, but I would chuckle if I heard a customer eating at Katy's lamenting the closing of Jin's.

Sadly on our trip to Katy's we had that experience, we overheard conversation at 3 tables close to us and all were complaining about the loss of Jin's. Two party's stopped right at the door, looked around and didn't see a buffet and left! Their loss.

I guess some people value quantity over quality, and/or familiarity over authenticity.

John Danza wrote:Perhaps Katy's loss as well. The times I've been in there, the place has been 80%+ empty. Jin's was always packed at lunch, and there are a lot of chinese restaurants in the area that get a good deal of business. Perhaps they should start a lunch buffet to pull in customers. Otherwise, I suspect they won't be open long.

I personally would be disappointed to see someone making high quality, hand crafted product stooping to satisfy the lowest common denominator. Also, Naperville's Chinese population has blown up in the last several years, so I think this demographic alone could practically sustain their business.

phredbull wrote:I personally would be disappointed to see someone making high quality, hand crafted product stooping to satisfy the lowest common denominator.

Me too. The last thing I want to see is yet another mid-level-quality Chinese buffet (and just to be clear I don't think that steam-table buffets can ever really offer food that is better than average in quality). Katy's made-to-order food is high in quality, distinctive and delicious.

phredbull wrote:Also, Naperville's Chinese population has blown up in the last several years, so I think this demographic alone could practically sustain their business.

I hope they can succeed on their own terms and that they have the support they need. I know that many people will always choose the familiar over the new and quantity over quality but I hope there are also enough people out there who want something more from a restaurant to enable Katy's Naperville location to thrive.

=R=

John Danza wrote:Perhaps Katy's loss as well. The times I've been in there, the place has been 80%+ empty. Jin's was always packed at lunch, and there are a lot of chinese restaurants in the area that get a good deal of business. Perhaps they should start a lunch buffet to pull in customers. Otherwise, I suspect they won't be open long.

... and now Jin's is closed. That buffet plan didn't work out too well.

It reminds me of an episode of Kitchen Nightmare's. The owners were crying that without the buffet and 2 for 1 dinner specials they would not have any customers but were losing $1000's.

Word will get around... (I hope!)

Panther in the Den wrote:

John Danza wrote:Perhaps Katy's loss as well. The times I've been in there, the place has been 80%+ empty. Jin's was always packed at lunch, and there are a lot of chinese restaurants in the area that get a good deal of business. Perhaps they should start a lunch buffet to pull in customers. Otherwise, I suspect they won't be open long.

... and now Jin's is closed. That buffet plan didn't work out too well.

Unless you know that Jin's closed because of a lack of business, you're only making an assumption. I know from experience that Jin's was always packed at lunch during the week, and had a fair evening business. It's possible that the owners decided to close up due to a death or some other reason.

Don't misunderstand me. I like Katy's a lot. But the fact seems to be that they are usually almost empty. There's a basic economic fact in business - you can have the best product of your type on the market but if people don't buy it, you're out of business.

I'm sure Katy's is great (I've actually never been there). But, in our neck of the woods we also have Fabulous Noodles, Lao Sze Chuan right up the street in Downers Grove and Joy Yee's Noodles, as well as House of Emperor (where I usually go for Chinese food, which isn't that often). I believe that John D's observation is a good one. In this economy, Katy's probably should consider doing whatever it needs to in order to expand its customer base (without sacrificing quality). In that somewhat out-of-the-way location, it could easily be gone by this time next year.

I hope Katy's does whatever they need to stay in business. When Lao Szechuan took over Lo Garden in Downers Grove they kept the Ameri-Chinese menu and even the name for a well and it seemed to work out well for them. Speaking of Fabulous Noodles, I had their soft shell crab special this weekend and would highly recommend while it's there.

Are you sitting down? Good, I have something to say.

Katy's is peddling chicken crack. And it's damn good.



I go to the Katy's Naperville outpost fairly regularly, so being friendly with the waiter there, this was tonight's conversation:

Waiter: "What would you like tonight. Korean noodle soup?" [I always get the Korean noodle soup ]
Me: "Nah, let's try something new. Whatcha got?"
W: smile, then heads back to the kitchen

And I got the lovely dish pictured above, officially called "3 Pepper Chicken". I guess Tony must be talking in his sleep, because it was a replica of LSC's -- sweet, quite spicy, crunchy, delicious.

I don't believe it's on the menu yet as they called it a special, but I hope they keep it around. Could you imagine a dinner of chicken crack, pork & onion pancake, and griddle cooked spareribs? It would be like waking in Valhalla...

I live near the original Katy's and work near the Naperville location, so I've been to both a few times. So far though, I've only had the pork and onion pancake, dan dan noodle, stir fried noodle w/dry chili, cold szechuan noodle, and xinjian style sauteed beef w/cumin. The latter I tried for the 1st time yesterday on a whim, simply because it was the most intriguing of all the lunch specials. Very very tasty, with flavors I am not accustomed to in chinese cuisine (the cumin, cilantro and jalapeno too).
So it sounds like I need to try the ribs next and inquire about 3 pepper chicken. What else?

My mouth is watering already and it's only 6:30 in the morning! That xinjian style sauteed beef w/cumin sounds tasty. I might just pop over to the original outpost for lunch...
Btw, I took two semesters of Chinese for fun and my instructor liked Jin's a lot. We went there several times and it was always good.

We went to Katy's Dumpling House for the first time today. For some reason, they gave us one free noodle dish with two entrees (even though I did not see this deal advertised). We enjoyed the potstickers. We ordered the Fried Noodle, but asked them to make it as a combination of meat and shrimp. We also had the stir fried onion pancake with shredded pork. The pancake was cut like thick noodles and stir fried. The pancake had a much chewier texture than the noodle. My family liked this pancake dish more than the fried noodle dish, but I liked the fried noodle dish more. We also had the Peking Shredded Pork dish and Honey Walnut Shrimp. The shrimp was really good, but we were surprised to see the dish come with pecans instead of walnuts. If I am ever in the area again, I would probably buy some dumplings from their freezer to take home. I would recommend Katy's for their dumplings and noodle dishes.

We had a good dinner, but the ending left a very bad taste in our mouths.

Spicy Beef Tendon cold appetizer had a nice combination of chili's and oil.
Dumplings, both boiled and pan fried had nice texture on the skins, and good juiciness in the pork filling.
Fried noodles with chicken had good texture on the wavy noodles. Almost too much onion, other stuff, and not enough noodles.

Big downside was getting the lights turned off on us after only 45 minutes eating and still finishing our dishes.
We were seated around 8:30. Sign on door says open 11-9pm. I didn't think we were being unreasonable to want 1 hour for our dinner, but they turned the lights out at 9:10 on us.

If you really want to turn out the lights at 9, please don't take customers after 8!

How nice to hear about the new location! I remember posting about Katy's in 2004. We moved away to the East Coast for several years and now we are returning back! It's so nice to hear how well some of our favorite restaurants are doing. We will definitely check out Katy's very soon.

I went with friends to Katy's Naperville Saturday to get my chicken crack fix and was greeted with a black marker sign indicating starting 11/1 (Saturday ) Katy's was closed for remodeling for at least 30 days.

As we were pulling in from the Royat St George side, we noted just how many storefronts had been both long closed and recently closed.

I said something about its a good thing Katy's is anchoring the other end, only to find the remodel sign.

Hoping this is a true remodel, as it did certainly need some updating, and not something else.

We'll try the Westmont location next weekend.

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