Mei Lin House

Mei Lin House serves Chinese food which is over salted but acceptable in a pinch if you have a craving. The person who takes the order over the phone just had a screaming fit when I called 90 minutes after I placed the order to ask when our food would be delivered… literally a hysterical fit. We have ordered from here before but will never order from here again. Screaming on a Saturday night is really not acceptable… even when you have a craving!

Just ok, not bad and not very good. It’s Very bland and mediocre. Dumpling appetizer was mushy and cold. Pancake appetizer was hard with no onion flavor. Also ordered shrimp with hot sauce. My mouth was Not feeling the burn. My friend had chicken. White rice was made hours before. How can one wreck rice? Not cooking fresh rice every hour. For only a take out place. It’s poorly managed and slow.
Would I eat here again? No
Do I recommend this place? No.
I have eaten here several times before but it has gone down hill.

DO NOT ORDER FROM THIS PLACE. I waited more than 2.5 hours for my order. I was told that it was on its way when it was not. I ended up cancelling at 2.5 hours and then my dinner showed up 20 minutes later when I was making microwave potatoes for my cranky kids. I turned the guy away and made sure they didn’t charge my credit card.

As others have said, this is owned and run by the former owner of Pineyard in Evanston and has an identical menu. If you liked Pineyard’s food, you’ll like this too. That describes me — I loved Pineyard from the first time I ate there my Freshman year at Northwestern 30 years ago. The good: the food is delicious most of the time. There are times when quality is spotty which I ascribe to there seemingly being only one person in back doing all of the cooking. The bad: the service. I’ve had mistakes on my orders 5% of the time and they make no attempt to be pleasant or timely. I’ve never tried delivery from here, only carry out. All that said, I go there almost every time I want Chinese food.

This place rocks. It’s a lot of the same food as Pine Yard in Evanston which tragically burned down a year or 2 ago (but had an immense following beforehand). Try the spicy chicken with peanuts — probably my favorite dishes of all time from any restaurant.
People like the person a few below who gave this place a one-​star review before even trying the food because their delivery was a few minutes late suck.

Horrible experience! Very expensive for a take-​out place (almost $ 15 for a entrée including tax), very greasy food heavy after tastes, portion looks big but found half of it was the fried crispy noodle hidden underneath the food. Never will go back!

While they are frequently closed during the hours they are supposed to be open, I have loved the food from this carry-​out place for a while now. But I recently tried their «Mandarin Three Delicacies» — holy cow, YUM! Shrimp, scallops, and flounder with vegetables in a light garlic-​oyster sauce. My new favorite! There really isn’t anything on the menu I don’t like, but there is a wide variety of spice levels, and something for everyone. Hope you can catch them when they are open — if so, you are in for a treat.

Absolutely disappointed and nauseating. Placed a large order to share, broccoli chicken, chicken sizzling rice soup, onion pancake, sprite, and crab Rangoon.
Let’s start with the rangoon, it was disturbingly awful. They were deflated and hardly filled; the filling smelt awkwardly fishy. The chicken soup was mediocre, the chicken within the soup was strangely slimy. The rice patties were saturated in grease, ick! The broccoli chicken was really weird, it had this mucous like coating on it and again saturated in grease. Inedible is a good word to describe it. The onion pancake was really the only saving grace, it had some taste at least.
Oh and remember the sprite I ordered? It was delivered as a coke.
Let’s talk about the delivery, it was fast, but when it came to the delivery guy giving me my food it was awkward. I paid by credit card, so thought I’d be able to leave a tip on the receipt. I didn’t see anything on the receipt for me to leave a tip on and I apologized. The delivery guy kept holding his hand out when I closed my screen door and he kept demanding ‘what no tip? No tip? No tip?’ I explained to him that I didn’t have any cash and I thought I could add one on the receipt. He gave a dirty look and exasperated sigh, shaking his head and walked off.
I will NOT be ordering from them again, if I could give 0 stars I would. Ick.

I ordered from this restaurant through Grubhub today. The order was confirmed on 5:49 pm and gave a promised delivery window between 6:45 and 6:55pm. I called the restaurant at 7:05pm to see where is my food. The lady that picked up was very rude. She told me they are very busy and that if I wanted the food sooner I should not have ordered through Grubhub. I asked why she didn’t call and let us know if the food was not going be on time. She couldn’t answered and finally said sorry and will check on the driver. It’s 721pm right now and I’m still waiting for my food.
I will not be ordering from this place any longer. Even if the food is amazing.

Tried this place twice both during lunch times. Their Schezuan Spicy Three Delicacies has beef, chicken and shrimp and is a good serving size but it was very very oily like other reviews say. The sesame chicken is ok but a lil too sweet for my taste. Their egg drop soup and wonton soup are typical and is a good portion. Huge downside is their food has a ton of MSG and I’m pretty sure I downed 3 bottles of water after eating their food. I’m not sure I would continue coming back unless I can ask them to cut back on the oil and the MSG… but I don’t want to insult their cooking.

The old pine yard lives! Great Szechuan food. My faves are the hot and sour soup, pot stickers, chicken broccoli, ginger beef, garlic shrimp. The best spicy Chinese outside of the coasts I’ve had.

Salty, greasy and poor customer service. Menu says that lunch special does not incl soup if carry out. Carry out only is only option. We ordered pork chow mein but they gave us fried rice. The orange beef was good. Didn’t realize they were related to Pineyard in Evanston. Haven’t been there in years but I recall it was good.

Ordered a Mongolian Beef lunch special and it came out to $ 9. That is pretty expensive for a lunch special and with the portion I received. It was also very salty and lacked any spiciness.

As many other reviewers have said, their food is very much like the old Pine Yard in Evanston. Which means they had my favorite garlic beef, and it was delicious!
However, also like many other reviewers said, it was quite greasy. It was always a bit greasy, but this was even greasier than before. There was ¼ cup of oil at the bottom of the container, and that was AFTER I’d eaten everything!
The lady on the phone was very abrupt and the person who took my payment wasn’t exactly friendly, but that’s not that big a deal for a takeout place as far as I’m concerned. It’s MUCH more important that they get the order right, it’s ready to pick up when they say, and the food temperature and flavor is good, which it all was.
I still like their food despite the greasiness, and I’d come back again, but only for my old Pine Yard favorites.

My 2^nd time ordering from Mei Lin house 1^st was much better
My daughters were in from college so they did the ordering we started with the vegetarian rolls they were good but not very tasty without drowning them in sauce. Then we had the pot stickers they were tasty with just the right amount of crunch. Then we had some curry soup it was terrible tasted like tomato soup. The pan yang curry with chicken was excellent and so was the pad Thai with beef. The crab Rangoon was ok lightly filled and over cooked (fried)

Awful service! I waited to order for about 5 or more minutes because they were talking in the back. When the lady comes out all she says is, «what.» Right then and there I wanted to walk out and tell her thats terrible buissness. I wanted to order Orange Chicken and I had to tell her 5 times what I wanted. I got my food and looked at the reciept and I figured out that they over charged me for the Orange Chicken. They refused to refund my money. I am going to complain to the village as well. By the way the food is way to over priced and to oily! It was acually pretty gross. I dont even think its real chicken. I will never be going back and I will not recommend this place to my friends and family. Terrible!

This place puts way to much oil on the food. I got shrimp and vegetables, my meal was completely doused in oil which was really gross. I could not even taste the shrimp or veggies at all. Ick. I ended up not eating it. My mothers order was cho mien which was super oily as we’ll. Ugh.
My dad’s dish was actually not too oily and more enjoyable. He got the three delicacies (shrimp, chicken, and beef)
Hot and sour soup is good here too. But really they need to cut down on the excess oil. It can ruin the meal.

Before I started writing this I read the other reviews. It’s true that the menu of Mei Lin House is a mirror image of the old one at Pineyard before it was sold. So if you were a fan of the old Pineyard you’ll be a fan of its reincarnation in Wilmette.
The cooking style is consistent American Mandarin. The hot and sour soup and hand made dumplings are delicious. But if you’re looking for food that is cooking the way it is in China, then go eat in Queens.
I disagree with the reviewers who complained about the owner and chef Eric. I’ve been a fan since we moved to Evanston in 1977. My three sons were practically raised there. I liked his sister when she worked the front of the restaurant in Evanston, and I like his wife, Jeanie who is the manager and cashier at Mei Lin in Wilmette.
There are a few tables available for eating in.

3.5 Stars. TAKE-​OUT ONLY
Mei Lin House is operated by former owners or higher ups at Pine Yard in Evanston. I have always loved Pineyard for its fantastic food and an excellent lunch deal. Mei Lin house is the same. Exactly the same menu and prices.
The good: The food is still great. Great flavors, plenty of spicy options as well as medium and mild options. I just about always get the Szechuan spicy chicken with peanuts. Highly recommend it and when I’ve introduced it to friends they’ve also enjoyed it. The Mu Shu is great — some of the best plum sauce I’ve ever had — and the fillings are very tasty.
The lunch deal comes with an egg roll, soup, and some rice which is a GREAT deal. It’s quite a bit of food for a low price.
The bad: It’s literally the exact same as Pine Yard. I would’ve hoped for at least something new — new food, new recipes, something. But for exactly the same food, I’d rather go to the actual restaurant and have waiter service and have sauces and be able to ask for more of something — anything. Instead I’m paying the same for no service. Take-​Out should be cheaper than a restaurant, but this isn’t which is disappointing.
Prices rather on the high-​end, but good quality food.

The Unilocal app, which i used just yesterday to find this place, showed no reviews so i’m disappointed that isn’t up to date ( Unilocal’s fault). That aside, this place is great. I’ll have to take Katie’s recommendation about the onion pancakes and fried dumplings next time. The lunch specials are totally reasonable, from $ 7.25 to 8.75, including a soup, spring roll and steamed or fried rice. I like that they offer the spring roll instead of the egg roll which is usually disgusting at most places.
I’d rather spend the extra buck here and have food that isn’t covered in grease. I sampled all three soups, plus chicken with cashew, spicy beef with broccoli, and general tao’s chicken. I only ordered the chicken with cashew so we could have a non spicy option, but I really enjoyed it and will order it again. Happy with everything I ordered actually. We’ll order here again.
This is a carry out spot. They have two leather couches and a small bistro table, so it’s very comfortable to sit and wait for your food, but it’s not an eat in establishment. It’s in the plaza with Irving’s Red Hots, Dunkin Donuts and Shabahang (sp?) rugs.