Ram4 wrote:

misterchico wrote:I'll stick to delivery as it seems to get the priority attention and will think twice before venturing out for chinese christmas time!

You got that right! I picked up food from The Golden Chef (Wheeling) last night. Got there at 6, food was supposed to be ready at 6:15, didn't get food til 7:20. I KNOW this can and will happen with Chinese places on Christmas, but I have to laugh at people who actually get upset as if things get delayed or go wrong. There was one guy who was really mad, and I had to rub it in. "You're THAT guy. There's always going to be one person on a night like this who gets screwed and you're him. How does it feel?" I just don't understand how you could possibly expect normal service on a night when the place should be shut down because of fire hazards. There was wall to wall people in there. No room to move. I loved it. I love seeing people whining and complaining in a no-win situation, I'm like George Carlin. I made some friends while I waited and enjoyed my wait. In the end, our food was hot, fresh and delicious, just took a long time.

Just because a restaurant is busy doesn't mean you should accept bad service. If a restaurant is too busy to handle the volume of business they should stop taking orders or manage expectations appropriately.

PopcornMegaphone wrote:Just because a restaurant is busy doesn't mean you should accept bad service. If a restaurant is too busy to handle the volume of business they should stop taking orders or manage expectations appropriately.

OF COURSE I will not accept bad service if a place is busy. They are expected to handle it. But you're quoting me out of context. It was more than a busy restaurant. It was Christmas in a Chinese restaurant (Golden Chef we're talking about here). Pure insanity. The place was way over capacity. It created a fire hazard where people could have been killed. They should have stopped people at the door. You have to expect the worst in this situation. THAT was my point. And that's why I laugh at people who don't get that.

misterchico wrote:Definitely not praise on the mess that was LSC chinatown yesterday. Have been enjoying delivery the past few years but decided to make a festive visit yesterday- what a mistake. Arrived at 3:50, was quoted a 40 minute wait. Finally seated at 5pm. (These things happen.) But the major rub was that we didn't receive any non-soup dishes until 6:20! We wished we had brought our own food like we did for our toddler! Or more than one bottle of wine!

Between delivery and takeout orders, and the upstairs dining room, it seemed like the whole operation was moving in slow motion. Servers didn't have food to run….people were getting irritated all over the place. And to be clear, we didn't order the duck or the souffles! (j/k) Sesame noodles and dumplings in hot oil took the 80+ minutes to hit the table! Same with Ma Pa Tofu which requires minimal prep. And in typical LSC fashion, all of our dishes came at once. We are used to this approach, but usually it happens within 10 minutes!

As the wait for tables seemed to get longer I really felt for the folks who were just sitting down as besides the szechuan "cole slaw" or basic soup orders, they would not be enjoying any tasty treats soon. We wanted to add an order of Shrimp with Mayo to foil the Sole Filet in Sour Pickle Soup (the only dish that came out spicy on this typically un-spicy holiday) but we didn't have the guts to chance another one hour lapse. Wanted to beg some neighbors who seemed disinterested in their order but my companions would not allow

Staff was generally apologetic…we were all surprised that such a seasoned operation would struggle on an obviously busy time. We have been for xmas before and never had any of these problems.

I'll stick to delivery as it seems to get the priority attention and will think twice before venturing out for chinese christmas time!

I think everyone forgets, or never was aware, that they have the Uptown location. If you'd have shown up there at 3:50, you would have been seated immediately.

We had the same experience yesterday. We have gone to LSC every Christmas day for probably 10 years now, and always had a great time. We make a reservation, since our group is fairly large, usually 13 - 20 people. Something was terribly wrong yesterday. I got scolded (by two different people) for going upstairs first, which is what we always did in the past. I apologized profusely, and then we did not get the tables we had reserved in the back, but a table is a table, ok? We got there at 3, and at 4:30, when the only thing we had gotten was an order of egg rolls, they finally brought over one dish but then while we were asking where the rest of our food was, they realized that this dish was not even ours! It was taken away from in front of us. Thankfully, we all laughed and one of our wittier members called out, Donner, Party of 12! Ha ha! But the kids did not think it was so funny to sit for 2 hours with hardly any food. We finally got our dishes around 5, wow! The company was fun, and lively, so it wasn't so bad, but I agree, this is not a fledgling operation by any stretch. I don't know what happened but I can only hope they will be motivated to make sure it doesn't happen again next year.

Walked in to Lao Hunan at 5 pm and got seated immediately. We were in a rush to make a 6:20 show at Showplace Icon so we just ordered entrees and one bubble tea. Sitting in our seats at the movie at 6:05 pm.

The food was great. I wish we'd orderd more because I'm hungry now.

We were there at 3:30, was sat at 4:00 upstairs. At 5:45, 2 of our entrees had still not been brought out.
We had to get our own water, our own sweet sauce, our own set-ups.
I ordered sizzling rice soup. It was brought last. (at almost 6:00 p.m.)
The pinnacle was they delivered our fried rice to another table, picked it up and then brought it to ours.(!)
WAIT!!! - danak - that was you!!
I have prepared my children for the notorious terrible service, but this was a new low.
Apologetic - absolutely not. Not on any level.
We have already decided to pass next Christmas.

No level of food quality can compensate for such terrible service.

A Sichuan Restaurant without Sichuan Peppercorns. I can honestly say that everything i had was good. If not very good. However, it was missing Sichuan Peppercorns.

Dining alone in Chicagoland, I have had this place on my radar for sometime. Being that it is subzero temperatures, i had been stuck in my hotel for the last few days.. Unable to spend another night, pacing in my room, I headed out.

The Lao restaurants, are a mini empire in Chicago.. I believe there are at least 4 of these places alone. There is also Lao Hunan, Lao Beijing, Lao Yunnan and perhaps that's it.

All of them are offering "authentic" style cooking. However, my visit to Hunan and Sze Chuan both had me feeling slightly disappointed.

I started with the cold pig ears and the cold diced rabbit. The pig ears were a tad too cold. Only after sitting for a half hour did the flavor start to open up. The rabbit was just a heat bomb. Very spicy, lots of big fat peanuts, bone in chunks of really well prepared rabbit. I was very happy at this point.






I then moved on to sliced fish with cabbage and a plate of garlic fried pea shoots.

Peashoots were really on point. Perhaps compared to what you would get in China, they would be considered "al dente" (i believe that's the proper Chinese term) The fish was just a little too one note for me. It was missing sichuan pepper corns. it was missing the fermented black bean back note.. The majority of the flavor came from a smokey dark chile. There was definitely plenty of spice but, it was missing depth of flavor and of course Sichuan Peppercorns.





Staff was super nice. Many people ordering hot pot. i was going to get one but, I felt it was just a little too lonely of a thing. A shout out on Facebook did not find any of my friends in Chicago this time.

I would go back if I lived in Chicago, though, as a monthly visitor, there are just too many places to explore.. Eh, i would go back, if i was with a group.

Daniel wrote:The Lao restaurants, are a mini empire in Chicago.. I believe there are at least 4 of these places alone. There is also Lao Hunan, Lao Beijing, Lao Yunnan and perhaps that's it.

Nine restaurants are listed on Tony Hu's website here. That number includes Lao 18 which recently closed, and two for the two open locations of Lao Sze Chuan; it does not include the third location of Lao Sze Chuan which will be opening soon in Evanston.

Thanks for the clarification.. I google mapped lao sze chaun and south archer, north broadway, ogden in downers grove, north michigan and valley lake in schuamburg all came up.. not to mention a place in Millford Ct. Looks like I lucked out, choosing one of the correct ones!

Daniel wrote:Thanks for the clarification.. I google mapped lao sze chaun and south archer, north broadway, ogden in downers grove, north michigan and valley lake in schuamburg all came up.. not to mention a place in Millford Ct. Looks like I lucked out, choosing one of the correct ones!

Schaumburg location closed a few years ago.

Cathy2 wrote:

Daniel wrote:Thanks for the clarification.. I google mapped lao sze chaun and south archer, north broadway, ogden in downers grove, north michigan and valley lake in schuamburg all came up.. not to mention a place in Millford Ct. Looks like I lucked out, choosing one of the correct ones!

Schaumburg location closed a few years ago.

No, it was Palatine that closed. Schaumburg was announced in May along with Evanston.

Daniel wrote:I would go back if I lived in Chicago, though, as a monthly visitor, there are just too many places to explore.. Eh, i would go back, if i was with a group.

Daniel,

Next time, post something here in the events section. I'll bet you could round up a group to provide much needed ordering power.

I tried unsuccessfully a few years ago to get people to go out for Chinese Food. I had since given up. I haven't really had the warmest of welcomes to this board to be honest.. But, i do check the calendars, it just doesn't work out.

Had a really great meal here last week. Since it was my first time we got a lot of the greatest hits and everything was great. The only miss for me was a boring eggplant dish (I think it was supposed to be a different dish but was lost in translation). The highlights for me were the dry chili chicken, pork stomach in garlic sauce (A03), and "Double Fried Sliced Pork w/Cilantro Jiazhou style(dry)" (503). The last one was a last minute random selection and came out with really crispy bits of pork with a whole lot of cilantro and dried peppers.

Double Fried Sliced Pork w/Cilantro Jiazhou style sounds like a winner to me

Had a very tasty take-away meal there last Saturday night.
SUPER-BUSY!
SLAMMED- as they say in the restaurant business!
Upstairs and downstairs full- line of people waiting to be seated......

"Tommy" was manning the front door- more like the entire Western end of the Mall!
All waitress now have "#'s" assigned to their blouses?
Strange.
Also- do not order the spicy- cabbage as a take-out dish- unless you think- paying $4.45 for it - is a fair price-
for a "amuse bouche" they offer for free- if you sit down.
Also - prices have seemed to creep ever higher- as Tony's Empire continues to grow.... for the two of
us- a carryout order was over $44.00- Egg Drop Soup + Tony's Chicken + MaPo Tofu w/ Pork ($3.00 xtra for Pork- used to be $2 bucks) and PeaPod shoots - after discovering the cost of the cabbage- I asked him to remove
it from our order.Still seemed like a lot for the small # of items we ordered.

AlekH wrote:Double Fried Sliced Pork w/Cilantro Jiazhou style sounds like a winner to me

Yup, ordered entirely based on name and was not let down.

I'm going to have to get back to the Chinatown original someday soon. My last couple of take-out meals from Downers Grove have been underwhelming, to the point that it's falling out of my rotation.

I drive from Wisconsin for take out from Lao Sze Chaun. I take two coolers with ice to fast chill the food on the way back.
Reheat doesn't seem to hurt anything. We order mostly spicy and offal items.
Can't get anything near this good where i liive and the price doesn't bother me.
A real improvement over decades of so so Chinese food.
The two places I did find in Zion have both long ago changed hands or just plain changed and I haven't been in maybe 15 years or so.
I also believe that satellite restaurants are rarely as good as the anchor spot and have never tried Downer's Grove or anywhere else even tough I have friends in Oak Brook Terrace..
Tony's food in Chinatown continues to excel for me and I see no reason to change.-Dick

budrichard wrote:I also believe that satellite restaurants are rarely as good as the anchor spot

I agree that this is very often true of many restaurants. However, of the three Lao Sze Chuan locations I've tried, I've found that the food in Evanston and in Uptown is pretty much the same as the one in Chinatown. (I'm not that thrilled with it - generally too one-note and overspiced with the red peppers, and too oily/greasy - but I've found that to be the case at all three locations I've tried, with no significant differences among the dishes I've had in multiple locations.)

Recently-opened Skokie is variable but no more so than the Chinatown flagship.

=R=

With this thread in play and having just dined there last night and with a belly full of the leftovers, I gotta say, LSC is and always has been my favorite spot in town for Sichuan. Despite the always touch-and-go service, I've rarely noticed any deviance in consistency with the food. I also believe that LSC offers a menu so extensive that it is fairly easy to curate balanced meal.

I have an ordering pattern that is on lock– if its just the two of us (which is usually is) we order House Special Dry Chili Prawn, House Special Potherb, and Spicy Sole Fish Soup with Sour Pickle. This trio is a good representation of how you can order a variety of dishes without feeling the chile oil/whole dry chile fatigue. And while each of these dishes is intense in its own right, the meal has a balanced pacing. Of course, the prawns done in the signature dry chile style is the heat/grease star of the show. Then the potherb has little chile heat, light oil (which I believe is sesame and carries quite a bit of wok hay), and a pronounced ma from a heavy hand with Sichuan peppercorn. The soup has a gunpowder kick from white pepper and nice bitter/tartness from the pickled greens for an overall bracing, but refreshing character. This soup has had very little mention on the board but its my favorite menu item and probably my favorite soup in town, period. We eat this meal probably five times a year (+ more expansive feasts beyond this). Its the first thing I crave when I'm away from Chicago on an extended leave.

Thanks for the Spicy Sole Fish Soup with Sour Pickle rec, i enjoy their fish/pickle dishes and will gives this a shot on the next order

I'm with Jefe--the key is more how you order from LSC--you need to break up the dishes so that not everything is heavy, oily, chili--and I have my go-to's like he does to keep it balanced. I also find no difference at all in the quality of the dishes, particularly if you're taking out or delivering, between Chinatown and my delivery location, Uptown. Budrichard--you may be going to Chinatown for other things as well but if you aren't, you could save yourself some time by hitting one of the northern locations (Skokie or Evanston would probably both do quite nicely.) Worth a try at least.

Yes, if you are coming in from Wisconsin on 94, the Skokie location is a very short drive from the Old Orchard exit and since its in a strip mall has abundant free parking.

I do know about the Skokie location but as I Posted "I also believe that satellite restaurants are rarely as good as the anchor spot ".
Anyway I do go to other places in Chinatown, usually having Dim Sum at Phoenix and shopping at, at least one or two of the markets. My trusty Leica M7 is usually on my shoulder also.
I agree about balancing your order as anything in chile oil is pretty intense.
I just have never had a bad order from the Chinatown location but of course I always phone in my order on the way and pick up about 11:30am.-Dick

http://abc7chicago.com/news/chinatown-restaurants-raided-by-fbi-agents/364395/

Anybody have any idea what's going on with this?

Sound like a tax fraud situation.

FBI agents raided restaurants in Chinatown on Friday as "part of an ongoing investigation," according to a bureau media representative. WLS Photo/ ABC7 I-Team

Agents are executing search warrants but have not made any arrests. The IRS criminal investigation unit and the Chicago Police Department is also involved.

The person who answered the phone at popular restaurant Lao Sze Chuan confirms that they are closed because of FBI activity. Chef Tony Hu declined to comment about the situation to Eyewitness News but confirms the law enforcement activity.

http://abc7chicago.com/364395/

Couldnt they just "asked" for the Tony's 3-Chilie Chicken Recipe??http://breakingnews.suntimes.com/chicago/chinatown-restaurant-raided/

DNA.info did indicate the Tony Hu restaurants reopened this afternoon.

Regards,