Jim and Nancy do not disclose the fact that they will review a restaurant before they attend, ensuring their reviews are unbiased and uninfluenced by their position with the Sun Day.
Spring is in the air, tra-la, tra-la. Nancy’s mind turns to thoughts of . . . landscaping. She gave me a reprieve for the last two years due to my bionic knee and hip replacements. As a result, all of our perennials somehow turned into annuals. It was now time for me to pay the piper. We took a ride to our local nursery and began looking in the “no watering required and impossible to kill” plant section. After hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of dollars spent on “supposed” perennials, and a must have concrete smiley face sculpture for another couple hundred dollars, the two of us and our wallets were both running on empty. In keeping with the garden theme, we decided to have lunch at Lily Garden Restaurant in Lake in the Hills.
Lily Garden Restaurant
2106 W. Algonquin Road
Lake in the Hills 60156
(847) 658-1250
lilygardenrestaurant.com
Directions: Take Rte. 47 North to Algonquin Road, East to restaurant.
Travel Time: 20 minutes
From the outside it looks like any other Chinese take-out store front, but when you walk in and turn left, there actually is a large, nicely decorated restaurant. Don’t judge a garden by its flowers.
After we were seated, our waitress brought over a pot of hot tea and asked if we wanted to order any appetizers. Since we were famished, we went with the Egg Rolls (2) for $3.60, and the Potstickers (6) for $5.85. The egg rolls were huge and delicious, and contained not just veggies, but they actually had shrimp and meat inside. The potstickers were even “huger”, and could have been a meal in themselves. I liked them, but Nancy didn’t care for them as much.
Jim decided to order the Mongolian Beef Lunch Special ($7.35). It came with an egg roll, soup, and barbecue pork fried rice. He chose the hot and sour soup, which was very tasty, and like the egg rolls, had shrimp and meat in it. The entree was delicious, and even though he didn’t finish it all, he enjoyed it thoroughly. The barbecue pork fried rice was a nice compliment.
Nancy set her sights on the Kung Pao Shrimp ($10.45). This was off the dinner menu and came with white rice. She’s not a big fan of just plain old white rice so she ordered the Cantonese Pan Fried Noodles ($3.55) to go with her entree. She shared the noodles with me since we both love them. She loves Fried Wontons, (10) for $3.19, so she asked the waitress to put an order in for her. The waitress ran to the kitchen, yelled something in an unintelligible language, which loosely translated must have meant, “the dumb blonde at table 2 now wants wontons.”
We were pleasantly surprised with all aspects of this restaurant, the decór, the food, and the ever-popular huge doggie shopping bag!
FYI: This restaurant is handicap accessible and their lunch specials are served until 3 p.m.
The price for our gardening adventure was $36.56. Chinese leftovers, priceless…
Jim’s Take: I won this time, my meal was a deal!!! Unlike Nancy’s $17.19 lunch, mine only cost $7.35. But like they always say, “happy wife, happy life.”
Nancy’s Take: Those wontons were awesome. You can’t find these at many Chinese restaurants anymore. I was a happy wife until Jim mentioned how much I spent!!!
Have comments or restaurant suggestions for the Dining Duo? Send them an email at thediningduo@gmail.com
