Help a visitor out

Hi, long time lurker first time poster here.

As a somewhat native Chicagoan ( I was born there, but moved away when I was quite young.), I often visit during holidays for a couple days to visit family and friends. This being the case, I usually can get by with a few beefs and a deep dish pizza or two between the massive family dinners.However this year I'll be in town a bit longer than usual ( from Monday to Saturday Thanksgiving week)
So with a bit more time on my hands, I am quite determined to sample more Chcago's fine restaurants. I am especially keen on eating a lot of Chinese and Korean. I've viewed a lot of chat about the usual suspects( LTH,Double Li, LSC, Spring World,Ken Kee,Hon Kee,Sun Wah,SSGS,and Kang Nam). So I have just a few ( for now) questions for the group.

How hard is it to get access to the more authentic fare of these menus ? I am completely clueless to any dialect of Chinese. It's not much of a problem where I'm from because just asking for the Chinese menu or asking to translate the "wall of specials" seems to usually do the trick. I fare better at Korean establishments since pure repetition has aided me in my ability to pronounce the usual suspects on the menu. I'm definitely looking to expand my palate and I like to think of myself as a fairly adventurous eater. ( No qualms here about eating stomach, intestines,tripe, blood sausage, head cheese, etc.) Spiciness is also no obsticle, as the few " true to form" Sichuan dishes I've enjoyed were very tasty. I'm just interested in the best way to get to the " good stuff" these places offer.

Also, allowing for three Chinese meals and one Korean, what would be the consensus picks from the above of establishments I mentioned ? That's an estimate of how many times that I'll be going out for dinner during my trip, but more outings may be squeezed in. If there's any other places that I should consider, feel free to mention them.

Help me LTH forum. I place my appetite in your hands

For Chinese, I would pick Lao Sze Chuan, Sun Wah and Spring World, as that gives you three distinctly different styles of Chinese-- and places that are all in the first rank to me.

For Korean, I dunno, I think all of those have the usual stuff, for more exotic stuff it's hard to say which is your best bet (San Soo, probably).

As far as penetrating the language barrier with no proficiency in the language-- read the threads and find the dishes that come up again and again. That's easier than learning Chinese on the fly, you can do that once you've exhausted the threads' recommendations....