Lan Dee Restaurant & Lounge

Formerly known as the Grand Mandarin Restaurant, Lan Dee is a Chinese restaurant in Lisle, IL.  

If you are looking to be wowed by theming and decor, go to Lan Dee.  The outside and interior of this place is decorated like a traditional Chinese building, with large statues of deities and dragons.

The food...it's good.  And take it from someone who is Chinese.  The portions are sizeable for family style, if you order a few dishes.

The service...not the best.  I remember having to wait a significant amount of time just to get water refilled.

But then again, we are talking the suburbs.  So in essence, this place is ok for suburbian Chinese food!

I have only been here once and it was over a year ago.  Food was actually good, but it took 1.5 hours for the first dish to arrive even though I booked my food order when making reservations.  

Service was horrible.   Worst and slowest service I have ever received in a restaurant.  I had a party of ~20 across two tables and they provided us horrible service.   They were only moderately busy that night so I view the poor service as inexcusable.

I will NOT be back.

Visiting from SF, our sister-in-law took us here on Christmas day. Surprisingly they were open.  The food came out slow because they were actually busy for a holiday and they were very short staffed.  But I was impressed with the food and taste.

-The Fish head Claypot (requires reservation)  was excellent.  The fish was fresh and the soup was flavorful filled with napa cabbage, slices of fatty pork, bamboo shoots, shiitake mushroom, and tofu.
-The smoked duck was good quality, with more subtle rather than bold smoke flavor.  Didn't use the plum sauce because that's not real Chinese condiments for duck.
-Chitterlings on a firepot.  I'm surprised to find this Taiwanese delicacy here!  The chitterlings were well prepared without the residual smell.  cooked in a boiling hot spicy sauce with preserved mustard, red bell peppers, and mushroom.  Quite a treat for Taiwanese away from home.
-Beef with hollow-stem vegetables.  veggies are crisp and beef tender.
-General Zao's (Tsao's) chicken.  To be honest, this one is prepared more toward non-Chinese flavor, quasi sweet-sour, not enough chili pepper fiery flavor.
-Seafood roll.  Cilantro, fish mixture, shrimp rolled up in tofu skin and deep fried.  Not bad.

Overall, a pretty good Chinese food with some Taiwanese flares.  There are two menus, the good (and more authentic) stuff is in a menu written only in Chinese, bring someone who can read or speak Chinese will get you some good eats beyond chop suey.