BiXi Beer — Restaurant in West Chicago Township

Really incredible rooftop space. The open roof, breezy single room space, and effective interior decor made for a summer-in-a-palace feel.

The drink list was a good size without being overwhelming. The beer list is about 2/3rds house-made beer and the rest a selection of interesting guest pours. The Unspoken Rule golden ale was easily the winner amongst their own beers, while a Salted Cucumber Dry Cider from Stem Ciders was a real showstopper on a hot summer day.

The cocktail list was small but effective, offering a delicious half dozen original summer cocktails each focused on a different liquor, as well as two frozen options that looked great.

The food was the real winner though. A long list of small Firsts will tempt you with a wide range of options, followed by half the number of mains. You'll probably want a First and Second per person.

The Shrimp and Crab Dip is a must, though, served with beautifully full and perfectly crisped wonton chips for scooping up the herbed dip and catching some of the sweet chili oil in the bottom of the bowl. We also tried the Chicago Beef Bao, which I found underwhelming; it came across as a pretty straight and somewhat uninteresting Chicago beef sandwich shoved into a really mediocre bao bun.

For the Seconds, the hot oil noodles are a killer bargain. One of the cheaper options on the menu, it comes in a large bowl filled with a large mound of this massive coiled noodle soaked with flavorful oils and decked out in all sorts of delicious toppings. It has some heat that quickly builds over time, but nothing prohibitive or painful, sticking the landing in that perfect zone where your taste buds are being pushed to the edge and you can't stop yourself from wanting to get closer and closer.

The pork belly was a real winner too, arriving gorgeously cooked and scoured. Cutting into it, the texture is heavenly with the right mix of meaty resistance and pillowy fat, but the flavor of it all mixed with the sauce at its base make for a truly sublime dish.

Can't wait to go back and try...

Such a fun instagramable place for brunch! I had made reservations for 4 of us and then expanded it to 6 with no problems. Easy to make the reservations online. We were seated immediately for at a long table in the upstairs room. The upstairs room had a glass roof so it was beautiful to get to see the outside but it was a pain after awhile when the sun was shining down directly on you. We had all checked in on Yelp and had gotten the free beers which were a pleasant surprise. They have a good selection and mix of light and dark beers.

For the brunch portion, they have some great options but okay options for vegetarian. I was surprised at how rigid the menu seemed to be (for example, the noodle dish could not be made vegetarian). For our vegetarian counterparts, they got the bubble waffle, kimchi mandu, the eggplant bao brunch, the fried rice and beer bread. It was a good amount of food but did leave people feeling hungry a few hours later. For those of us who ate meat, we had the lamb wontons, the classic breakfast and the drunken noodle. Great dishes and I would recommend the lamb wontons for sure and also the BEER BREAD (this was AMAZING).

The reason why this place stayed at a 3 star for me and not a 4 star is because despite the atmosphere, I did not think the food was elevated to an asian fusion status but rather just asian food. Also for the quantity of food, definitely priced more than it deserved. A few reviewers have also mentioned the employee insurance fee which I wasn't a huge fan of. I am all for employee insurance benefits but I do not think that it is at the responsibility of the patron vs the employer. I think it is quite tacky to have it added to my bill. The option of opting out is to "ask your server" but that just seems rude. At the end of the day, 2% does not make a huge difference in my bill and if I can help out a hardworker, I will gladly do so. But to have the dishes priced highly and then on top of that, have the 2% already added was a bit...

This was not a good experience. The staff’s capabilities were poor, the food was mediocre, and the prices are way too high for what it is. We sat in the upper bar area, which was ok—it’s sunny and bright with some plants inside.

My party of two got there earlier one evening around 5pm and was told there was nothing available, just the bar, until 9pm. I kid you not, almost the ENTIRE restaurants was empty. But ok, maybe all those reservations will be flooding in soon? Spoiler: they did not. By the time we left there were plenty of seats.

Our server/bartender was a goofball—not necessarily a bad thing, but he was distracted by his friends the entire evening and had generally weird behavior verging on obnoxious. Him and the other bartender completely forgot our drink order, which we eventually requested it just not be made since our food was coming out. To their credit they still decided to make the drink and comp it, but by that point we were eating our meal and my partner no longer had a desire for a drink at that point.

As for the food, it was all extremely mediocre, some of it just stupid, for lack of a better word.

The rangoons were not cooked well enough. The dough was almost raw, absolutely no crispyness. I LOVE crab rangoons and these made me sad and a bit mad. Total waste of calories.

The kimchi was ridiculous and stupid. Worst kimchi I’ve ever had and that’s coming from one of the whitest people alive. This place had HUGE slabs of hard kimchi you could barely fit into your mouth and the worst part was it was none of the leafy part, it was all the hard white part of the plant, which doesn’t really absorb any flavors or break down.

The noodle dish I ordered was a bit too rich and unbalanced, very dark sauce with not much to balance it with. But probably a good dish if you were suuuper hungry?

The chicken sando was...