Jin Asian Cafe — Restaurant in Lake View Township

Ordered takeout Xmas day, on likely one of their busiest most hectic days, and was very pleasantly surprised! Our usual place had stopped taking orders for the day, so this was our first time trying Jin Asian Cafe. I looked up their menu online, but due to the day decided to call in our order (in case they weren't taking new orders or had longer wait times) and was glad I did. They were VERY busy, but took my order over the phone, told me about 30 mins wait time (website said 15 mins, so glad I called to get an updated time, again busy day). Showed up on schedule, waited maybe 5 extra minutes, but my food was hot and ready to go shortly! They seemed short staffed for the demand that evening, so take any reviews from today with a grain of salt. They were clearly working very hard - especially the lady running front of house solo (thanks ma'am!)!! And the food was super tasty!! Nothing adventurous in our order, stuck to American-Chinese takeaway basics - Chicken Fried Rice, Sesame Chicken, Egg Rolls, Veggie Delight w Tofu. Couldn't get enough of the fried rice. So good! Sesame Chicken was a solid choice (there was a lot of sauce, so might recommend sauce on the side for takeout in future, but was still fine by us). Very flavorful, spring onion in there, not just sticky sweet like some places. Veggie Delight wasn't quite what we were expecting (that's on us), but had a nice full garlicky flavor I enjoyed. Portions were all generous. Very satisfied and I think we've found a new favorite takeout place! Hurrah!

Sidenote, we're east coast transplants, and for some reason have had a hard time finding a place that does Chinese takeout we like. Obviously Chinatown has some great options, but it's not nearby for casual takeout. I'm putting it down to regional taste differences, perhaps a slightly different palate in the Midwest for Chinese dishes (Americanized Chinese). We've tried highly reviewed places and come away disappointed, but Jin Asian Cafe finally felt like the flavor of the Chinese dishes we were used to back home! I was very excited and impressed we got it on such a busy night too! Ready to go back and try out other options on their menu later. Thanks for the tasty meal and we'll be back again soon! :-)

(sorry, didn't think to take pics as I shoveled food...

I recently visited this restaurant and was surprised to find it completely empty. I ordered the chicken potstickers and the Singapore rice noodles, requesting that they substitute the thin rice noodles with lo mein noodles. Unfortunately, the experience was disappointing.

The potstickers, while flavorful, were just dough with no chicken inside—as evident in the attached photo. As for the Singapore rice noodles, I specifically asked for lo mein noodles instead, but they left it as thin rice noodles. When I pointed this out, they insisted that the thin noodles were their version of lo mein, which was baffling. That would have been frustrating enough, but to make things worse, the dish was almost entirely missing meat—I eventually found one tiny piece of chicken buried in it.

It’s frustrating to see restaurants receive high ratings just because they’re small businesses. Good food and honest service should be the standard, and unfortunately, this place didn’t meet either. There’s no way this deserves the high ratings it’s...

If I could do zero stars, then I would… This was the WORST Asian food I have ever had. I ordered 4 different entrees and 2 apps. All of the entrees were terrible! Why even deep fry the chicken if you are going to drown it in literal water… all of it was so soggy! All of the sauces were watery and lacked any depth of flavor. The Mongolian beef was literally a bowl of sliced onions with a couple of tiny slices of the cheapest steak I have ever had. The chicken chow mein was not chow mein. It was like a bowl of bland chicken and vegetable soup with a pile of dry fried noodles… The orange chicken had ZERO orange flavor, none! It was a bowl of fried chicken covered in a bland sauce that was the consistency of literal water. The sesame chicken was so soggy that I couldn’t even swallow it because the texture of the breaded chicken had a disgusting mouthfeel and again, extremely bland… I paid a lot of money for literal...