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Business & Tech

Kow Kow Service Leaves Bad Taste

Lincolnwood Chinese spot has good food but inattentive staff spoils the experience.

Kow Kow Restaurant serves very good American-Chinese food, but patrons are better off ordering carry out or delivery than dining in. The atmosphere adds little, and the service is so abysmal that dinner at the Lincolnwood establishment is sure to be a drawn out affair.

The restaurant at 6755 N. Cicero Ave. has been a family operation for six decades. The best service during our visit was from a little girl who was hanging out with the hostess and insisted on seating us. Grabbing a set of menus she asked whether we would prefer a table or booth and was incredibly polite and adorable.

Read More: To check out previous restaurant reviews,

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The large dining room features a blend of booths and tables with big wooden chairs and is decorated with the type of generic Chinese art classic to American-Chinese spots. There are images of flowers and pagodas and a giant lamp with gold dragons hanging in the center. The space is well set up for large groups and was mostly occupied by senior citizens and families on Thursday night.

As we waited for a server, we amused ourselves by reading the Chinese horoscopes on the place mats that offer careers suggestions like adventurer and secret agent along with writer and gardener.

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Our server didn’t speak much English, so when he finally came, he didn’t greet us or even ask what we’d like. He simply stood there with a pad looking expectant. As soon as we had finished giving our order, he rushed away, leaving the women at the table next to us frustrated as they had obviously also wanted to order.

After a long wait, we received our appetizer. The egg rolls ($2 each) are massive and we immediately realized we would want more mustard sauce so asked for it. We had already finished most of our egg rolls by the time we saw a waiter again and he still didn’t have the sauce. So we had to repeat our request before it was fulfilled.

Despite this annoyance the egg rolls were excellent. The outside was crispy rather than greasy and they were stuffed with well-cooked vegetables, shrimp and big chunks of pork. The sauces worked great, with very hot mustard and a thick almost marmalade-like sweet and sour sauce.

After another lengthy wait, our entrees arrived. The best dish by far was the Hong Kong steak ($15). The thick grilled steak was perfectly medium rare and very flavorful, served drizzled with a salty soy sauce over a bed of peapods, water chestnuts, bok choy and mushrooms.

The sweet and sour duck ($9) was a more mixed experience. The lightly fried meat’s crispy exterior gave way to melt-in-your-mouth tender meat. Unfortunately, both the sauce and blend of bell peppers and pineapple it was served with were generic and bland, so we largely wound up picking out the duck and leaving the rest of the dish lightly touched.

Kow Kow’s kung pao chicken ($9) is listed under its spicy specials, but even though I asked for it to be extra spicy, it had barely any kick. It was fine, but not great, with plenty of white meat chicken and the same blend of Chinese vegetables served with the steak cooked in thick gravy and topped with peanuts.

We noticed when we were first perusing the menus that Kow Kow had dirt cheap cocktails and had planned on ordering some, but after the long wait and awkward service we had forgotten about it until we got our entrees. When we ordered a round, I was happy to have waited until I had eaten a bit as the drinks are mixed strong. Rum was the dominant flavor in the pina colada and mai tai (both $5). The Old Fashioned ($4) had so much bitters in it that I found it hard to drink.

All the dishes are very large so we again had to flag down a bus boy to tell our waiter we wanted our food to go and the check. After a long wait we got both and a plate of very stale fortune cookies and almond cookies. Throughout the entire experience, we were never checked in on--we had to seek our server every time we wanted anything, making me feel like a nuisance even though I just wanted the most basic service.

The result was that while I enjoyed the food, I won’t dine at Kow Kow again.

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