you don't REALLY want an "Ocean Star" here do you?

the lines are nuts. the servers are rude, and i feel like i'm a cow being herded every time. it's good dim sum, but there are equally good dimsum elsewhere nearby.

as far as this town's concerned. i can't stand dining @ LTH, so i must pass on its dimsum. phoenix is extremely overpriced for dimsum (again, decent, not GREAT, and certainly not worth whatever they're charging). furama is ok, but i always feel like everything's COLD by the time it gets to the table. so i, too, vote for Happy Chef. piping hot "radish" cake, good fong tzua (chicken feet), good beef short ribs. extremly bad sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves. don't be tempted by chinese brocoli w/ oyster sauce just because everyone else is ordering it. caveat: very few steam carts, but everything's else is fresh from the kitchen.

G Wiv wrote:

foodie1 wrote:Another vote for Phoenix and I also agree with whats been said about Three Happiness.

Foodie,

Which Three Happiness?

My apologizes for not specifying - BIG Three Happiness = horrible. My experiences (why I had more than one I'm still unsure) were dirty, less than palatable and overall poor in quality, service and ambiance. Ah...I believe I ended up here with my group because all the good places had extremely long waits. Sad excuse, I know.

Speaking of which - to beat the brunch rush, I always try to go for dimsum early saturday or sunday morning (9am-ish)... which is great for securing a decent parking spot too! I've never hd dimsum on the weekdays.

Has anyone had dimsum other than the weekends? Any difference in offerings/selections?

you don't REALLY want an "Ocean Star" here do you?

the lines are nuts. the servers are rude, and i feel like i'm a cow being herded every time. it's good dim sum, but there are equally good dimsum elsewhere nearby.

TonyC, I would love an Ocean Star here - at least I could find great dimsum. I haven't had the same experiences there that you have - mine have always been positive. Even something on par with Boston's Empire Garden would make me happy - another cavernous, herd-you-like-a-cow joint. Rude servers? How different is that from anything else here? As far as lines go, judging from posts on this thread, we have those here, too...hence people heading down to Chinatown at 9 am to beat the rush (see above post).

I tried Furama at someone's suggestion a few months ago and it was wretched. Cold, greasy, limited in menu scope. The har gau were awful...I can't recommend it to anyone. Go at your own peril.

I'd take an Ocean Star over that any day.

TonyC wrote:as far as this town's concerned. i can't stand dining @ LTH, so i must pass on its dimsum. phoenix is extremely overpriced for dimsum (again, decent, not GREAT, and certainly not worth whatever they're charging). furama is ok, but i always feel like everything's COLD by the time it gets to the table. so i, too, vote for Happy Chef. piping hot "radish" cake, good fong tzua (chicken feet), good beef short ribs. extremly bad sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves. don't be tempted by chinese brocoli w/ oyster sauce just because everyone else is ordering it. caveat: very few steam carts, but everything's else is fresh from the kitchen.

That's kinda my sentiments as well. Phoenix can be a lot of fun because of the pizzazz, and when you catch a sweet top bun just out of the oven, you can think there is no better restaurant in the universe. Still, when that final bill comes, you may reconsider.

Happy Chef is a bit of a dim sum hybrid, and perhaps slightly harder to negotiate than Phoenix. You can plainly order what is on the sheet provided, but you may not know exactly what you are ordering. Moreover, there will be all sortsa things being severed "off-sheet" that you may not know about. Surely, if you see salt-n-pepper shrimps being passed around, figure out a way to order them. With Lee Wing Wah down the mall, these are my favorite of this almost ubiquitious dish in Chicago.

In general, Happy Chef and Lee Wing Wah are my favorites for Cantonese food, dim sum and beyond, in Chicago.

Rob

foodie1 wrote:Has anyone had dimsum other than the weekends? Any difference in offerings/selections?

Yes, there is a greater selection during the weekends. I only go on weekdays when I am craving the basics and want to avoid the crowds. However, when I want to see if the chefs have anything new, it's all about going on the weekends. It is interesting to note that if you go too early or too late on the weekends, you won't have access to the "special" weekend selections. You have to time your weekend visits perfectly.

All in all, after traveling to Hong Kong, Toronto, Vancouver, and San Francisco, the dim sum here in Chicago pales in comparison. I can't afford to travel to all these places often enough to satisfy cravings!

Maybe this is damnation by faint praise, but I've found the Triple Crown in the DiHo plaza (Westmont, Rt 83 and Ogden, not far from LSC and Katy's) to be on par with or better than most mentioed here. Carts and lots of them.

My husband grew up in San Gabriel / Alhambra. Ocean Star was the second dim sum place I was introduced to and when I got back to Chicago nothing could compare to the dim sum joints in California. I even went to Yank Sing last year. He won't even take me to any places here in Chicago when I beg him. If I went to Hong Kong or else where dim sum is glorified, I will be crushed and would probably never eat dim sum here again or maybe Chinese food all together. J/K. Maybe after having married my hubby is when I become a foodie... curse him!

Hi,

If there is any hope, I have friends who were in Hong Kong in August and Toronto in September. They felt the Chinese restaurants in Toronto compared very favorably with those in Hong Kong. Dare I say road trip?

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

If there is any hope, I have friends who were in Hong Kong in August and Toronto in September. They felt the Chinese restaurants in Toronto compared very favorably with those in Hong Kong. Dare I say road trip?

Regards,

I would have to concur w/your friends on the comparison between Toronto and Hong Kong dim sum. Growing up, my family would often take long weekends up to Toronto to eat and shop. My mom has family in the Markham area, and we were perfectly content with staying within a small perimeter of this suburb. I didn't really appreciate these trips until I was an older teen.

IIRC, many of the main attractions were near or on Kennedy Rd. My favorite food memories are of the rice noodle wrapped around the deep fried doughnut at a congee shop. I have not encountered another restaurant in this world that perfects this favorite of mine. The rice noodle is incredibly thin and delicately wrapped around a fresh, crispy long doughnut. The seafood congee up there is so amazing - it's beyond words. Nothing has compared to the sticky rice wrapped in Lotus leaves at the restaurant across my relatives' retirement community. I vividly remember all the strip malls and restaurants, etc but unfortunately the names escape me. However, this is not a total loss b/c the entire Chinese tourist community always flock to this same area. IMHO, I prefer the dim sum cuisine in Toronto over California and Vancouver.

If your schedule allows, it is very well worth the road trip. Even the Chinese buffets are pretty good - and I am absolutely Miss Anti-Buffet!


hmm....maybe I should've replied in the "Beyond Chicagoland" board.

hmm....maybe I should've replied in the "Beyond Chicagoland" board.

You're ok, this is a typical LTHforum.com conversation diversion.

If you still have family there, then I do encourage you to write up specific places when go next. From my friends and your testaments, there is no reason not to go to Toronto sometime soon. Hong Kong type experience in Canada, why not?

Toronto is something like 550 miles or 9 hours by car, so it is a very achieveable trip.

Regards,

Periodically, we like to re-visit our favourite restaurants. We checked out the little Three Happiness for dim sum today. All previous comments in the forum are still correct. The only update is that this restaurant has had a make-over 2 weeks ago. The place looks new and much cleaner, including the washroom, comparing to Chinatown standard.
They ran out of Gary's hot oil. We tried the house version of hot sauce with a citrus flavor and it was very good.

My fiancee is a vegetarian, and while I know that phoenix (never been before) has vegetarian dim sum, is it difficult to distinguish what is vegetarian and not. The person who recommended it couldn't remember and was concerned about the very broken english.

Does phoenix also offer traditional, non-dim sum dishes off a menu. Like, could my fiancee fall back on steamed veggies and rice? Thanks

babern38 wrote:Does phoenix also offer traditional, non-dim sum dishes off a menu. Like, could my fiancee fall back on steamed veggies and rice? Thanks

Phoneix does indeed have a very large, non-dim sum menu with plenty of options to fall back on if the dim sum offerings are not meeting any particular dietary restrictions. I do not know if they do serve every menu item during dim sum hours, but I have been there with big groups and ordered specific menu items during dim sum in the past.

Best,
Michael

what are dim sum hours exactly? We were thinking about going for a late breakfast early lunch. Citysearch said they open aroun 9AM. Would dim sum not be available at this time?

babern38 wrote:what are dim sum hours exactly? We were thinking about going for a late breakfast early lunch. Citysearch said they open aroun 9AM. Would dim sum not be available at this time?

I think the Dim Sum carts roll at least until two or three in the afternoon.

Used to like Phoenix, but I go to Shui Wah now, pretty much. Tried Happy Chef, and it was decent, but prefer Shui Wah. Ocean Star is a beautiful place, and the food is very good, but I think some of these places (Happy Chef & Shui Wah come to mind) do a very good job, albeit with a much more limited menu. Not drop dead great, mind you, but respectable.

But Jeff has pointed out again that I need to spend more time in Westmont . Heck, I have been to LSC in Chinatown repeatedly, and not even once in Westmont!

Cathy2 wrote:Toronto is something like 550 miles or 9 hours by car, so it is a very achieveable trip.

Toronto also regularly appears as a weekend "hot fare" travel Friday evening or Saturday and return Monday or Tuesday....for about $129 or so RT. Not to mention you can stay in a nice CP hotel for about 1/2 of what such luxury costs in the U.S. (then there is the aspirin with codein, cheap maple syrup, New York-style cafes with out New Yorkers, and, and...Oh Canada!)

Heck, I've heard of folks on this board crazy enough to fly out and return in one day, just to sample a few BBQ places

The couple negative comments notwithstanding, let me cast a vote for Furama. It's in Uptown on the corner of Broadway, and I think it's well worth a visit. My wife, a dim sum aficionado (-nada?) who grew up in Torrance concurs. We have never had a problem with cold food and would disagree with the opinion that the menu is limited. One can never speak to another's experience, of course, but that has never been a problem we've encountered.

Furama
4936 N. Broadway, Chicago
(773) 271-1161

You can take the red line to Argyle; walk west one block and south one block.

There is a "sister" operation on Wentworth in Chinatown which I have not visited and thus cannot vouch for.


Good luck and enjoy, wherever you go!

vegetarian? seriously? then don't go for dim sum or most authentic chinese joints! a lot of chinese cuisine uses animal fat source, such as lard, not only as a source of fat and moisture, but also the aromatic, wonderful smell! but aside from that, shui wah and happy chef are the very best in chicago! go for the chicken feet (feng jiao), sticky rice in leaves (nuo mai kai) and soft rice pastry wrapped around fried dough (you tiao cheong fun). yumz~

marias23 wrote:vegetarian? seriously? then don't go for dim sum or most authentic chinese joints!

I could not disagree more.

Most regions in China have some Buddist influence, including Canton and Yuan, and the Silk Road tea houses (where dim sum many have originated) fed many travelers of all creeds. I mention this because, while devout Buddists abstain from meat, even those that practice moderation will go perhaps one day a month or week without meat. Vegetarianism is more than a fad or whim in most Asian cultures, it may be way of life by cultural or economic necessity.

Vegetarian Dim Sum gets quite a few hits on Search, you may even try Vegetarian Dim Sum Chicago. You may also check with a Veggie group Healthy Dining Chicago.

While many Chinese dishes use meat as a flavoring, where you would not expect it, I do not believe they customarily use rendered animal fats for cooking [I may be very wrong, but my assumption is based on the scarce availability of fuels to render animal fat]. The rendering process is less calorically efficient.

I think your best bet is to stop by and ask about dining restrictions. I am sure a place like Phoenix will make whatever you request.

pd

can NOT rec Furama in Bridgeport/south Chinatown.
been there a coupla times. perfectly mediocre dimsum. things came out lukewarm. chicken feet lacked flavor, radish cake came out COLD.. ugh.. no thanks.

i'd rather go next door to Golden Horse and get dried shredded pork buns + fresh tofu flower for < $2. reminds me of childhood weekends in the street markets.

The trick for vegetarian dim sum is stay away from the cart places and know what you're ordering. I highly recommend Shui Wah like other people here. I like to order:

"Vegetable Crepes" - vegetables wrapped in sheet style rice noodle with soy based sauce

"Tofu skin with vegetables" - similar to above but with woodear mushrooms and wrapped in tofu skin instead of noodle. Served with a worcester / vinegar like sauce on the side.

"Lotus bean paste bun" - steamed bun with a nutty / starchy paste inside.

"Pan fried turnip cakes" - chinese hashbrowns. This has pork in it, but you can't -ahem- really tell.

"Fried tofu" - tofu cubes deep fried and served with a dipping sauce (more like a dipping soup actually)

For seafood-a-tarians, the S&P squid is incredible, shrimp kow (fried shrimp balls), seafood congee, chive dumplings are all very good. I think you can get vegetarian congee as well.

Happy Chef next door has a similar menu, is a step down in quality, but less crowded.

MJ

I had a craving for salt & pepper squid and was driving back from U of C, so I checked out LTH quickly and settled on Shui Wah. (plus I was alone, so dim sum seemed a good way to sample many dishes).

For the record, Salt & Pepper squid appears on the menu as Fried Squid in Pepper Salt. As noted in other posts, it is matchstick calamari, fried in a light batter, with seasoned salt. I thought I might have ordered the wrong thing, since it didn't match what I had just read on LTH until I returned to the office and found that there are two versions, dim sum and the nighttime version.

The Chiu Chow dumplings were the highlight for me. The wrapper was the thick white dough that they make pork buns out of. The filling was pork (I think), shrimp, garlic, something green (probably green onions) and peanuts.
Yummy.



The Chiu Chow tofu on the other hand was very plain for a signature dish!
Not bad, just plain. Nicely browned fried tofu squares served with a broth with green onions.



For the visually curious I found many pictures of items on the Dim Sum menu on a site that I assume is a resource for Asian businesspeople visiting chicago. That's where I stole these images from.

http://www.sumutoko.com/chicago/eat/res ... uiwah.html

Going back soon, with more people, and looking forward to trying the "Baby Bone in Satay Sauce"


What kind of baby? Probably best not to know...

We had a lovely lunch at Happy Chef the other day. The chive dumplings topped the list of what we tried.

Happy Chef Dim Sum House
312/808-3689
Chinatown Square Mall*
2164A S. Archer Ave., Chicago
Dim sum, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. 7 days

*Has anybody ever successfully found parking in the mall's lot? It's always overfull when I've gone, no matter what day of the week or time of day. I must say I find the architecture of the mall rather forbidding -- all the stores face inward, presenting garagelike pull-down doors to the street, and you enter the dim center through metal bars reminiscent of prisons. It seems to me that if they were going to make it so fortresslike, they might as well have put a roof on it.

Have been lurking here on LTH for a little while now and decided to throw in my 2 cents on the subject...

I started off (as many probably do) completely unfamiliar with dim sum, the type of person completely content with an order of cho-cho beef and shrimp in lobster sauce from New Star. That all changed when family friends of ours began to take us every Christmas to BIG Three Happiness (I know, I know) on Wentworth.

Now, I feel I have come quite a ways since then and have tried most, or all, of the dim sum spots that one will hear mentioned in a discussion on the best dim sum in Chicago. Being someone who enjoys, and prefers, to order dim sum menu-style my vote whole-heartedly goes to Shui Wah and Happy Chef in the mall. These two places, while I slightly prefer Shui Wah, are my absolute first choices for my (now) weekly dim sum fix. Phoenix, as mentioned previously, is the best choice for cart-style dim sum, although it can often be ridicuously crowded and is definitely a little more expensive. Although I do not consider myself an expert of any kind in the field, I thought I'd share my opinions on what I've found to be the best dimsum in the city, and, just for the record, I do not frequent big three happiness anymore because of the obvious lack of quality in their food but cannot help but hold a special place in my stomach for it simply because of my personal connection with the place.

griffin's wife wrote:For the visually curious I found many pictures of items on the Dim Sum menu on a site that I assume is a resource for Asian businesspeople visiting chicago. That's where I stole these images from.

http://www.sumutoko.com/chicago/eat/res ... uiwah.html

Sumutoko is an online resource/community for Japanese living in Chicago; Very handy website for those who can read Japanese. That's how we found a lot of restaurants originally when we first came to Chicago.

HARMONOFF wrote:I do not frequent big three happiness anymore because of the obvious lack of quality in their food but cannot help but hold a special place in my stomach for it simply because of my personal connection with the place.

I think that sentiment goes for a lot of us. I moved to Chicago in 1989...the mall was not yet finished and Phoenix wasn't even a twinkle in the eye. Sadly, neither was LTHForum or Chowhounds or any other great source of information...other than I heard Jeff Smith, the Frugal Gourmet, gush about how much fun eating dim sum could be. He had some connection to Chicago, not sure if his show was taped here for a while. Anywho, he mentioned Big TH or I found it some how and I was in love with dim sum, even if it was not up to the standards of Phoenix. I swear that Big TH was much better then, but of course the benchmark no longer exists. It will always hold a place in my heart...just like ring baloney.

pdaane wrote:[I heard Jeff Smith, the Frugal Gourmet, gush about how much fun eating dim sum could be. He had some connection to Chicago, not sure if his show was taped here for a while.

Frugal Gourmet was taped at WTTW. I was quite disappointed when I first freelanced there and was told that working with him wasn't the most pleasant task . He seemed like such a nice guy on camera.

Giovanna

LTH,

Went with out of town friends to the Phoenix for dim sum Sunday and it was really hitting on all 8-cylinders. Steamed items light with bright individual flavors shinning through. Fried items crisp and greaseless, with the taro dumplings w/shrimp especially good. Fresh steamed chow fun w/fresh shrimp as good as I've had, shrimp so fresh it was practically swimming. BBQ items, which I've learned to order as soon as we sit down, were dead-on as well, BBQ ribs meaty and juicy, roast duck, succulent. We also had a really nice version of crispy skin chicken, served with airy shrimp chips and salt/Szechuan pepper dredging dip and, speaking of chicken, yesterdays chicken feet walked over previous versions.*

Phoenix


In the past I've thought the best day to go to the Phoenix was Saturday, they are ramping up, item wise, for the weekend, but you don't have to suffer the long Sunday waits. Though after yesterday, I'd say 10:30 - 11am on a Sunday is the best time to go, they are just starting to get busy, fully ramped up for the crowds, every thing is hot and perfectly fresh, they're loaded with staff, a noticeably higher ratio than usual, and, at 10:45am, the wait, is if at all, short, yesterday was 10-minutes.

Yes, Shui Wah for dim sum is very good, but with out of town visitors, especially if there is one or two in the group not familiar with the joys of dim sum, the Phoenix is the clear choice. Sitting at a sunny window table watching crowds of chopstick wielding people happily munching away as rolling steam cars work the room is a lovely, and delicious, way to spend a Chicago morning.

Enjoy,
Gary

Phoenix
2131 S. Archer Ave
Chicago
312-328-0848.

*Ok, the chicken feet weren't that much better than usual, I just wanted to say "chicken feet walked over"

G Wiv wrote:Yes, Shui Wah for dim sum is very good, but with out of town visitors, especially if there is one or two in the group not familiar with the joys of dim sum, the Phoenix is the clear choice. Sitting at a sunny window table watching crowds of chopstick wielding people happily munching away as rolling steam cars work the room is a lovely, and delicious, way to spend a Chicago morning.

Phoenix is always my choice for dim sum with out-of-town visitors. The dim sum is almost always good, I like the large room and picture windows, and of course the "cart" experience. All that being said, I really miss Hong Min which I think offered the best dim sum in Chicago, and excellent food aside from the dim sum.

I've only dined at Phoenix (in Chinatown) and Jockey Wok & Roll (in NW Suburbs) for dim-sum, although my better-half swears by Shui Wah. I like the ambiance of Phoenix, but the variety at Wok & Roll seems better. I confess my experience at Phoenix left me w/ a "bad taste in my mouth," when they charged me the dinner entree price for 4 well-trimmed sprigs of gai-lan (a typical dim-sum staple, and it really was 4 solitary sprigs - almost thought I was in Tokyo for a second...) which was both spare in quantity and severely overpriced. I agree that for out-of-towners Phoenix would be the more impressive restaurant. I've been given a couple recommendations for Furama; I've seen one in Chinatown and one in Argyle. Any thoughts on Furama?