Annals of the Overlooked - Lee Wing Wah

It's funny sometimes the places that we cluster around-- and the other places, often better situated and more obvious, that get overlooked. Vital Info selects a far west side Polish restaurant or a Puerto Rican chicken place more or less randomly, likes what he finds, and suddenly Pico Rico and Zascianek are known locations on the great Foodmap in our collective heads.

When MikeG wrote those words, I was gonna retort. It's not so much that I (or any poster) goes out trying to make a place famous. More like the famous find us. But really, the gist of Mike's point was spot-on. You never know what good food lurks around the corner, even if no one's discussed it. So, I steal freely his moniker of Annals of the Overlooked. I do, however, think it makes less sense to cram all the overlooks into one thread. Hence, Lee Wing Wah deserves it's own space.

Let me say at the start, that Lee Wing Wah is hardly overlooked. For one thing, on a day in day out basis, it is quite crowded (and I'll get back to this in a sec.) For another thing, when Chicago Magazine did a bit on Chinatown last year, they singled out Lee Wing Wah for yummy food. Yet, I only found two small mentions of the place on LTHForum. And it it aint on LTHForum, it's overlooked. Hopefully, no more.

I am mostly a creature of habit, and while I go to a lot of places in Chinatown, I tend to have set places for things: Mandarin Kitchen for Shanghainese (which sounds wierd but makes sense if you know the back story); The Sevens, Treasure for soup noodles, Wives for breakfast; Spring World for spicy/oily stuff; Happy Chef for Cantonese; Triple Crown for late night; Ken Kee if I wanted to be wierd. I know there are places I need to try like Sky, and I know that others off the short list, like Lao Sze Chuan or Moon Palace can be pretty special, but like I say, I am a creature of habit. Now, a few weeks ago we finally tried the pho place in the Chinatown mall, so I guess I was inspired to seek out new things. I gazed long into the Lee Wing Wah space because it was so packed on this weeknight. And it all looked good, especially the salt 'n pepper shrimps on a lot of tables.

I could tell from the outside, just from the outside, that these shrimps were a bit different. Happy Chef makes great salt n' pepper shrimps, but it is a dusting, a veneer, a condiment on the shrimps. At LWW, the salt-pepper amalgamated into a batter. I love fried shrimp, like say, Goose Island, and I wanted to try these.

I did. Also, stir fried tong choi with spicy bean sauce (not really spicy at all); crispy skin chicken, steamed oysters with black bean and "egg style" tofu (or something like that). Let me get to that dish first. It was called egg style because the tofu was cut to look like hard cooked eggs. It looked solid but it was just barely, and it contrasted well with typical brown sauce. Let me also get out of the way, that we picked the dish (one of my daughters picked it) from a menu with color pictures, making the place easy to navigate. The other thing about that menu is that they gave away the game on "crispy skin" chicken. That is, the picture menu translated it as fried chicken. Fried chicken, it definately tasted more fried, more greasy than others around Chinatown, but not in a bad way at all. In fact it was all very, very good. I am anxious to return.

I do have one bone to pick though. As I noted, there are several color pictures to help form a menu. But, but, there is also a page of lunch specials, much cheaper, written soley in Chinese characters. I loved the food, and there was a good amount of leftovers, but I think I could have spent less if I read Chinese.

Lee Wing Wah
In the Chinatown Mall
312-808-1628[/quote]

A quickie review of LWW based on the LTH Christmas Eve event:

If the 2005 event at Lao Sze Chuan was characterized by hot oil giving a sheen to everything, Lee Wing Wah's theme, or at least strengths, seemed to be vegetables, ginger, pork and black beans.

Our table ordered too much food (big surprise for an LTH event), and were only wowed by a few:

• the Salt and Spicy Squid, fresh from the fryer, had crispy breading and a bright salty taste that was missing from the similarly-prepared shrimp.
• The clams with black beans were very tasty -- the first black bean and ginger note of the night
• Pot stickers were big and nicely doughy, with another big dose of ginger
• Pea shoots (were they really pea shoots? I'm not certain) had a great crunch and veggie flavor
• Hot and Sour soup was "just right" -- not magical, but the right levels of white pepper and vinegar, good porky broth

Other items had some high notes to them, but weren't good enough to make this a destination restaurant for us:

• Salt and Spicy Shrimp, head on, had good flavor, but didn't really wake us up like the Squid did
• Crispy fried rice noodle with beef and broccoli had great broccoli, but not enough crispy, and by the time the lazy susan came around the second time, just didn't have much kick.
• Moo Shoo chicken, arriving late, was fine, but didn't thrill us enough to finish off
• BBQ Pork was very, very sweet, but pretty tasty
• Fried Wontons - not quite sure why emphatically ordered this. Crispy, check... what else is there to check off on this? Not getting the appetizers until halfway through the entrees probably didn't help.
• Ma Po Tofu - Almost but not completely unlike Ma Po Tofu. Excellent mushrooms, good ginger and black bean flavors, but what the heck is it?
• Eggplant in black bean - I'm not sure anyone ate any of this at the restaurant (we were pretty full), but the next day it reheated nicely, with some very tasty porky bits.

The company and conversation made it a great meal. Happy Christmas to all.

As a suburban boy who gets into Chinatown very rarely (only three times in the last two years counting the two LTH events), I'm ready to go back to LSC anytime someone suggests it, but I'd try a lot more places in the area before trying LWW again.

Thanks for the comments Joel. While our table ordered slightly different, I would agree with your general assessment. Having eaten at Lee Wing Wah about a month ago, I gotta believe that the dinner the other night was an abberation. Still, things were so, for the most part, poor, that I really have to keep my fingers crossed.

At our table, the salt n' pepper shrimps were especially icky. They came way late, and I had the inclination that they were fried once, forgotten; and then re-fried after we asked. In general, the food was prepared without care, and the ingredients seemed less than ideal. Much opposite of previous experiences.

Luckily, as said before, LTH company makes up for so-so food.

The biscuits and coffee cake were big hits at yesterday's breakfast. Thanks a ton, Mikes and C2 (and Suzy, Panther and Amata for your generous offers).

Rob

JoelF wrote:[*]Pea shoots (were they really pea shoots? I'm not certain) had a great crunch and veggie flavor

Indeed they were. I ordered them by their Cantonese name, dou miu.

BTW, thanks for graciously accomodating me at your table, Joel. I had a very enjoyable time.*

E.M.

* You too, Josh!

Things were a bit different at our table. We started with a seafood soup with peas which was mild but pleasant enough. Salt and pepper shrimp were very good, while s&p squid was overly floured and too greasy (as though it had been cooked at too low a temperature). Sweet and sour whole pike, crispy skin chicken, seafood with yellow chives, Japanese tofu, Peapod sprouts with garlic and braised e-fu noodles with mushroom were all quite good while the orange beef was too sweet and somewhat gloppy. All in all a I thought the food was quite good (better than the meal at Mountain View Chef two nites earlier). I always find dinner in chinatown a cheering experience and the opportunity to meet many LTHers previosly known to me only by screen name only made things better.

I'll be headed back to the mall tonite to check out the newly opened KS Seafood a few doors west.
Happy holidays to all!
Don