Chop Suey Hut — Restaurant in Woodstock

This is a real shame to have to review. This restaurant has a cute location and a slightly small, but cozy and nice interior. The good reviews made this a place I wanted to visit as a new resident in town.

I have now eaten here twice, once as takeout and again today as a dine-in experience. Both times I have to say the food ranged from below average to genuinely quite poor.

During my dining experiences, I ordered Mu Shu Pork, and Mongolian beef. As well as sides of fried rice and egg rolls.

The eggrolls are good, peanutty and crispy. Easily as good as most Chinese restaurants, but a bit shy of Chens in Crystal Lake. The rice is perfectly good and average as you would expect for fries rice.

The issue is that both main entree offerings I tried were almost inedible. The restaurant tastes like they are using a western cheap brown gravy mix for a lot of their menu items that not only is overly sweet, but lacks any semblance of Chinese food flavor. No taste of hoisin sauce, no sesame oil, no hint of soy or chili oil. It tasted mushy and overcooked and just not really... Like any version of Mongolian pork or Mu Shu I have ever had elsewhere.

The most bizarre thing about this is that during my dine in visit today, I heard of the other dining groups in the restaurant with me were either sending back food or complaining about quality among themselves at the same time. I sat quietly and ate, because I was hungry, but the fact that I was not alone in this, matched with the good reviews tells me that this restaurant has recently cheapened it's menu, changed recipes... Something.

Edit: Following contact from the restaurant owner regarding the review I do feel the responsibility to clarify that the service was wonderful and the send back I overheard was handled by the staff and I was asked if I was enjoying my meal and I am sure I would have had something else sent out had I requested. I am not one for conflict and opted not to do so because I had already eaten a portion of the food. I appreciate the fact that feedback does seem to be welcomed and taken to heart here.

However my stance does stay firm that I was not happy with the entrees either time unfortunately, which I regret to have to say because I love a good...

Terrible experience. My family decided to take me to dinner for my birthday. I was really looking forward to it. We alway dine here for Chinese and love it but not so much lately. It was fairly busy but not a full house. We got to our booth and Sahla was our waitress for the night. She came to ask us what drinks we’d like. Took about 10 minutes for drinks to arrive. Another 10 minutes to order appetizers. We ordered onion rings, chicken tenders, and crab ragoons. The onion rings tasted like straight up lard and were drenched in fat from frying. There was a puddle of grease collecting on the plate. The chicken tenders were so bland and had that same lard taste. None of us liked them which was so disappointing since it was a total waste of money. The crab ragoons were edible. We had to keep getting our waitress’ attention when we either needed to order or needed more drinks. We waited 30 minutes possibly more just to order food. I had to go ask for someone to take our order. There was a table next to us that arrived after us and received their food before we did. They ordered fried rice. By the time we got our food everyone that arrived after us were gone. I asked for a different waitress but was denied. The last couple of time that we have visited we have gotten her as a waitress and absolutely hated her service. She ignored us and we could see she was not busy. She takes very long to check up on us if she decides to do so. She slides/throws out plates causing bit of the food to slide off. You could hear the plate on the table over people’s chatter. We get This kind of service from her every time she is our waitress. My family and I really like this place it’s one of our favorite but after this last experience I’m not sure if we will be returning. Very disappointing. We are good customers. We spend over...

Chop Suey Hut in Woodstock - 5 out of 5!⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. We've been meaning to try this place for months based on the reviews from this FB page and Google reviews. Sorry, no pictures, but you'll find plenty from Google reviews.

Our server, Natalie, was delightful, personable, and attentive. We ordered the appetizer combination which included the famous egg rolls. Definitely, the egg rolls are delicious (as were the wantons and crab rangoon). We ordered Imperial Beef and Hawaiian Chicken for entrees. The Aviation Singapore Sling drink was tasty and refreshing. I was surprised at the size of the menu - both for drinks, appetizers, and entrees. So much variety. The large size portions for the price are a great value. One of the owners, Esther, asked how everything tasted. We expressed our thorough satisfaction with the quality, freshness, and attention to detail. There’s a lot of prep work in the ingredients. Esther shared a bit of their family owned business history (over 50 years as proprietors of Chop Suey Hut) and contributions they've made to the Woodstock community. It's a great story and they should proud.

We plan to return, several times, as there's so much variety to select from the menu. This is our Chinese...