Chengdu Bistro West Town 蓉小馆 — Restaurant in West Chicago Township

There are some good food items here and the space is decent, but the service was quite bad when we came for lunch with some friends. I think they recently opened, so maybe they’re still working out the kinks? I hope so, because I left pretty disappointed.

For food we got the dry chili chicken, yibin flaming noodles, crab rangoons, pork bao sichuan style, and cucumber salad. The cucumber salad was delicous, one of the best I’ve ever had. The garlic sauce on them was great. The crab rangoons were crispy and had a good balance of the cream cheese taste and crab. The pork baos were a highlight. For me the yibin flaming noodle was not to my taste, but I can see other people may enjoy it. The texture of the noodles were firm and enjoyable. It was mostly noodles covered in chili oil to me though, and the numbing effect was interesting but overshadowed the other flavors I was looking for. I felt similarly with the dry chili chicken, which is spicier and has a numbing effect too. All the food seems very authentic, which I appreciate, but some of the flavors I’m not used to.

I’d like to come back to try more of the baos and dumplings, which seem to be a specialty here. The desserts seem worth a try and there are some more noodle dishes and soups that look interesting.

Regarding the service: I really don’t like the ordering system for multiple reasons. It is all phone based and nobody comes by your table except to drop off items you order. What basically happened to our group is we put in our order, waited and waited, and there was no indication if it was being made or not. So eventually we went to the counter and asked if everything was OK. The employee didn’t seem to know and said they would look into it. We waited longer, and it seems like the employee never looked into it. So again we asked, and after over an hour waiting it became clear they lost our order. Even as the food finally started to come out some items were missing and it wasn’t initially clear if they could/would still make the missing items for us (which we still wanted to eat). Additionally, they split the bill wrong. They gave us a 10% discount, which was appreciated, so they were definitely aware of some of the issues. I hope they work out these kinks, but honestly this online system loses all the signals of a typical sit down service: nobody comes by your table to make sure things are OK or whether anything is missing; to update you on something like “oh yes the noodles are still coming, don’t worry”, etc. so you sit there chatting with friends until someone finally realizes “hey did we get that dish we ordered?” and it becomes a chore to figure out...

So, on New Year's Eve, I screwed up and placed a pick up order through their website for delivery not realizing that they only accept pick up orders through their website and delivery through Uber Eats. The manager, Noah, called me to see if I'll pick up the food and I explained what happened and he immediately offered to help so I can get my ordered delivered. They went above and beyond to make sure I get my order. Noah and the staff there are absolutely phenomenal and offered to drive the order themselves despite the busy night they had on New Year's Eve. The chef and the owner, ended up delivering my order.

Now, let's get to the food... This place was recommended as the go-to place for authentic Sichuan food in the city, and it did not disappoint! The beef and scallion dumplings were steamed to perfection and the inside was juicy and delicious. The beef and noodle soup (hong siew) was exactly what I needed on a cold, rainy Chicago night. The Peking duck fried rice was next-level delicious!

Bottom line is, if you're craving authentic Chinese food, specifically Sichuan, this is definitely the place for you. I can't wait to try more of...

TLDR: Food: amazing. Service: amazing. Do not hesitate, do not think twice, do not pass go. If you want amazing dumps and noods, this place should be top of your list.

We popped in here on a whim while visiting Chicago for work. We were welcomed and sat immediately by a gracious host. He explained the menu to us and made recommendations.

We ordered the following, all of which were some of the best I’ve had; Zhong’s dumpling - favorite of the night Szechuan dumpling - unreal, could eat 2 dozen easy. Scallion pancakes - we got 3 orders of these. Great pallet cleanse in between rippling dumplings Shrimp shumai - like butter. Again, easy dozen could go down the hatch. Cucumber salad - made me feel better about my decisions, but we ordered another round. 10/10 cucumbers. Truffle soopie dumps- ooof. So dam good. Assorted fried dumplings - amazing.

Can’t go wrong here, regardless of what you order. Never time we will go hard on the noods, but couldn’t resist the dumps...