lao tian dumpling house — Restaurant in Evanston Township

Our lunch experience at Lao Tian Dumpling House was quite disappointing. Despite being seated for over 30 minutes, our main dishes (two orders of dumplings) were not served. When we inquired about the delay, we were informed that one of the orders had not even started cooking yet.

We asked for an estimated waiting time, as people who arrived after us and ordered around the same time, also in person, had already received their take-out orders and left. We were initially told it would be an additional 5 minutes. However, after starting a timer, we were informed 2 minutes later that it would still be another 10 minutes as one of our orders had not yet started cooking. At this point, we decided to cancel our order and requested a refund for the items that had not been served after a 40+ minute wait.

Additionally, we noticed a lot of miscommunication and inefficiency. The kitchen staff, speaking a language we understood, seemed disorganized. The table next to us also experienced long wait times and received the wrong food. They accepted the wrong order just to avoid another forever wait time to get things fixed.

One older lady server in particular had an extremely bad attitude. She brought a cold dish to our table, repeatedly referring to it as "B1" without providing the dish name. Despite ordering everything by their full names at the counter, she continued to ask us in a way that was confusing and unhelpful.

Overall, the service was poor, and the staff's attitude left much to be desired. Can’t say much about the dumpings since we never had a chance trying them, but the cold dishes are average, probably you can get better ones from local Asian supermarkets if you know the...

These are BARELY fried dumplings from Lao Tian Dumpling House, a new restaurant in evanston.

Service is slow, like REALLY slow. Standard order time given is 15 minutes. Ordered at 6:25, finally got our order at 7:13, that’s 48 minutes!

15 dumplings to an order which is generous but they are all one kind. No mixing or combo. Would it hurt to let a new customer try multiple dumplings in a combo, say 5 of three different types? And honestly 15 is too many! I only ate 7 of them. Smaller serving and charge less.

Dumplings are served either steamed/boiled/pan fried. But beware, if pan fried there is an additional $2 charge! I asked about that and she said it is a charge on the NEW menu coming. I said well charge me what the current menu says! THAT didn’t happen!

And for fried dumplings, they seem barely fried! Looked just like my sisters steamed dumplings.

$6 for a cucumber salad side which was little more than a smashed cucumber. Very little seasoning or taste other than cucumber.

They have 25 different dumplings. Might be too many too soon! Smaller menu to get things rolling, maybe a daily special. But for efficiency, I’d go smaller!

Won’t be coming back here...

I ordered the pork, shrimp, and leek dumplings and they’re delicious. The filling had a whole shrimp in each dumpling and was juicy and very flavorful. The wrappers are handmade (which isn’t easy to find) and are impressively thin for being hand made. They definitely don’t look like the frozen ones, and taste even better.

I ordered online for pickup and then noticed the order would be ready in an hour. I wasn’t able to wait that long so I called the restaurant to cancel my order. The man I spoke to was friendly and told me my order would be ready in 30-35 mins. He even called me when my order was ready (I missed the call). But when I arrived the dumplings were ready to go. The space is small so it’s really set up for take out rather than dine in.

$12.99 for well made, home made dumplings is reasonable. I do find it odd the pan fried dumplings cost more. Hopefully people will be patient as this new restaurant works out the kinks. I’d love to see this locally owned small business thrive. The dumplings are yummy and I look forward to having my parents...