Tao Ran Ju Restaurant [closed]

As I was leaving dinner last night and walking to my car I noticed a brand new restaurant in Chinatown on Wentworth near the mall. I didn't note the address. I peeked in the window and saw that soup dumplings were on the menu and that the place seemed to specialize in Hot Pot. On each table were individual induction burners so each individual can have their own steaming hot vessel. I also noticed the owner of Spring World was standing out side the restaurant and he informed me that it was a new venture for him.

I returned for lunch today with my daughter. We each ordered hot pot. There are five different soup bases on offer including hot and spicy, seafood, miso, mixed mushrooms and special sour soup base. We both opted for the hot and spicy and it really brought on the heat as it was swimming in chili oil and had lots of peppers floating about. We added a few vegetables and some beef from a list of available add ons. In addition to hot pot, they also offer a number of dumplings, noodles and small plates, along with a section listing grill/kabob offerings. The restaurant also has a "seasoning" bar, where one can pick from various items to adjust their broth. I noticed ginger, scallions, garlic, cilantro, chiles and a number of other item I couldn't easily name.

We also ordered some soup dumplings. While I am sure they do not compete against world class examples, they are the best soup dumplings I have had in Chicago since Phoenix closed their first floor dumpling house. One important item to note is that they actually contained soup.

I'll be headed back soon to explore some of the other menu items. I'll post the address as soon as I can figure it out. It is on Wentworth north of Cermak around the mall on the west side of the street.

(Edit)
Tao Ran Ju
2002 S Wentworth Ave
Chicago, Il 60616
312-808-1111
10:30am - 1am 7-days

Per Dish it's at 2002 S. Wentworth, phone 312-808-1111. Also per Dish, hot pot add-ins include goose intestine, which I've never come across before.

The hubby and I stopped by tonight to try this new place. Luckily we snagged the last open table, and when we left there was a short wait. We decided to get the crab roe xlb, a lamb skewer and the hot pot. Individual hot pots were cute and a great idea since I hate it when his ma la soup gets into my clear broth. But the heating element was a little weak and my pot never really got to a rolling boil once I started putting stuff in.


Heating Element


Individual Hot Pots

The crab roe xlb was good. Not Shanghai good, but good for Chicago. They hired a chef from Din Tai Fung in Taiwan. Very impressive!


XLB

The lamb skewer was well seasoned (a little spicy), and not overly gamey. I could have had a few more and I normally do not like lamb

I went for the mushroom broth for my hot pot and the hubby had the seafood. Mushroom broth was weak and bland. His seafood was better choice. This is not an all you can eat. Each item costs something! Each pot of broth is $3. The beef and fish around $4. Vegetables, tofu, tripe, duck intestines, etc all range between $2 - $4. Small plates means small portions. A few tables around us remarked that they expected more volume for the cheaper ingredients like tofu skin, water cress, enoki mushrooms.


Goose Intestines


Small portions


Sliced beef


Fish Patties

Total damage was $48 before tip (no drinks) and this was after a 15% discount (for the opening maybe?).

My opinion? Go for the xlb and skewers. For $8.95 you get a basket of well made xlb with crab roe and soup inside. Not very crabby nor porky, but one of the better ones in Chicago. The skewers are around $2 each, and are well priced. The lamb is definitely what I will go for. Cuminy, charred slightly, juicy... If you go for the hot pot, order the fish patties. Obviously made in house, these are very well done. Chopped fish meat mixed with cliantro and hand formed into small balls/patties.

Edited to add this:

Another thing I forgot to mention: the plates of food for the hot pot were pre-plated and plastic wrapped. They were stored in the front of the restaurant in these coolers. The vegetables suffered a little and we had a few wilted watercress sprigs. Also the squid was pre-cooked, so by the time we fished them out of the broth, they were shrunken and rubbery.


Food Cooler

Went yesterday for lunch. Strange-- they were out of the Crab XLB's and weren't ready to do any skewers. We tried the chive pocket, pork XLB's, and beef roll. The chive pocket was pretty good-- hot tasty and crispy. The beef roll was very odd. There wasn't enough beef and the cucumbers were cut very course (should be finer). They also used a really thick scallion pancake, as opposed to something rolled out a bit thinner. I have to agree with CrazyC about the XLB. One of the better ones I've had in Chicago, however, really no where close the what is a good XLB. The wrapper was on target with the thickness. The interior was soupy-- but didn't have much flavor. Also, the meat middle had broken apart in the soup.

Overall-- I'm glad it's there for an option. However, I fear that people will think that it's the best of the genre, when it is not (at least based on our meal).

deesher wrote:While I am sure they do not compete against world class examples, they are the best soup dumplings I have had in Chicago since Phoenix closed their first floor dumpling house. One important item to note is that they actually contained soup.

Yeah, soup dumplings that contain soup is a major step forward in Chicago.

deesher wrote:There are five different soup bases on offer including hot and spicy, seafood, miso, mixed mushrooms and special sour soup base. We both opted for the hot and spicy and it really brought on the heat as it was swimming in chili oil and had lots of peppers floating about. We added a few vegetables and some beef from a list of available add ons. In addition to hot pot, they also offer a number of dumplings, noodles and small plates, along with a section listing grill/kabob offerings. The restaurant also has a "seasoning" bar, where one can pick from various items to adjust their broth. I noticed ginger, scallions, garlic, cilantro, chiles and a number of other item I couldn't easily name.

I thought the sour soup really was special, probably my favorite hot pot broth in Chicago. Quality of the add-ins was mixed. The condiment bar is a great feature, with some really nice chilies (and who knows what else—all the labels are in Chinese). Here's our spread, ready to go (condiments are in foreground).

kates wrote:Also per Dish, hot pot add-ins include goose intestine, which I've never come across before.

Me either. My first avian chitlins.



All in all, a good addition to Chinatown. Maybe not the best hot pot place but the sour broth and condiment bar will lure me back. Also worth visiting for xiao long bao and lamb skewers.

Tao Ran Ju
2002 S Wentworth Av
Chicago
312-808-1111

I thought the xiao long bao here were better than anything else in Chicago by a fair margin. Probably closer to say places in Flushing than to places in Chicago (Phoenix or Lao Shanghai). The boiled dumplings were also very good, better than Lao Beijing (which are fine), although I wish they had a version that is just pork and chives. I went in the middle of the afternoon and it wasn't very busy but I wish them the best.

kates wrote:Also per Dish, hot pot add-ins include goose intestine, which I've never come across before.

7-8 years ago I had twice cooked goose intestine at the restaurant in the space Mandarin Kitchen* now occupies. Braised tender, crisp fried, served in a spicy oily mouth numbing blend of chili oil and Sichuan peppercorns. Surprisingly fatty rich flavor, a memorable dish.

Enjoy,
Gary

* Might have been Mandarin Kitchen, but with a different owner than now.

Rene G wrote:Yeah, soup dumplings that contain soup is a major step forward in Chicago.

Soup dumplings contained soup, but were served lukewarm with little flavor, lifeless even with liberal application of vinegar/ginger.

Steamed Crab Flavor Dumpling



Fragrant House Special Beef Noodle soup, but flavor seemed expended on aroma, not in the bowl. Thin one dimensional broth, overcooked noodle, somewhat saved by tender fatty beef and generous topknot of pickled vegetable.

House Special Beef Noodle





Appetizer bar seemed tired, shockingly dull flavored Szechuan Beef and Maw, mushy fungus and ok pickled vegetable enlivened by tender crisp soy beans. Appetizer bar is tucked in a corner, partially blocked by a large table, making it difficult to view, a necessity for first time customers considering the euphemistic names given a few of the choices.

Appetizer Bar





Enjoyed Green Onion Pancake, crisp, greasless, better than the same dish I had last week at sister restaurant Spring World

Green Onion Pancake



Best part of the experience was the lovely aroma of star anise greeting you as you walk in. Worst, the condiment bar, which is now labeled in English as well as Chinese, is knee level and partially blocked by customers sitting at the large corner table, making it incredibly awkward to access.

Tao Ran Ju Condiment Bar



Clean, bright, modern, joint was jumping 8:30pm on a Tuesday, prices are reasonable and, given board enthusiasm, positive endorsement, in the framework of Chicago, from Pigmon during lunch last week and Sula's Reader review I will give Tan Ran Ju another go.

Enjoy,
Gary

I ate at this place a few months ago; we ordered two different kinds of the soup-filled dumplings, both of which I really enjoyed, but we also ordered a beef noodle dish that I felt was fairly bland - ended up adding some chili sauce to give it flavor. I'd most likely go back for more xlb and try the hot pot with the goose intestines. Nothing like a new foodstuff to try. Glad someone posted on this place, because, for the life of me, I could not remember the name after we went. I spent most of the time fighting with my two-year old who didn't want to sit in his seat. (Note to parents: this place did not have high chairs or booster seats.)

Another great dish to order is the zua bing or thousand layer pancake.

sylvia wrote:Another great dish to order is the zua bing or thousand layer pancake.

Agreed. One of the better pancakes in town. Echoing what was said above, the XLB are a mixed bag. Well-structured and containing soup, but the soup doesn't taste like much. Boiled dumpligs were OK, but not nearly as good as, say, Katy's. I really wish I could have ordered what the kitchen staff was sharing on Sunday after the lunch rush ended -- a big red bowl of variety meats and shellfish. As is so often the case in Chinese restaurants, I was denied by the server. I suppose one could reconstruct it from the hot pot menu. I was also disappointed to confirm that, despite all the dough in the kitchen, noodles are not made in house. Still, I liked it overall.

I had a rather enchanting experience at Tao Ran Ju tonight for a late snack - I was the only diner in the joint for a while, and the family / staff was delighted to find me things to eat and then watch me taste and provide feedback, going as far as to sit across from me, smiling and nodding; this would have normally been quite intrusive, but as soon as they saw I was eating the szechuan peppercorns out of the pickled vegetables, they either knew they had a willing test subject or thought Phil Vettel had bought himself a Trotsky mask and some knockoff Spanx for this outing.

My initial order of iron pot chicken (I heard from someone else this was excellent, like the original La La La Chicken Pot at LSC) was rebuffed since the kitchen was out of the right chicken pieces, but after a quick huddle (involving six people), the server returned to my table.

"I know what you want." You do? Before I had a chance to rethink she grabbed my menu.

They sent out a very fresh half-order of pork xiao long bao, piping hot and quite full of soup, with good vinegar and fresh ginger slivers, and then a sterno-fed tower of angry red broth with celery, root vegetables, szechuan peppercorns, dry chilis, and very tender beef. I was able to establish with some difficulty that this is the "dry pot lamb" on the menu, with beef swapped in since that's what they wanted to cook.

I was then given a mound of toasted peanuts straight from the wok with some fermented black beans, and then a small bowl of the beef soup mentioned by Gary upthread, redolent of anise. Finally, some ice-cold melon and mango chunks appeared, with more peppercorns, again straight from the kitchen and fresh (though this could be the sort of thing usually on the cold bar). They charged me a ridiculously low amount for everything and I left a counterbalancing tip.

This doesn't seem like the normal MO for the place (or anyplace), but they seemed to pick up that I was game, and they couldn't have been kinder or more accommodating. I enjoyed TRJ and will be back soon, particularly for a full steamer of XLB.

Stopped in last week and had the bao and a few other things, but our favorite was boiled pork belly; there was a thin-slice of cucumber within each roll, and all were splashed with chili oil, dappled with peanuts and flecked with parsley. Seemingly simple and extremely satisfying. On the menu, if I'm remembering correctly, it was called "Five Flavor Rainbow." The belly was fatty and flavorful; the cucumber fresh and crunchy; chili adds pork-enhancing heat and peanuts are always pals with pork; the parsley had a freshness that resonated with the cuke and added a touch of bitterness.

David, was this the "garlic rainbow?" The waitress tried to steer us toward it, but she couldn't describe it, and my dining companion stuck with the special cold beef--sliced beef, peanuts, cilantro, chili oil--that I believe was right below it on the menu. It was very good, but yours looked better.

As previously noted, the soup dumplings, while of lesser kind than your own eye-opening experience in ____ (insert city with better Chinese food), are the best in Chicago: soup, check--and a nice balance in the broth and pork. The shrimp dumplings were good, too.

Also had a hotpot with the sour base, which was tingling, to say the least, though I share the general consensus that better hotpots can be found elsewhere; I'll focus on the grilled items next time.

chezbrad wrote:David, was this the "garlic rainbow?" The waitress tried to steer us toward it, but she couldn't describe it, and my dining companion stuck with the special cold beef--sliced beef, peanuts, cilantro, chili oil--that I believe was right below it on the menu. It was very good, but yours looked better.

Thanks, chezbrad, it could very well have been the Garlic Rainbow.

David Hammond wrote:

chezbrad wrote:David, was this the "garlic rainbow?" The waitress tried to steer us toward it, but she couldn't describe it, and my dining companion stuck with the special cold beef--sliced beef, peanuts, cilantro, chili oil--that I believe was right below it on the menu. It was very good, but yours looked better.

Thanks, chezbrad, it could very well have been the Garlic Rainbow.

A friend and I had a long, very pleasant lunch at Tao Ran Ju this afternoon--I can confirm that David's dish is, in fact, the Garlic Rainbow (not the Rainbow Trio under Appetizers). It was quite tasty--I would have liked slightly more heat, but it was very enjoyable nonetheless. Thanks for the tip, David.

I stopped in at Tao Ran Ju on Sunday, after checking out the festival in Chinatown and being partially foiled in my plan to take the water taxi there.

I meant to pull up this thread, but since we were only snacking, I didn't. We knew we wanted XLB, though I have to agree with the assertion that while they may be the "best in Chicago," they're nothing special. The soup and dumpling are pretty tasteless, and I'm not the biggest fan of the pre-mixed sauce they provide - I prefer to add my own vinegar and ginger.

We also ordered bok choy in garlic sauce, but probably actually received lettuce in garlic sauce. It was nice and light, but I like the lightly stir-fried bok choy at Spring World better (though that does have the advantage of actually BEING bok choy).

All-in-all, I'm not rushing for a return trip. I think I'll stick to the tasty-but-soupless "XLB" at Moon Palace until Chicago gets its act together on the soup dumpling front.

G Wiv wrote:Soup dumplings contained soup, but were served lukewarm with little flavor, lifeless even with liberal application of vinegar/ginger.

Just can't get excited about Tao Ran Ju's soup dumplings, second verse same as the first, lukewarm with little flavor

Soup Dumplings



Garlic Rainbow, on the other hand, was delicious, though I agree with Happy_S that it needed a bit more bounce. One of my dining companions recommended the mouth numbing Szechuan pepper sauce from the condiment bar, the perfect fit.

Garlic Rainbow



Scallion pancake rolled around beef w/cucumber hit a high note, though I am a scallion pancake fan in all forms. I preferred chili oil as accent as opposed to accompanying hosin.

Scallion pancake with beef and cucumber



Tao Ran Ju was first of two Chinatown stops, on to Sweet Station

Enjoy,
Gary

Had lunch here today for the first time visit. Crazy room, plenty of interesting surface textures to this place to trip out on (like re-modeled Spring World). They were out of a lot of stuff included the lauded over "garlic rainbow", though it was hard to be pissed since our server was incredibly sweet. XLB was pretty good, piping hot and full of broth, seemed to be the right thickness of dumpling too. We had crab filling, which in my experience is typically a pork mix. Good flavor with scallion and ginger, though texture leaned towards mealy, perhaps a higher crab ratio? The beef noodle soup was really pretty good. Noodles has the right bite, meat was just tender enough, connective tissue just on the right side of gelatinous. The broth was nice, light and pho-like, redolent of five spice (though without the heavy hand of msg). The pickle garnish was a bit scarce, but added occasional moments of tang and garlicky funk. A nice bowl, a good way to start my quest to find great Chinese noodle soups in China Town.

Having a strong hankering for niu rou mian (spicy beef noodle soup) tonight and not at all up for making the 50+ mile trek to the land of respectable versions (i.e. Naperville - Mapo Restaurant, Tang Dynasty, and Katy's Noodles), I decided to give Tao Ran Ju another try after at least a year's hiatus. Gladly, I can report that they seemed to have straightened things out after ingesting some pretty miserable bowls in their early months.
Tao Ran Ju's inhouse machine-made noodles had a highly pleasant toothiness which most definitely didn't exist the first time I tried them. Broth-wise, where it lacked in the star anise and Szechuan peppercorn department, it more than made up for in its elegance and silkiness. Be forewarned, however, that this niu rou mian has absolutely no mala (numbness from Szechuan peppercorn) whatsoever. Nevertheless, I devoured my bowl entirely and loved every spoonful. And at $6.95 a bowl, this makes for a great reasonably priced lunch option.

PIGMON wrote:Be forewarned, however, that this niu rou mian has absolutely no mala (numbness from Szechuan peppercorn) whatsoever.

Sounds like a proper bowl, then.

I recently re-tried (twice in one day!) the xiao long bao at Tao Ran Ju (aka T Tasty House) for the first time in several months recently and was quite impressed. Although trixie-pea seems to think that their soup dumplings have been pretty good the last few times we’ve tried them, my recollection is quite different. I don’t recall these dumplings ever having such thin, translucent wrappers which easily display their soupy contents or that the crab/pork filling had such suppleness/finesse. Although I enjoyed their standard pork XLB (no crab), I definitely preferred the crab/pork filling in taste and texture much more.
If the soup dumplings we tried recently weren’t an aberration from their norm, then Chicago finally has a spot that’s making a truly good/v.good version of this Shanghaiese classic delicacy.

PIGMON wrote: I don’t recall these dumplings ever having such thin, translucent wrappers which easily display their soupy contents or that the crab/pork filling had such suppleness/finesse.

My experience matches yours--tried them twice and, while they weren't terrible, the thick, unwieldy wrapper certainly masked the ingredients within. I'm looking forward to trying again --your description sounds delicious!

Closed per Grub Street / Reader.