Seven Wives Restaurant in Chinatown

I've been eating in Chinatown since 1979 and have tried most of the restaurants, many have opened and closed. Little Three Happiness has been our favorite for many years. Recently, we've noticed that the quality has become inconsistent and the plate size was getting smaller. Last Sunday evening after picking up my father at Midway Airport (visiting from LA), our family voted to have him sample the Chicago Chinese food. After getting off at the Cermak Parking Lot, we walked down Wentworth toward the south. We remembered Cathy2's high remark on the breakfast at 7 Wives and decided to test their dinner. We chose a fixed price meal with 6 dishes plus a complementary lobster dish for about $64 + tax + tips. The dinner came with tea, house soup and dessert (sweet red bean tapioca soup).
Review comments: Everything was cooked "just right" and delicious. We forgot to specify that the sweet and sour pork should have less sauce. Also, next time we'll ask for less MSG. Overall, the food was more Hong Kong style than the traditional Chinese American style. Waitress were helpful. This place is definitely high on my list. My family and my father enjoyed the food.

I forgot to list what we ordered.
Beef and Chinese Broccoli; sweet and sour pork; stir fried clam with black bean sauce; stuffed tofu; fried pork chops with peppers; fried pork ribs with garlic; lobster in ginger and onion sauce.
Besides too much sauce in the sweet and sour pork dish, everything was good. The tofu, pork ribs and lobster dishes were very good. Recommended!

Hi Felix,

Welcome to the LTHforum family.

Last week I had a conversation with a woman who seems quite alert to the Chinatown restaurant scene. She feels inconsistency in all the Chinese restaurants is a problem. She offered the following insight, some which we have observed ourselves:
- If the owner is present, the food is almost always better.
- If the owner is not present, then there is usually a negative slide in the food. She has pretty much decided not to dine when the owner is not present.
- If the owner is the chef, then there is long term better consistency in the kitchen's output.
- Non-owner Chinese chefs move from restaurant to restaurant rather abruptly. You can consider the food at 'X' very good, then once the chef departs it goes down hill. She is aware of patrons who follow the chef and not the restaurant.
- The best Chinese restaurant meals she's had when the kitchen was aware their reputation was at stake entertaining a VIP. She's enjoyed food at some of these events she was not able to obtain later from the same kitchen.

I'm looking forward to having dinner at Seven Wives sometime soon. Thanks for the report.

Best regards,

I stepped into Seven Wives yesterday for a quick boba stop and noticed it has been updated... not sure when this happened or if its been a while (I havent been on this side of Wentworth in several months.)

It looks great - however it doesnt appear the size of the dining area has changed. The layout of the register/boba bar is now on the right side of the front door with a shiny new stainless steel look along that side of the wall.

What struck me as odd was the price of the boba... has it increased? Menu card notes $2.50.... yet we were charged $3.85?? (and it was a pineapple boba) At that point we were in a hurry and didnt feel it was worth disputing a dollar.