International Mall

As authentic as it gets when it comes to Asian cuisine, and you know that when you come in, 4 restaurants to choose from plus a bank and some other businesses, been here before but never had Taiwanese breakfast had the Chinese fried bread with soy milk which I really liked, and the dumplings were really on point boiled and fried with pork, there’s a Korean place here now I have to try next time I come wasn’t here last time I came, you order your food at the counter when you come in no waiters or waitress, service is pretty fast pick your seat and enjoy, I suggest try something you haven’t had before don’t waste your time ordering basic Cantonese boring…

Went for the first time in couple years. I honestly forget what I got last time but I dont think I was impressed at the time but this time I honestly can say I was happy with my order. I consider crispy chicken to be a dish that is difficult to impress me with; especially cause I take pride in my Korean friend chicken (hollaaa) but this place has some bomb fried chicken. As for the duck noodle soup, I thought the broth was pretty good but the duck was a little greasy for my taste and was served cold. I think it was because I had to ordered on the side. Next time I’d want it in the soup. Overall, I think this place definitely has quite of variety of dishes to choose from and has lunch specials (definitely a must) so I’d come around again. I really just hit the iceberg on this one since there are quite a number of dishes to choose from.
order:
crispy chicken (comes with rice)
duck noodle soup

The place to go in the chicago area for youtiao (chinese café). For that, this place is 5 stars. Other things like the sweet or salty soy milk are 3 – 4 stars and the rest is just OK.
Recently a Korean stall opened up which gives a welcome variety for this mostly chinese food court. The Korean pancakes were good. The Korean table set I probably wouldn’t order again — mostly simple banchan with a small soup — nicely presented (see photo) but for the price ($ 9) and the minimal environs of this food court it seems out of place.

This has been a standby location for the Chicagoland Chinese for over 20 years. A food court with one main attraction: weekend breakfast/​brunch at Chinese Café! Offering home made café standards such as fried you-​Tiao (Chinese Binet) and soy milk. Sao Bing with beef and cilantro. And many other delightful small dishes you can’t find anywhere else. The lines start building around 11am and the intensity keeps rising as the customers start lining up. Amid the hub bub of order numbers being yelled out and people rushing up to get their food everyone is enjoying their delicious choices. They also offer many other dishes such as stir fried rice noodles and many steamed dumplings. Check out the parking lot and you will find plates from many neighboring states and even farther as students make the pilgrimage to eat truly authentic fare. One time a student from Purdue ordered 300 sets of Sao Bing Yu-​Tiao, essentially shutting down the café while all hands worked to produce the order!
Close your eyes and drop yourself into a street market of a period Kung fu drama and the sounds and smells and tastes of the Chinese Café will transport you there. Well worth your trip. Get here early before they sell out!

All the places in here are typically quite loyal to their Asian roots and are all pretty tastey

Alrighty people, first things first. I am not comparing this to the food you would actually get in Taiwan or Asia in general. That just wouldn’t be a fair comparison.
If you have a craving for some food you grew up with, your parents had as kids, or simply something you found out you loved to eat on your travels, this is the place for you. The food is okay but it is unique. You really can’t find something else like this around. There are a few places in Naperville and Chinatown but in terms of quality compared to those, this is pretty good. I usually come here on weekends for the breakfast/​brunch food since they are nostalgic of what I eat when I visit my family in Asia.
Come here and get your Chinese Donuts with soymilk, rice balls (similar to Japanese Onigiri but with sticky rice), stinky tofu, various side dishes, and simple noodle dishes you would find sold by street-​side vendors in Asia.
Be prepared to wade through a sea of people if you come around brunch time. Like I said it is unique so it is real popular. There are various stores in the mall and 3 of them are opened by a family of brothers and sisters. You don’t see them much since they are just so busy in the kitchen but when it slows down they will come out to talk to everyone. They are very friendly.

I always go here with the girlfriend to the Good Children café. Pretty wide variety of food and generous servings. I would say it’s more of an authentic version of Joy Yees on some level. Place gets great business especially around lunch time due to the local offices and businesses nearby.

I come here with my family for the youtiao (literal translation oil sticks). They’re basically deep fried strips of dough, but they’re a part of this complete chinese breakfast so of course I need to have them once in awhile.
This review is actually for the shop inside that’s called «Chinese Café». I couldn’t find it on Unilocal so this will have to do. Each strip (it’s actually a pair of strips) is $ 1.80. A couple of those with a cup of warm sweetened soy milk (actually ground from soy beans, not that silk soy stuff) makes a good breakfast. The only thing I wish they had was dofunao, something like a Tofu soup that they eat for breakfast in China. Not sure where to get that in the US, the youtiao served here are as good, if not better than what you’d get in China.
The mall itself is kind of dingy and old looking but there’s pretty much always a line at Chinese Café so you want to make sure to get there early otherwise they can and will run out of youtiao for the day.
I should add that their beef noodles (hongshao niuroumian) is also quite good.

I had a hard time getting to decide how to write this review. I love Asian food, I can eat it at least once a week. International is an interesting concept… There are about 4 little stands inside the building where you can choose who you want to order from. Every time I’ve been in here it looks like 90% of the business goes to one stand, including myself. Now the food so far has been really good, authentic food. Everything seems to be fresh and hot when I get it and tastes great. Portions are huge too while prices are in the reasonable category. The downside here is the building. It’s a little old, outdated and run down. Christmas icicle lights hang from the ceiling year round. It has that feeling of a mall food court at the end of the day… I can’t really describe it but it gives me the heeby jeebys sometimes. In all fairness this hasn’t stopped my from eating my food there or going back multiple times.

The «Good Children» restaurant with the green shades has some seriously good YangZhou fried rice for $ 6. It is infused with flavor with shrimp and bbq pork. Their Phở noodles are also getting better over the years. Also, their mango smoothie with tapioca is $ 2.95 for a decently sized cup. It’s real mangoes in there alright!

I decided to choose Chinese Café for the sole purpose of the stinky tofu. But I quickly found out that while the employee was really nice and helpful the food was just mediocre. I ordered my beloved pork chop and rice (pai gu fan) with a stinky tofu and other than the crispiness of the meat and tofu, the meal was a huge disappointment. First, they should not call it stinky tofu. The sauce and the pickled vegetables were tasty but it was simply fried tofu with no smell at all. I know this might sound weird to those who have never had it but believe me when I say true lovers of chou dofu will notice the difference. There has to be some place in Chicago that still sells it. The pork chop was fried nicely but the sides were a let down as well. The sides were boiled napa cabbage and a couple pieces of some kind of pickled greens. But for 13 bucks flat, it was a good lunch.
My hunt for Taiwanese food still continues but I’ll definitely have to come back to explore the other restaurants especially to try the weekend breakfast.

This is a post for Chinese café.
Cash only! Remember to bring cash! Good thing I had cash with me otherwise we waited for 20 mins for nothing. Came here for the weekend only Chinese breakfast. The Taiwanese café I very cheap and good!!! We had the sweet soy milk, salt soy milk that had crispy doughs in there, chives box (a bit oily), crispy doughs, and pork noodles, pork sandwich and stinky tofu. The tofu is not stinky as they’re cooked in China; it was ok. The crispy dough was pretty big!
The noodles are very good. Will come back again for something else.

Best Taiwanese food in Midwest!
They have everything I miss from Taiwan. The must try is the breakfast during weekends :)

This is a review of the niu rou mian (beef noodle soup), xiao long bao (soup dumplings), and boba tea.
The meat of the niu rou mian was tender, but the broth was too watery, and no «mala» flavor. There is no «suan cai» like you see in typical taiwanese beef noodle soups. The noodles are also a bit too soft for my liking, when best compared with Katy’s Dumplings. I’d give it a ⁶⁄₁₀.
The xiao long bao’s tasted just «ok.» They appear to be homemade but obviously frozen and stored for reheating later. The skin was really thick and there barely was any soup inside… just the liquid slightly congealed «soup grease» that coats the meat on the inside. I’d give it a ⁵⁄₁₀.
The boba tea was also just okay. The tapioca bubbles were really soft, which is still better than them being firm, but they were not as chewy as I’m used to. The consistency was similar to that of «cincau» or xian cao. The milk-​tea ratio was just right, but it was a bit ruined by the overly dilute taste from the ice (or addition of cold water, or from not filtering out the water when scooping out the bubbles). ⁶⁄₁₀
Overall, I’d only go back if I needed a quick bite at the nearby Chinese supermarket Diho. Otherwise I’d rather spend my money at Katy’s.

Be immersed in Asian cuisine!
If you have a trip planned to Hong Kong this is good practice.
The food court has a few different Asian specialties, traditional Chinese, and Vietnamese. This is the place where 1^st generation Asians go for a taste of authentic Asian cuisine; no egg foo young here. It’s all real. They speak mostly Chinese. Prepare to assimilate when visiting. I ordered the beef filled pot stickers. It took about 15 minutes to get my food but it’s okay. They were made to order. It was cool how they called my order number in Chinese first, after no response from me they assumed an English speaking person ordered and then call my number in English. My mouth burst with the flavors of garlic and ginger. My husband ordered a spicy Sczhuan dish with bean curd. Not my thing but again, this place only sells authentic Chinese.
It’s a nice local favorite for immersion. The people watching is fun too, generations of Chinese families enjoying a meal together, I felt lucky to experience it all knowing once I left I would be back in good old suburbia.

This location is a food court and I’m writing a review for Chinese Café. Only on weekends they offer Chinese donut sticks which are outstanding. This rivals Diamond Bar’s Yi Mei and the street vendors of Shi Min Ding (downtown Taipei) but it’s in Chicago ! The traditional recipe requires ammonia which can be over easily over-​powering but these guys have found the right balance. 5 Stars.
The salted soy milk was just ok. It was very runny watered down without any soy bean curdles. It had an unknown shredded salty dried tofu skin at the bottom. It did have a store bought canned preserved vegetable (tsa chai) but didn’t have a key ingredient, dried pork floss. This needs a lot of work. 1 Star for execution but 4 stars for homemade soy.
The Cha Jiang Mien was better but still average. This version is without the cooked bean curd slabs. The sauce had a lot of white pepper in it??? The noodles were good but was a little overcooked.
In previous visits, I’d recommend the Beef Chow Fun and the Shanghai Rice Cake Noodle with Pork.
Owners must be from Taiwan with origins in Shan Tung.
I still love place but they need to bring some authenticity back.
I’m giving them a 5 star so that others will come to experience the Yo Tiao (Chinese donut stick).

It’s a pretty cool place. However, sometimes its simply eerie since it seems like half of the «mall» was abandoned.
Onto the food, I would only come here for the Chinese food, and even then only for the spicy beef noodles and You Tiao. The plus side is that both taste amazing. Overall, not a bad place, but the entire «mall» could use some renovation.

Cash only. But there is an ATM around. If you want some pretty decent Chinese food especially for lunch, this is the spot for you. There is a lot of variety because there are 4 or 5 restaurants I think, so you can always find something you’d like. It’s pretty much like a mall food court.
I like the place to the right the most. Yu Ton Dumplings.
The only downside is the crazy construction they do on Pasquinelli drive which really shuts down the traffic.
As an added bonus you can grab some Asian groceries next door afterwards.

I’ve been coming to International Mall since I was an awkward azn teen and throughout the years, it has consistently:
1. remained a dump
2. churned out amazing you tiao (chinese crullers) and soy milk and other goodies by the same family
Definitely a treat and worth the trip to Westmont if you are in the mood for an authentic Chinese brunch!

Iono why it’s called international mall cuz i have always pronounced it as «DING HOW» since i have been going here as a kid. I have to come here on weekend mornings to get my «doh jiang» and «gnew roh mein.» This place is super old and smells like strange asian house and that probably scares away the white folks but the food is always legit.
#dinghow4life