Lajiao Asian Bistro and Noodles

The service here is terrible from the minute we walked throught the door, we were not greeted but starred at by a few servers and I suppose host. We finally got seated and they took our order for drinks, the drinks did come right away. We perused the menu and decided what we wanted. The waitress came over and took our order, we ordered veggie egg rolls and our dishes.
Why O Why would our dishes come before our eggrolls and they not say anyhting after 5 minutes of dishes being set on the table. our jaws were on the floor. 10 minutes into dinner the eggrolls came– What??? we didn’t want them at that point– we were well into our dinner– we sent them back to be warmed up because we knew if we asked for fresh new ones that was not going to happen so we didn’t bother! Left with our eggrolls to go and a crappy tip of $ 0.10– they had that coming. The entrees’ were good but we only will do carry out from there as a last resort and desperation!!!

We have lived in the area for about 7 years and have tried several Chinese restaurants. Lajiao is our new favorite! We typically get items such as veggie egg rolls, beef fried rice, sweet and sour chicken, mongolian beef, orange peel chicken and general tso’s beef. We mostly dine in and always have leftovers for the next day. I believe they may also be BYOB. Service is not the best, but the food is worth it to us.

Excellent, authentic Chinese food, generous portions, lovely husband & wife run restaurant
The food here was really superb, which was surprising given its suburban location; even rivals the food you can find in downtown Chinatown. We started with the MaLa beef tendon, which was flavorful, if a little bit too spicy. The vegetarian chicken was delicious. For entrees, we first got the tea smoked duck — it was kind of amazing, just wonderful, moist, and way juicier than the roast duck we usually get. The salt and pepper shrimp were large, plump, crispy, and had great flavor, and we requested shrimp without the shells, which they accommodated. The hot wok fish was really outstanding — the sauce was perfect and the fish kind of melts in the mouth. We also got the Szechuan hot boiled fish, which was spicy, fragrant and tender. I was very impressed by how well seasoned everything is and how much food we got in each dish.
We came here for lunch and it wasn’t that busy. We were seated promptly by the owner’s wife and she was just so nice in suggesting dishes and taking our orders. The owner himself delivered the dishes to our table and checked in on us during the meal. Will definitely come back.

Food was very good. Place was very full and a lot of chinese families which is always a good sign for a chinese restaurant. Normally chinese restaurants have horrible service but this one was decent. Décor was nice. We ordered potstickers, salt and pepper tofu, orange peeled chicken, chicken fried rice, and asparagus fish fillet and all were delicious at a good price. Go to
for savings. All in all a good meal for the price but hard to find since they didn’t change the signage yet outside from the previous restaurant.

Lajiao is a fickle beast. The food to me is 5 stars, but the service can drag down your experience. By far. To like a 2 or so.
The long story short is they need more people working. The woman at the front desk wanders off to seat people which means if you are taking food out, you can walk in and just look around confused. Once you do grab your food or get to your table, things start going much smoother.
Pretty soon after you’re at a table you’ll get some tea and be able to place your order. Crab Rangoon and the Sichuan Wontons are both excellent starters, but will run up your bill. I’ll expand more on this when we get to price.
As for the food, I love the Yu Shang Beef and the Hunan Chicken. I haven’t tried the noodles but I intend to soon.
Now, service. The short answer is that they need another body on the floor, and people shouldn’t leave their stations. But that would kill a little bit of spirit of this place. Yes some times she wanders off, but that’s only to help seat someone, and she is so friendly and welcomes you to the restaurant and makes sure you have everything you need. It’s the same with the servers. They’ll get bogged down at other tables talking with customers making sure everything is good but it’s not because they are ignoring you, just that they are paying attention to someone else at the moment.
Things take a while at Lajiao. That’s not exactly the same thing as saying everyone is slow, but the pace is a bit more relaxed here. People take the time to be friendly and treat you like family. People take the time to cook your food well. People take the time to serve you well. You can not come in to Lajiao with the expectation of a quick dining experience and leave satisfied. It just will not happen. Instead, if you take some time out of your day, come in prepared to wait a little bit for that delicious food, and relax you will have a lovely time. Bring some beer or wine, it’s BYOB. Have a couple of drinks and talk.
If you don’t want to wait, take out is a fine alternative. They don’t have a hold button so if they are busy they’ll just put the phone down, which can be jarring. I’ve found with most take out, twenty minutes means 15 minutes with a 5 minute cushion to make sure if you’re a little early or something goes a bit astray, it’ll still be ready 20 minutes later. Lajiao seems to operate on 20 minutes means 20 minute cook time plus a couple of minutes to get the food to the front. Hot food, good take out, but even this seems to take a little longer than other places. That’s OK, yummy yummy food. Word of warning: Crab Rangoon does not really hold up that well when getting take out. It’s really a food that’s best eaten right as it is piping hot and fresh. The time it takes to cook the rest of the food, and for you to drive home, they loose some luster. The main dishes, however, and the rice keep up fine, and are delicious and still hot by the time you’re home.
Now as for price. Two dishes seems to feed three people and by that I mean we get two dishes and don’t quite finish them, and someone’s family member swoops in and finishes the rest of the food. You can think of a dish as two meals: once meal in the moment and then it lives on as left overs. So two dishes take out will run you just over 20 bucks. Not bad. With tip sitting in it’ll be mid 20s. But if you get a side or an appetizer you’re suddenly finding yourself in the 30’s, which is more than people expect from a Chinese restaurant. Side items add up and fast, especially when considering the tip at the end.
I was going to give Lajiao five stars, because I love it so much, but I think back to a time when my girlfriend and I were both craving their food, but had an hour to eat dinner before we had to get on the road to catch a show. We had to go elsewhere because we decided it was too risky to go to Lajiao. There just isn’t a way to get food quickly here, which is disappointing.
I’ve had great service, I’ve had less than stellar service but I’ve always had great food here. It’s worth a shot if you’re in the right mindset, but if you want quick Chinese, this probably isn’t the place for you.

Lajiao, haters gunna hate. I say let ‘em, cause your food is amazing.
Since the head chef here was the head chef that jumped ship from Mapo Tofu, the food is on-​point. Favorite dishes here include Sichuan wontons, general tso’s, kung pao, and yu shang.
Prices and décor are pretty standard for sit-​down Chinese food restaurants, so it would seem that Lajiao isn’t all that unique, BUT it is BYOB/​W. With no un-​corking fees. (And so the angels came down from the heavens and blessed the pseudo-​ornate gates of the Lajiao entryway.)
The only thing to complain about here is the service. I will say that the service is not so terrible that it’s merits a long note, but each time we’ve dined in, our waiter all but vanished once the main course hit the table. And the few times that we’ve called in for pick-​up, we’ve been treated to unintelligible conversation between the owner and a patron while waiting for someone to realize we still needed to place an order.
Still, if they fix up the service, this place would easily be a five star.

Its been 6 months since our last bad experience. I guess this time we learnt our lesson.
Again, nothing personal, BUT — the elderly woman up front should not be working. Her state of confusion is increasing.
We ordered Hunan Chicken, which according to the menu is described as: «Fresh chilies, shiitakes, bamboo and ginger in a light brown sauce with a touch of spice.»
What we got: Lot of broccoli and large chunks of bell peppers along with chicken.
I drove back to the restaurant and asked the elderly woman and a waitress as to what I got (showed it to them). Their answer was — Hunan Chicken! I showed the description of Hunan Chicken on the menu and they replied: «That is not on correct, what you got is Hunan chicken.»
WTF? Why bother printing a menu if you are going to substitute ingredients at will?
Of course, absolutely not even a hint of an apology. These guys are incompetent, rude and arrogant.

La Jiao is the most authentic Chinese/​Taiwanese restaurant in Naperville. There are three different menus here — Lunch Menu (Americanized), Dinner Menu (Americanized), and a third Authentic Chinese Menu. I would pass on both the lunch and dinner menu and order from the Chinese menu only. The authentic Chinese dishes here are what make La Jiao the best Chinese restaurant in Naperville. The owners appear to be an older couple, the husband is the chef and the wife as the manager. This is a homestyle kitchen, so don’t have high expectations for service but come here for the food and you will have a very satisfying experience.
These are the dishes I tried today and would highly recommend to anyone coming to this restaurant. The beef rolls appetizer is a must-​have, accompanied with hot chili pepper sauce. You can request a side of plum sauce, it goes very well in combination with the hot chili pepper sauce. The spicy beef noodle soup here is absolutely amazing, it is the best out of any spicy beef noodle soup I’ve ever had in the US, i would highly recommend this — this is as authentic as it gets. I also had the basil chicken, tastes just like how i remembered in Taiwan, basil, ginger, and garlic. fantastic flavor, writing about it is making me hungry, the basil chicken is also a must for your visit. The last item I had was mapo tofu with pork, it is excellent and mixed with rice is delicious but nothing to rave about compared to the first three items.
If you feel adventurous and want to try excellent authentic Chinese food, don’t miss out on La Jiao!
Beef Rolls —

Chili Pepper Sauce —
Beef Noodle Soup —
Taiwanese Basil Chicken —
Mapo Tofu with Pork —

I have been wanting to go here for awhile to try their spicy beef soup noodles (largely due to Vlad K’s review). My wife and I had a chance to go so we headed that way over a weekend. The egg drop soup was tasty and I really liked the egg roll. My spicy beef soup noodles was really good and may have become one of my favorites. I tried my wife’s orange chicken and it was spicy like it should be. The real treat are the people working there. They are so friendly and welcoming. I will certainly be coming back here.
It is just a bit too far from my work to get lunch during the week though. Lunch meetings perhaps?

We came here for dinner with a Groupon certificate, and I would say overall about 2.5 stars. It was alright, but not the freshest of servings. Examples were the cold beef flank and tripe in chili sauce appetizer, and the rice. They also like to use a lot of chili sauce in their dishes, but what can we expect. I enjoyed the cumin lamb dish, and it also served us well as leftovers. They also look to have a decent following, both Asian and non-​Asian, from all of the locals in the area, as various size groups kept appearing for dinner.

Legit Sichuan cuisine. For those of you who don’t know, «lajiao» means «hot chili pepper» in Chinese. This restaurant is known for its spices.
They have two menus– One for Chinese and one for ABCs (American Born Chinese) and Americans. My friends and I were all Chinese (plus one Korean) and we only found this out because we wanted to order the onion pancake, and it’s apparently only on the American menu (along w/​Kung Pao chicken, orange chicken, mushu, egg foo young, etc… Stuff that I wouldn’t normally order). Strange.
We ordered the onion pancake, as mentioned. This was good, but it was different from ones we’ve had in the past. Theirs tasted like a hybrid between the onion pancake and you tiao (fried dough). This comes with a soy sauce and vinegary dipping sauce garnished with chopped green onions (with maybe a little bit of chili oil in it? I tasted a hint of spice). Delicious!
We also ordered the vegetarian chicken for appetizer. It’s basically wrapped bean curd sheets with mushrooms, cut up into slices. It’s a cold appetizer. Very good! My dad’s a vegetarian so I used to eat this stuff a lot. I like ones with pepper corns in it, but Lajiao’s is just fine.
For our family style lunch, we ordered way too much food. We ordered two spicy dishes and two non-​spicy dishes.
We ordered a plate of cumin lamb. This was very good. It was the least spicy of the two spicy dishes we ordered. I personally thought that there was too much cumin in the dish as it masked the taste and smell of lamb meat way too well, but my companions liked it just fine.
The spicier dish is the hot broiled fish filets on a bed of napa cabbage in a spicy chili oil and garlic sauce. This was very good, but the spices left a numbing and lingering sensation in my mouth that I eventually got full after loading my plate full of rice to try to take the spice away. It’s very «mala» (numbingly spicy) to me.
We ordered a plate of pork with baby bamboo shoots. This was very good. We also ordered a plate of pea tips sauteed in garlic sauce. You can’t go wrong with this dish. I may not have a lot to say about the last two dishes, but we finished both those plates and didn’t quite finish the spicier dishes. I guess we couldn’t handle spices as well as we thought.
A lot of Unilocalers complained about their service, with one person complaining about the man trying to feed her baby… I find these stories rather hilarious. It’s just a matter of differences between cultures. When we dined here, the couple (I’m assuming that the older woman and the older man are the owners of this establishment) doted on our 29-​year old Korean friend who they kept saying looked like a high schooler. «He’s so adorable!» the woman would say. It was all in jest, and we had a good laugh and a good time. Perhaps with non-​Asians, this may seem as though they’ve overstepped their boundaries, but to me, it seems that they just want to show that they’re treating you like family. So naturally, I thought the service was excellent. They were very attentive with the water and water, and their friendliness added to our dining experience.

DIdn’t even eat here.
Like the sh*tty management at sister restaurant Mapo, this place is lacking. When we came here, there were at least four people milling around the entrance foyer looking at menus. When I asked if they were all getting takeout, they replied they were waiting for a table. The dining area was nearly empty. Go figure. So I went to my standby (Yu’s Bistro) and probably had food on my table before those people were shown a table.

I had dinner quite a few times here when it was under the previous owner. I liked their dishes then and I still liked the dishes with this new owner when we had a dinner here last week. The Groupon promotion was kind of making up the distance driving down there to meet up another family.
We started with Braised Tofu and Spicy beef slices. My daughter loved Tofu and I loved the spicy beef. Tofu was flavorful and light. Spicy beef was not as spicy as Lao Sichuan but tasted great in it’s own way.
Shredded Pork with Mustard Greens Noodle soup was grandma’s favorite. Steaming and delicious. Asparagus with Fish Fillet was a pretty good-​looking dish. It was my daughter’s go-​to dish. There were two fillet stuck together so those were not fully cooked. I asked the waiter to took those back to the kitchen to re-​cook but the waiter forgot about it. After I reminded him second time, it was served when we were paying the bill.
Beef Stew Casserole was decent and loved by my friends although it was a bit heavy for me. Zhajian noodle was pretty good but kind of meaty for me. My friends loved it. I like the Spicy salty shrimp better which came with some jumbo tasty shrimps with the right amount of spiciness.
Our waiter was super nice and obviously lacking of waiting table experience. He was kind of swamped among tables and forgot to bring the things we asked for.
I would say it was a great dinner for six of us considering I only paid $ 35 on Groupon which covered two appetizers and four entrees plus extra $ 25 to cover the rest and tip.
I really liked they provide free Wi-​Fi which you don’t get often from a Chinese restaurant.

We tried this place twice before I decided to write a review.
Took the kids out for Chinese, decided to go to LaJiao for a change of pace from our normal Chinese restaurant. Bad Choice. Let me just start by saying that I’m only giving them a second star because my son enjoyed his dish.
We ordered:
Chicken Yu Shang
Curry Scallops
Shrimp Lettuce Wraps — Sons Dish
Veggie Fried Rice
The Yu Shang and the Scallops were not good, the scallops especially, they had waaaaay too much corn starch in them, so much so that the curry turned into a gelatin as my husband ate.
The worst part of the experience for me was that the male waiter decided that since we had our infant with us that he wanted to feed him. I wish I was joking, he came to the table with our Veggie Fried Rice and proceeded to gather up a spoonful of it, blow on it to cool it off and then attempt to feed it to our baby. I was mortified and in shock really. I’m usually calm and cool but that made me want to scream. I intervened but was still in shock.
We will NEVER go back. Teach your staff about sanitation and personal space.
Dinner for 4 was 60 dollars.

I was craving some Chinese food and was very close to Lajiao. After reading the mixed reviews I was a little leery, but it sounded like more of a service issue and being too busy problem, so I gave it a chance.
Being a Tuesday night, over crowding was not an issue. There were probably 6 – 8 other tables occupied, but it seemed like they were all about finished. Service was actually quick and pleasant.
My son and I decided to try the Mongolian pork and the beef roll. The Mongolian pork was amazing! I had the leftovers for lunch today, and it was still terrific. I would order this dish again any time. Although in reading the menu for this review, I saw the description says it is served over crispy noodles. Our dish came with rice, which was fine since it helped absorb the tasty gravy. It certainly did not affect our enjoyment of the dish since we didn’t even notice the substitution!
I read about the beef roll in a few of the reviews and it sounded good. There were some warnings to watch out for pieces of tin foil in the dish, which i didn’t understand. When the dish came, I understood the warnings. It looked like a beef hot-​pocket or calzone for lack of a better description. Beef wrapped in baked dough, then wrapped in tin foil. I’ve never seen a dish like this in a Chinese restaurant! It was very good! Moist, flavorful, and well seasoned goodness! It came with a slightly spicy oil, which really brought out the flavor. If you pay attention when you unwrap the roll, you shouldn’t have any foil in your food.
I will definitely go back again to try more dishes!

Ok update — came here for the dine-​in experience with a Groupon. It was better this time! We got the salt and pepper pork chops — super spicy but really good! We also got beef with broccoli and the crispy duck. Both were good, but pretty standard fare. I liked it a lot, though. I still think the vegetables are too expensive though.
Son of a beez!

Not your typical Panda style americanized chinese.
Do yourself a favor and go with the «chinese» menu or the specials off the regular menu. The beef noodle soup has been mentioned, pork belly is really good if that is your thing, the wok seared fish is very good as is the imperial chicken lettuce wrap. They do all the standard missionary things very well, but give a different dish a whirl, you won’t be disappointed.
Whether I am picking up or eating in, it always has a lot of Chinese people. Service is different, but once you get used to it, it works fine. Deal with it…
No liquor license when we went on Feb 12, coke, sprite or water. This is in the Tang Dynasty spot.

Let’s just say I am getting close to my 300^th bowl of niu rou mian (spicy beef soup noodles).
These are the folks who used to run Mapo (back when it was good). I’m glad I found them. Chef Wu, I love you. You are a true master.
UPDATE: If you’re looking for them, the crew has moved to «Jia Jia Café» over in the H-​Mart food court. Check em out!

Came back (because we had a
gift certificate) and got seated right away. The waitress came by with tea and within 5 minutes came back and took our order. She must still be new to to the menu because she didn’t know some stuff had onions (I had to point it out on the menu that it said it had onions). She was very friendly though. I got the sweet & sour chicken and an entrée of fried rice, hubs got the cashew chicken. I didn’t like mine, but only because of a personal preference, hubs tried it and said it was good, rice was excellent. Hubs said his cashew chicken tasted like seafood, I tried it and he was right. Eh. I also wanted to get the chicken noodles (cuz other Unilocalers raved about it), but our waitress said it was only for the summer.

Love the spicy beef noodle soup. Quite flavorful and hot.
Main dishes were ample, with succulent chicken, beef and pork. Higher end meat; not stringy or fatty. The crab rangoon was excellent, as were the noodle dishes.
Excellent service, interesting tea pot and inviting dining room.
Lajiao is working on getting their «Chinese» menu translated. Bring your Chinese friends or use this as an opportunity to make some (or learn more Chinese, for that matter).
Enjoyed chatting with the woman at the front. Not a fan of the location or parking, but decided that it wasn’t the establishment’s fault. I hope they move if successful!