Imperial Lamian

I saw this place in a post on Eater and wanted to try it because of the colorful soup dumplings and unique desserts. I was worried that it might not live up to the hype, but it was incredible! The different flavors of the soup dumplings were all delicious spicy, cheese, truffle, crab, pork, and duck, and the Jasmine tea ribs were tender with a great texture, but had a unique smoky flavor that I'm not used to. We ordered the lotus blossom for dessert and were treated to a nice show. The dessert itself was so satisfying, I definitely could have had another one. Im so happy with my experience here!

I had a nice experience here last week. I came here on a Thursday evening around 7 and was seated without having a reservation. The atmosphere is nice- casual yet classy vibe with nice music and appropriate lighting. Our waiter was great - he was bale to recommend his favorites as well as the most popular dished on the menu. We ended up ordering the steamed buns, the xiao long bao sampler, and shrimp fried rice. All were great - would definitely come back!

Excellent Chinese restaurant in the loop. Excellent service as well, the staff couldn't have been any better. Dim sum is awesome, rainbow dumplings would great and the fried rice and spring rolls were excellent as well. Ending the night with the Lunar Blossom was perfect.

Overall a really good experience, but not to the most amazing food. The more authentic the food was the better it was. Like the squid ink noodles were amazing, but anything that was fried was not that’s good. All of the soups were super salty end it did not go very well with anything else Again overall a really good experience, but only giving three stars because of the food.Even the desserts, anything actually Chinese was amazing but anything with Western roots was just mediocre.

Made a reservation here for a celebration dinner. The atmosphere is amazing. I loved the decor. I recommend trying the xiao baos and ending the meal with the lunar blossom dessert. The staff were friendly and kind. I would love to come back and try other things on the menu.

Very fresh ingredients and handmade noodles. Had several types of dumplings and they were good as well. The restaurant is reasonably priced. Nothing bad to say about my experience but nothing to absolutely rave about either. I would try the restaurant out again but never make a special trip just to go.

Absolutely amazing dumplings! You can watch the chef making dumplings from scratch. There’s another chef making hand pull noodles as well. No doubt the best dim sum in Chicago, San Francisco and New York Chinatown. Service was excellent. However, dinner was a little bit disappointing. The roast duck was quite ordinary, not the Peking style roast duck but the cheaper Cantonese cousin. Yet, it wasn’t cheap. For a quarter duck with sauce and pancakes, that’s $30. Comparing to New York price - $80 for the whole duck Peking style, that’s overpriced especially in Chicago. Other dinner dishes are ok but not amazing. Better to come here for lunch dim sum.

I was told by some of my friends in Chicago that Imperial Lamian is the best XLB restaurant there, so as a die hard XLB fan, I had to try it. I've had flavored XLB in Taiwan before, so my standards were high, and unfortunately the XLB here didn't meet the standard. The dumpling wrapper and thin and well executed and the meat filling was juicy and soft, but the flavors just didn't come through — I couldn't tell if or how they were supposed to be distinct. With that said, the salted egg green bean was marvelous and went really well with the yang fried rice, which could've used a bit more flavor as well. For it's price, I'd say they really need to do a little better and get the tastes of their items to match the fanciness of their appearances.

Nice spot for Asian classics and some modern twists. I brought my friends here for their soup dumplings. We ordered them classic ones the red sejuan ones and the green duck ones. They were pretty good with enough soup inside to make it interesting. The biggest surprise of the evening was the noodle soup with short rib. Will for sure order that again next time.

Delicious food and great decor. I do wish they'd upgrade their dishware because that felt too cheap compared to the quality of their food. The egg custard buns and soup dumplings were absolutely perfect. We also saw a chef give a small child noodle dough so they could mime pulling noodles while he pulled noodles actually. It gave me a warm feeling.