Hing Kee — Restaurant in Chicago

If I had the option to rate this place below 1, I would do that. I have had 2 consecutive inadequate experiences.

First experience - we randomly chose to go here in the afternoon because it seemed busy and the lady making fresh dumplings you could see from the window seemed like a sure enough sign to go in and enjoy the food. We were asked to sit in their upstairs part of the restaurant so we did. There were about 5 tables upstairs and were in the process of settling in and ordering. Well, we waited to order with no acknowledgement. We made phone calls, replied to emails and chatted amongst each other. In the meantime, another tourist family came in and requested for a table of 4 and the staff blatantly refused service even though there were 6 empty tables. The family were visibly embarrassed and left saying that we should just go elsewhere. That was a sign for us that the service was not at all hospitable. After waiting for close to 20 minutes after being told that they will be coming to take our order, we left. No one cared. And we enjoyed a nice meal across the street.

Second experience - we got food delivered from this place just to give a second chance and try their food. Big big mistake. The food was undercooked, not tasty at all, reeked of fish-oyster sauce and smell. Nothing was labeled so we didn't know what dumpling was what. It literally felt like a bland, not appetizing blind testing. Probably only have 4 dumplings and egg drop soup from our entire order and everything was wasted, unfortunately. But those dumplings and soup were enough to give us a stomach ache and so much gas all night long. It was a horrible experience.

I didn't take any pictures of this place or the food because it was definitely not worth it.

This restaurant lacks in all aspects of a good dining experience. They need to update their cooking skills and service. Would not recommend...

The food is amazing, it's great! But here's the thing, the service is... well it's something else. They did not once ask if we needed anything else, they just quietly picked up the dishes and left. Aside, the mix up of the strawberry milk tea, I had ordered a hot banana one, and a friend a hot strawberry one, and they brought out two hot strawberry milk teas. Mix-ups happen, so I just took it. Also apparently there is a $20 minimum for card users which caused a major issue when my friends and I wanted to split the check in four, since we all ordered side dishes to share. So one of my friends took it all, and we decided that we would go to a ATM outside to take more money out to leave a ten dollar tip, while she left two bucks for now on the card since she paid for it. I'm also a waitress, so I know it is, I always make sure to leave a good tip. As we hurried outside, one of the waitress stopped us at the door and demanded we leave a $7 dollar tip or more right there. Like she kept telling us that we HAD to leave them that much at least, humiliating us in front of the other customers, and me in front of my friends since I was the one who suggested this place because I was the Chicago resident. So to hell with the ten dollar tip, I gave her two more dollars in cash that were supposed to be my bus money and left. I kept thinking that it was my fault in not telling her that we would be back with more for tip, but her stopping right there and demanding we give her more tip makes me feel that giving that person $4 was too much as is. When I told another local friend about it, because she likes to eat there, she simply told me, "The food is good. The service sucks." I can...

I would put down a 0 if that was possible. Went there 01/15/2023 for lunch. We had a total of 11 people in our group. We are not from the Chicago area, we are from MN. We have heard that they make the best soup dumplings in the Chinatown - Chicago area and figured we would go support them.

It was really busy, so we got a number. They told us that the wait time was 20 minutes. We waited an hour before we got a table.

Sat down and proceeded to order the soup dumplings. We were told that we can only order 2 trays at a time. When we finished those first 2 trays, we asked to ordered more in which they told us that the limit is 2 per table - NOT what they initially told us. We told them that they didn't say that in the beginning and that it is a little unfair, considering that we have a larger group. They were dead set on the answering being 2 per table, MAX! That was disappointing, but at least we have our other foods.

The other foods we ordered didn't come out at once. We got our first 2 dishes 8 minutes before our 3rd dish came. We waited another 10 minutes after that for our 4th dish. Our 5th dish never came and we just canceled it, because we had been waiting forever for our foods at that moment. We had asked for a refill on our water, but that never happened.

At the end , we just asked for our tab and saw that there was an automatic surcharge of 18% gratuity on the tab. This is NOT listed anywhere on the website or the menu. We were definitely annoyed. SMH. For the service and how things went, they were NOT deserving of the 18%.

I would not be going back to Hing Kee. If you are looking for soup dumplings, try Joy Kee....