House Of Szechwan — Restaurant in Maine Township

This place has gone downhill in the past few years. Sometimes it's great; sometimes it's flavorless and watery. After the last time we ordered take out though, it's doubtful we'll be going back. Some guy that we've had issues with before was answering the phones and kept hanging up on us. That should have been the first clue to choose somewhere else to order from. Then it took 3 tries for him to get the address down, which he ultimately ended up screwing up anyway.

Then the food arrived. It was over 2 HOURS late. They forgot to include the 2 orders of Almond Cookies that we were charged for (shown on the pictured receipt). And considering I'm a vegetarian, I was quite beyond disgusted to find pieces of beef in my Kung Pao Tofu AND I found shrimp shells in the Vegetable Fried Rice (also pictured below). Luckily, I have a habit of picking through my food before eating it. For this exact reason. It was sickening. And left me wondering how this happened. Are they not washing their pans when starting new orders?!? And how did just the shells end up in there?! I could see shrimp pieces if they're not using clean pans, but just the shells?

We called back to complain and demand a refund. It took them over 2 hours to get this order out and I was nauseated so I didn't want new food to be sent out. She refused to refund anything on the credit card and instead would only give us a partial store credit, which she claimed would be written down for the manager to review. Even after telling her we wouldn't be ordering from them again. I forgave them once after finding a hair in my food years ago, but this is just too much to come back from. Pathetic!

Edit: So we just went back to get our partial store credit. The owners were in complete denial and refused to believe their staff could ever mix dishes enough that shrimp shells could end up in vegetable fried rice or that beef could end up in a tofu dish. The lady owner then denied their restaurant even dealt with shrimp shells. Her story changed from "the shrimp comes processed without shells" to "we thaw the shrimp and then rinse them off to remove the shells," which would mean they clearly have shells in the restaurant! She continued to deny it even after I showed her the picture of the shells I had to pick out of my vegetable fried rice that night. Her exact words to me were: "you can show me that picture all day but there's no way that came from my restaurant." I could not believe she was that rude in the face of photographic evidence!!

She then said if an order had been that bad then the person on the phone would have passed the phone to her and left a note. We explained how the lady had said she would leave a note, but the owner claimed she couldn't find it, if it was even there. There were a LOT of complaints on that board so clearly people are complaining about their inability to deliver food correctly. So in the end, we lost at least $30.15 since I couldn't eat the tainted food and she refused to refund or replace the dishes today. To add insult to injury, she would only give us 1 order of the 2 orders of cookies we were charged for and didn't receive. In addition, I did not at all appreciate her exaggerated 'IF they forgot to include the cookies.' As if they would never be capable of making mistakes.

We are not looking for perfection. We understand that people make mistakes. We were just looking for the fair compensation we were promised by the lady on the phone. We didn't appreciate the attitude from both the owners and surrounding staff or the clearly false attempts to explain away the shells I clearly have proof of in the form of the picture I took that night. We definitely WILL NOT BE GOING BACK.

**As a side note, you can see the N/C on the picture of the receipt for the Oolong tea. That is because they gave us Green tea the previous time we had ordered so had to make up for the Oolong tea this time. So they are clearly incapable of...

I like their crispy pata. The prices of their food are EXPENSIVE and the portions are small compared to the other Chinese places I go to. My last visit of this place with my husband was a nightmare.! The Chinese waitress was very rude. It was not busy during that time. 2 tables with customers. The rudeness did not end there. We also ordered a take'out. The take-out was for my sibling's lunch for work. She was excited to have her lunch when I handed it to her. When she opened the food container, the said noodles that I ordered was the WRONG noodles. Since she was very hungry, she took a small bite and took the rest home. I found out 3 days later that she did not eat the rest of $14.00 dish. I brought it back on Tuesday when they opened. Talked to the 2 Chinese owners. They admitted that the waitress who waited on us was "new!" (Not an excuse). She also told me she will give me a credit towards the dish in question. The Male owner asked me that he can have a replacement dish at that moment but I politely declined, I will take on the Free credit on my next visit. So, he grabbed a 3pack almond cookies and hastily threw it on the main counter and mockingly said "here's your lunch!" The Female owner maintains that it was not their fault! I was taken aback by their unprofessional behaviour.! Bearing in mind that I have a credit or a free dish for their mistake, I placed a take-out order plus I mentioned about my free dish 3 days later. When I arrived to pick-up my order, I have to wait 40 more minutes as what was originally promised. Bottom line, the FEMALE owner showed me that the right noodles were used this time, RENAGED on the credit, and told me to pay for the FULL PRICE OF $14.00 and cut me a slack by waiving the tax. I could have just refused everything and walked-out but I am a good person. I will spread the word to my Filipuno community. They are NOT WORTH OUR BUSINESS! Also, 2018, Mother's day buffet started lunch time this year, my siblings and I went there to our DISMAY, the trays of dishes were skimped, serving trays were not refilled, and their sinigang ,(A Filipino dish) had a little or hardly have chunks of pork. It was a rip-off! We left still hungry! NEVER AGAIN WILL BE GOING BACK TO THIS RESTAURANT. I should have listened to the people who used to go there.! The visit with my hubby cost us $75. for 1 order of crispy pata pork, 1 shrimp and broccoli, 1 fried rice, and 2 eggrolls.

I suggest to you guys, HENG WING in downtown Palatine by Palatine road is the BEST SO FAR AS FAIR PRICES OF THEIR DISHES, THE BIG PORTIONS, GREAT TASTE, GOOD SERVICE and YOU WILL ENJOY EVERY BITE OF YOUR FOOD. My take-out dinner at HENG WING last night: 2 eggrolls with extra sauces, 8 pot stickers with soy sauce and chile paste, 1 egg foo young (2 big Patties), 1 shrimp fried rice, 1 HONG-U beef, 1 free white rice ,(always ), and 3 large crispy fried noodles for $34.00...And , we have leftovers...

I feel so silly posting this because you almost are not going to believe my experience I just had. The food was terrific. We have been ordering takeout for 15 years!!! This was my first time eating at the restaurant. They close at 9:00. We made sure of it. We got to the restaurant at 7:45. Our server right off the bat was very rude and going 100 miles a minute. Rushing us and just not even letting us finish our sentence. My mom would start to ask her for napkins, a knife and some sauces and this lady, as my mom is talking to her is walking away from her and just saying yea yea yea yea ok ok i got it but in such a ugly way. 8:25 comes around. With a table full of food, the server brings us boxes, bags and the bill!!! Like WTH! And says “we close at 8:45” and my mom tells her, no you close at 9. And of course she just walks away. So we are just packing up our stuff and paid the bill and she came for the CC and we left her tip as cash so we didn’t put it on the receipt. She comes for the receipt and thennnnnn comes back all crazy!! And starts telling us “heyyy you didn’t put my tip, you need to tip for service”. Omg !!!! And I told her to calm down that we were giving her the tip in cash. Not even kidding I didn’t even want to tip her but I’m sure she probably wouldn’t have let us leave without tipping lol. So at this point this employee are all standing at the door, our server is standing pretty much next to us with her jacket on just watching us and asking if we need anything else, mind you it’s still barely 8:40. AND THEN!!!! THEY TURN OFF THE LIGHTS!!!!!!!!! As we are still getting our belongings and my son out of the high chair. And I’m like HELLOOOOOOO and they say ohhh sorry I didn’t think anyone was in here. Like WHATTTTT. And to leave you all with the cherry on the top. They all walked out with us and locked up for the day and DID NOT CLEAN OUR TABLE. They left our table the way it was. With the left over food, soups, drinks, little mess my baby left on the floor, stacked plates, EVERYTHING!!!! Omg I cannot even believe this. 15 years of personal and business brought to this restaurant. And I will definitely never be going again and making sure my work as well never orders their big orders from here again. Thanks house of Szechwan. For the worse experience I...