Yan Bang Cai - Amazing Sichuan in old Double Li space

Just ate there tonight, and I was completely blown away. I guarantee this place will be a big deal shortly. I'm jazzed to be the first person to bring it to LTH (it only has 3 yelp reviews!). I can't find any info about the restaurant or chef online, but pictures inside the restaurant mention that he was involved with the 2012 London Olympics, and conversations with him reveal multiple restaurants in Michigan.

The menu is expansive, and very authentically Sichuan. The chef is from Zigong and much of his food is dishes of the city.

I have no pictures, cause that's not really my thing. We started with the Zhong style dumplings. Super flavorful filling, beautifully soft handmade noodle wrapper, and an immaculately balanced sweet soy and chili oil sauce. Probably my favorite bites of the meal.

Next we had a large selection of the cold dishes. Mala Spicy Rabbit, Spicy Beef Tendon, Sichuan Green Bean Curd, Cold Fish Root, Cucumbers Marinated in Special Sauce, and Yibin Style Spicy Noodle. Rabbit was nice, peanuts in it were a standout, but so bony. The beef tendon and the yibin noodle were exceptional. The cucumbers and the fish root were a really nice counterpoint to the large levels of chili oil. The green bean curd was probably the least exciting, and it was still well done.

We followed with the Zigong Style Spicy Fish, the Shredded Pork in Fish Frangrant Sauce and the small sized Salt Miners' Chicken, which was still enormous. Banquet size portions on entrees. Bring friends. We requested more Ma La, as we felt they might be holding back the heat for our table, so these came out with a really nice level of sichuan peppercorn. The pork was delicious with a nice sweet-sour balance. The chicken had phenomenal thick, rustic hand pulled noodles topped with a chicken, carrot and potato stew. Great depth of flavor and awesome texture. The Spicy Fish was similar to the old Double Li dish "Fish Filet in Spicy Hot Pot". Boneless fish chunks in a giant bowl of sichuan peppercorn chili oil broth. Tons of ma la. Greens and herbs are a great counterpoint. Beautiful, delicious, filling, healthy and invigorating. This is what sichuan food is all about. We also got a vegetable dish of chinese squash, enoki and woodear mushrooms and goji berries. The sauce and mushrooms were delicious, but that squash has a slightly mildewy flavor I'm just not a fan of.

There are roughly 170 items on the menu, so this is going to take some work to find all the standout dishes. I'm willing to put the effort in, but my work schedule is nuts. LTHers, go eat, take pictures, report back.

Yan Bang Cai
228 W. Cermak
Chicago, IL 60616
(312) 842-7818

I want to try this place but haven't had time because of the redline construction its a pain to get there for lunch during work hours... I really want to try the DRY CHILI CHICKEN and see how it compares to the baseline standard of Lao Sze Chuan!

Here is a link to the YELP reviews:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/yan-bang-cai-ch ... =date_desc

Yan Bang Cai
228 W. Cermak
Chicago, IL 60616
(312) 842-7818

Looks good. Do you remember the hours generally? Open late like some other places in Chinatown or typical place that closes between 9pm and 11pm every day?

gram wrote:LTHers, go eat, take pictures, report back.

Yessir! I ate, took pictures, but haven't reported back (yet). Thanks for starting what should be an interesting thread.

polster wrote:I want to try this place but haven't had time because of the redline construction its a pain to get there for lunch during work hours...

I want to mention that Chinatown is still easily accessible by public transportation even with the closing of the Red Line. Just get off at Roosevelt and catch a free R22 shuttle bus waiting on southbound State Street about half a block north of Roosevelt. It's a quick trip but it does add a few minutes, so it might not be ideal for a quick lunch. I have to say I'm awfully impressed with how CTA has handled the Red Line closure. I'm actually going to miss some of the temporary alternate service when the Red Line reopens.

marothisu wrote:Looks good. Do you remember the hours generally? Open late like some other places in Chinatown or typical place that closes between 9pm and 11pm every day?

Yan Bang Cai isn't open late; their hours are listed below. I don't think Yan Bang Cai has a website and there isn't a lot of information available online. I'll try to post their very interesting menu and a report on a meal I had there a couple weeks ago.

Yan Bang Cai
228 W Cermak Rd
Chicago
312-842-7818
Sun-Thu 11:30-9:30, Fri-Sat 11:30-10:30

Totally agree that this place is going to be crowded soon. I was delighted to try the fish root, which is something we had in Yunnan. There, we were given the Latin name for it, which is Houttuynia cordata. According to this Wikipedia link, it is also known as lizard root, heartleaf, bishop's weed, and chamelion plant. I was shocked to see it here, but since it is apparently used a lot in Vietnamese cooking, maybe it is being grown here for that market. I'm hoping that if anyone spots it at a market, he or she will post on it here. ReneG will no doubt post his pictures. I intend to post a Yunnanese recipe for fish root as well.

marothisu wrote:Looks good. Do you remember the hours generally? Open late like some other places in Chinatown or typical place that closes between 9pm and 11pm every day?

According to the takeout menu, these are the hours:

Monday - Thursday: 11:30 AM - 9:30 PM
Friday & Saturday : 11:30 AM - 10:30 PM
Sunday: 11:30 AM - 9:30 PM

By the OP's description, I'm guessing this place might be related to Ypbor Yan in Michigan ( which is about 10 min from my house). I eat there WAY too much, so I've had a lot of the dishes the OP mentioned and can vouch for their tastiness at least in my neck of the woods.

moose734 wrote:By the OP's description, I'm guessing this place might be related to Ypbor Yan in Michigan ( which is about 10 min from my house). I eat there WAY too much, so I've had a lot of the dishes the OP mentioned and can vouch for their tastiness at least in my neck of the woods.

Went last night and pretty sure there was something on the menu mentioning Ypbor Yan. Salt Miner's Chicken was delicious but strange mouthfeel to me from spices. Probably favorite dish we had was twice cooked marinated pork - super smoky thin sliced bacon, more or less, without the crunch.

Took my roommate to try this place out tonight. It was great, and I'm really glad I came.

We got the green bean curd, salt miner's chicken small plate, fish in chili bean sauce, and the squash.

Green Bean Curd - I agree. Sort of boring. Not bad, but pretty much just an excuse to sop up the tasty chili oil they had.

Salt Miner's Chicken - Awesome! This is Da Pan Ji - Big Plate Chicken. In China, I typically only ordered this in Xinjiang-style restaurants. I've never seen this in America (maybe I just haven't recognized its place on Chinatown menus), but I was so psyched when I realized what it was. I haven't had this in years, and it was a great surprise. Like other posters have said, this is basically a chicken stew in a red, chili broth with a healthy amount of peppers and sichuan peppercorns. It was good, though definitely not the best version I've had. I wish there were more potatoes on the plate they gave us. And in the past, there have been more big pieces of chicken (these were all small pieces). The chicken also wasn't quite as juicy as my favorite renditions have been (which makes me wonder how long this has been stewing before they served it to us). If I understand right, traditionally the noodles are not served with the chicken. Once the table has eaten most of the chicken and vegetables in the stew, the noodles are brought out, and the diners then sop up the stew with the fresh noodles. These noodles were tasty, but they were smaller (a bit shriveled), less fresh-tasting, and less numerous than I remember.

Fish in Chili Bean Sauce - When we were ordering, the staff were worried that we were ordering a bit too authentic. I guess we had that "white people in the headlights" look. They suggested a dish that had fillets, because "Americans don't like whole fish and like fillets." We insisted and got the whole fish. Perfectly cooked. Moist and delicious with a great chili bean sauce.

Squash - Roommate wasn't in an eggplant mood, so we asked the waiter, and he recommended the squash. I really enjoyed it. Not exciting, but a solid vegetable dish. The squash was soft, but not too soft. Served with small shreds of shrimp. And I really liked how it was slightly bitter. My roommate wished we had gotten the eggplant :\

All in all, a really satisfying meal. Not on my top 5 meals in Chinatown or anything, but I'm looking forward to coming back and checking out more of the menu. Admittedly, the spice levels were very low, but that was partly because we didn't insist on non-white spice levels, and because my roommate mentioned that she doesn't like very spicy food. So it was totally understandable. I want to go back, order the Da Pan Ji larger portion with more aggressive levels of spice and see how that compares to what I remember. I'll be back.

Rene G wrote:

gram wrote:LTHers, go eat, take pictures, report back.

polster wrote:I want to try this place but haven't had time because of the redline construction its a pain to get there for lunch during work hours...

I want to mention that Chinatown is still easily accessible by public transportation even with the closing of the Red Line. Just get off at Roosevelt and catch a free R22 shuttle bus waiting on southbound State Street about half a block north of Roosevelt. It's a quick trip but it does add a few minutes, so it might not be ideal for a quick lunch. I have to say I'm awfully impressed with how CTA has handled the Red Line closure. I'm actually going to miss some of the temporary alternate service when the Red Line reopens.

Don't forget the best way to get to chinatown EVER. $1.75 per ride if you buy a 10 ride pass which can be shared between people or used on multiple rides. If you want to use it there and back, remember the last boat leaves chinatown around 9pm. If you get on a boat after 9pm claiming to be a water taxi, beware of Shanghaiing.

laikom wrote:If you get on a boat after 9pm claiming to be a water taxi, beware of Shanghaiing.

Or, as I was warned repeatedly in Bangkok (scroll down to bottom of picture):

They do have a website--it's not too fancy, but it does have their menu.

http://www.yanbangcaichicago.com/

geli wrote:They do have a website--it's not too fancy, but it does have their menu.

http://www.yanbangcaichicago.com/

That may not be enough: the menu lists the same things differently on different pages. They got our order for salt miner's chicken wrong twice, the first time by a wide margin (i.e., we got a Shanghaiese fish soup). They were quite accommodating, however; they also noted that the menu was wrong and would be replaced soon.

The squash and salt miner's eggplant that Sula spoke of in his review this week are quite good; the fish root is certainly like nothing I've ever had here. Next time, though, I'm bringing photographic evidence of the mains I want.

I made my second trip here tonight and I think it's fairly safe to say that you needn't worry about crowds. Last Thursday, other than one two top, our table of three was alone in the restaurant. Tonight, the place was maybe half full at any given time. As I was a big fan of Double Li, which never seemed to be particularly crowded, this comes as no surprise.

The on line menu seems to have little to do with the menu on the table. This can cause a problem if you'd like to prepare in advance. That being said, I was able to communicate with the waiter very well and received the dishes that I ordered. We ordered quite a few dishes and asked not to be served not too quickly. I'm not sure if they complied with this request or served the dishes as they came up, but the timing was just about perfect. I hate getting slammed with an entire order at the same time. All things being considered, service was very good.

We had shredded bamboo salad, Ybin spicy noodles, Zhong style dumplings, Zigong style spicy fish, fish fragrant pork, twice cooked pork, Chinese cabbage, a small big plate chicken and salt miner's eggplant. We finished almost everything, except the salt miner's eggplant was very salty indeed. If it were not, it would have been an ethereal fried item. Everything was at least very good with the exception of the rice, which was indifferent at best. It had been prepared long before we were served and it was very gluey. On my previous visit, we also had mapo tofu which I enjoyed. The spicing on dishes, while generally somewhat similar, was sufficiently different and complex to make for a delightful meal.

There were some dishes at Double Li that I really miss like dry fried beef (with crunchy celery and delicious bamboo shoots), but I'm glad to have Yan Bang Cai in the hood.

Adding two datapoints: excellent hot and sour soup, rich and salty with an unusual fresh pepper flavor in addition to white pepper and dry chili. Spicy beef with tangerine peel was a completely new experience for me, mounds of char-fried pebbly peels (edible, like chips) mixed in with dry peppers and tender garlicky meat. This place is not kidding about a salt focus. They wanted to give me the American menu, a fork, and the mild stuff and I said hell no. With that rapport established, I'll be back.

Hi: I plan to have dinner here on Monday, October 28th, at 5:30, with a couple of friends. If anybody would like to join us, please feel free. Just let me know. And if there's a better place for me to post this, please let me know. Thanks!

A few more meals here have been fine but uninspired. Based on flavor, seasoning and presentation the people in the kitchen are not regularly the chef owner. When he's in the kitchen the food is transcendent, otherwise I'm changing my tune.

Yan Bang Cai has been replaced with Dongpo Impression. Have not had a chance to visit yet. A yelp reviewer mentions that it is run by the Chengdu Impression people. Has anybody had a chance to eat at Dongpo Impression?