Yu's Mandarin (Vernon Hills)

Yes, it's open
Yu's Mandarin
4 E Phillip Rd, Vernon Hills, IL 60061
Phone: (847) 816-1888

I stopped in for lunch, and didn't feel like spending a lot of time or money so just ordered off the lunch menu. This is a 1-week-later comparison to Hong Kong Chop Suey in Mundelein, so take that as you will. I know that the lunch stuff won't be Yu's best, but I wasn't that impressed.

Soup: Included in price at Yu's, not at HKCS. Hot and Sour was very good, in top quartile. Needs perhaps a little more sour, but nice thick broth (although probably cornstarch-, not gelatin-thickened). HKCS had a better selection of ingredients, and was spot on with the hot and sour, but the broth was weak.

Egg Roll: Included in lunch price at both. Here HKCS really shone, with a classic Chinese-American egg roll with probable peanut butter. Yu's was a spring roll type: smooth wrapper. Otherwise pretty good, but not remarkable. Also included at Yu's is a fried wonton. Just crispy stuff, as one would expect.

Kung Pao Chicken: I like Yu's a little better: the sauce is a little closer to what I expect, and there's the requisite charred peppers and peanuts. Still lacking in that fine-cubed finesse, and both versions were low on what I consider the essentials (from Fuschia Dunlop's recipe): scallions, garlic, ginger, vinegar, sugar. Neither version was spicy enough although both were requested extra-spicy (does "extra" mean something in Mandarin like "not at all" perhaps?).

I know I should have ordered the "Noodle Platter" but it was another buck and a half, and didn't appear to be served with egg roll or soup. Next time.

They have been absolutely slammed for dinner service, and they do not accept reservations for parties smaller than six people. Their website is here; it only takes reservations for their other two locations.

We stopped there to pick up carry-out tonight, a Saturday night. At 4:45, only about a third of the tables were occupied. By the time we left, a few minutes after 5:00, all the smaller tables were occupied, and the only empty tables were those seating six or more, presumably being held for those with reservations.

JoelF wrote:Neither version was spicy enough although both were requested extra-spicy (does "extra" mean something in Mandarin like "not at all" perhaps?).

Three of the dishes we ordered - spicy shrimp, orange beef, szechuan eggplant - are designated with the "spicy" symbol on their menu. As we normally do with places we're not already familiar with, we did not specify a level of spiciness. The spicy shrimp were quite hot - call it a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10 - while the other two dishes had not the slightest hint of spiciness/hotness.