Evanston Lunch Group Friday March 5, 12:30: China Chef

Perhaps the Chinese-American (Jewish-American Suburban Chinese) that has received the most LTH-love is China Chef in Morton Grove.

The Evanston Lunch Group will foray to China Chef on Friday March 5th at 12:30. Join us. SteveZ suggests that China Chef may be the best Chinese restaurant north of Sun Wah.

For a discussion of China Chef see: http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=11132&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=China+Chef

I hope that you can join us.

Attendees:
GAF
Dave148
tarte tatin
nr706
EvA
Cathy 2
Helen
Moetchandon

Tentative:
stevez

China Chef
5920 W. Lincoln Ave.
Morton Grove, IL
847-967-6050

GAF wrote:SteveZ suggests that China Chef may be the best Chinese restaurant north of Sun Wah.

If you put Kow Kow in there as well, I'd stand by that statement, but amend it to say the best Jewish-American Suburban Chinese restaurant North of Sun Wah. If I wasn't hosting the blowout dinner at LTH the night before, I'd surely join you. Who knows, I may join you anyway. Put me down as a tentative.

Please put me down for 1. This is my first ELG event. Do you have membership cards or t-shirts?

Dave148 wrote:Do you have membership cards or t-shirts?

We wish!

GAF wrote:

Dave148 wrote:Do you have membership cards or t-shirts?

We wish!

GAF--You forgot to tell him about the (shhhhhh!) secret handshake....

BTW, you can add me to the list for 3/5 also. Thanks.

Then it wouldn't be a secret!

I'll be there with my membership card.

I'll be there for the secret ELG handshake and to compare the eggrolls to Kow Kow's.

Hi,

Helen and I will attend.

There is an interesting Filippino influence at this restaurant.

Regards,

I would like to attend...if there is still room for one more.

No comments on the food?

Food was very good Amer-Chinese ... details to come.

The food and company were great. Best of all, now we have membership cards!

The ELG company was delightful, as ever. China Chef's egg rolls are really very, very good, just about as good as Kow Kow's IMO. The huge steamed oysters were well complemented by the black bean sauce (although mine was a bit gritty). The fried chicken skin, which is on the menu, was, well, fried chicken skin without any flavoring that I could detect; it's served with a thin vinegar sauce. The other dishes I thought were standard American-Chinese, all a bit on the bland side for my taste. The Mongolian beef is impressively presented in a boat-like dish, but I would have liked more green onions and more kick from their house specialty.

The room is bright, colorful, and clean, and the restaurant was doing quite good lunch business on Friday afternoon.

I will add China Chef to possible stops when looking for Ameri-Chinese comfort food.

I've never had Kow Kow's egg rolls, so I can't make a comparison, but these were large and very good. I agree the chicken skin was rather bland. But I forget to get the camera out 'til the main dishes came out.

To my mind, probably the least successful dish was the pressed duck. I love duck, but these lacked much duckiness, and the texture was almost more like a heavy, doughy bread than real meat.

Pressed Duck

The fried smelt were a bit on the bland side, too, although the vegetables were good.

Fried Smelt

I did enjoy the steamed oysters, although as EvA noted, they were a bit gritty. I don't recall seeing this preparation at any other Amer-Chinese restaurant.

Steamed Oysters

China Chef also offers an extensive Filipino menu, including Pancit Guisado - noodles with shrimp, pork and vegetables. Again, a bit bland, but not bad.

Pancit Guisado

A highlight for me was the shrimp with walnut, sauced with a creamy mayo (although the version I had at Sun Wah's Chinese New Year's dinner was better).

Shrimp with Walnut

The house specialty Mongolian Beef, served, as noted above, in a special boat-like dish, had a great, deep, rich beefy flavor.

Mongolian Beef

Amer-Chinese isn't one of my favorite cuisines, and everything was a bit on the bland side, but generally I think almost everything was well-executed. If I was with a group that wanted to go out for Amer-Chinese, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend China Chef.

There was general consensus about China Chef. The food was well-made, but most of the dishes were rather bland (but perhaps that goes with the territory). I really enjoyed the egg rolls, which were crispy fried with a lot of meat inside. They were excellent as American egg rolls go. The Filipino egg rolls were also quite good and, unlike most dishes, were spicy.
The oysters were the third hit of the lunch.

I enjoyed the Mongolian beef, but it could have used more spice; so too the Pansit. The shrimp and walnuts were nice, but not up to Sun Wah, much less Mayonnaise Shrimp at LSC. And the pressed duck was mushy - it was my choice, but it didn't hold up to the Orange Garden version, much less my memories from childhood.

In all, I am glad that China Chef is on my radar for when I don't plan to go to Sun Wah or Lao Sze Chuan or China itself.

GAF wrote:There was general consensus about China Chef. The food was well-made, but most of the dishes were rather bland (but perhaps that goes with the territory).

Bland seems a recurring theme, China Chef has not-bad at all chili oil for the asking