Ben Pao

Scoff all you will--but I'm prepared to make a bold statement:

If you moved Ben Pao from its high-rent location, removed all the glitzy decor, put it into a small neighborhood storefront somewhere, magically erased people's knowledge that it's a Rich Melman place, and kept the food exactly the same, people would rave about it as a find.

I had lunch there the other day with a couple of pals. We had the Crispy Spiced Calamari, and a noodle dish with chicken, a shrimp-with-pineapple dish, and the Wrinkled String Beans--and all were really, really good. "Authentic"? I have no friggin' idea! But recognizably Asianesque, and (the only thing that matters) darn good eatin'.

i think its great too and i love the decor

the 7 flavor beef is one of my favorite dishes

I've always been fond of the Scallops -- in fact when I've eaten there with more than one friend, we'll order 2 orders of them because they are so darn good.

A while back they started featuring soups and hadn't really done that up to that point and I remember a really great icky afternoon in winter when I ordered one of their chicken-broth based soups and I swear it kept me from getting a cold this winter. It was flavorful and yummy and they give you a big dang bowl of it. Totally value for your dollar.

Their desserts are a little bizarro. But heck...who ever gets a decent dessert in a Chinese restaurant?

s

riddlemay wrote:Scoff all you will--but I'm prepared to make a bold statement:

If you moved Ben Pao from its high-rent location, removed all the glitzy decor, put it into a small neighborhood storefront somewhere, magically erased people's knowledge that it's a Rich Melman place, and kept the food exactly the same, people would rave about it as a find.

Riddlemay,

Scoff I will.

More like move Ben Pao the suburbs, stick a couple of huge iron horses in front of the place and call it P.F. Chang's.

Anyway, Ben Pao is not in a storefront, it's downtown Chicago, costs $15, with tip, to park and is overpriced, compared to the Suburban Chinese/American places it emulates, by 30%. Don't get me wrong, the food is edible, but, then again, so is P.F. Chang's.

Enjoy,
Gary (who wonders why there aren't 8-9 Ben Pao outposts. Seems to me Vegas, Scottsdale and Newport Beach are crying out for Ben Pao. )

G Wiv wrote:Don't get me wrong, the food is edible, but, then again, so is P.F. Chang's.

I've been to P.F. Chang's, I know P.F. Chang's, and Ben Pao, sir, is no P.F. Chang's.

stick a couple of huge iron horses in front of the place

Here's the kind of discovery a four year old makes. Go knock on one of those "iron" horses sometime.

Fiberglass.

There's something symbolic in that, I can't quite place it...

Seriously, those places do actually outclass a lot of Mom and Pop Chinese by using fresh, high quality ingredients, but I find them invariably blandly sauced and spiced; they just don't got the funk.

riddlemay wrote:I've been to P.F. Chang's, I know P.F. Chang's, and Ben Pao, sir, is no P.F. Chang's.

Riddlemay,

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree. I've been to Ben Pao 5-6 times over the years, P.F. Chang's only once about a month ago.

I did not make a systematic comparison of menu offerings, but my general impression was, and I mentioned it to my wife while we were eating, is P.F. Chang's and Ben Pao were similar in many regards.

That said, I'm more than prepared to defer to your greater familiarity with both P.F. Chang's and Ben Pao.

Enjoy,
Gary

G Wiv wrote:That said, I'm more than prepared to defer to your greater familiarity with both P.F. Chang's and Ben Pao.

I'm sure that's supposed to be a "good-natured" slam (since who else but a yahoo would be familiar with either restaurant, right?), and I'll take it in a similar good nature, while recognizing it for what it is.

Moving right along to Mike G's comment, I agree that the lack of kick is a demerit (although I feel Ben Pao does a good job with the more subtle, non-pepper-category herbs and spices--and probably a rather better job of this than they're generally given credit for). In my mind, the presence on the table of "chili sauce" (or whatever is the right Asian nomenclature for it--yes, I've revealed myself once again to be a know-nothing yahoo!) is Ben Pao's answer to the objection. It lets you make the food as hot as you want. I know there are more subtle and varied ways to achieve this in the cooking, but when you take into account Ben Pao's virtues (noted by Mike G), it gets them off the hook for the lack of hot, I feel.

riddlemay wrote:I'm sure that's supposed to be a "good-natured" slam (since who else but a yahoo would be familiar with either restaurant, right?), and I'll take it in a similar good nature, while recognizing it for what it is.

Riddlemay,

Why is that a slam? Your office could a 1/2-block from Ben Pao and you go there for lunch a couple of times a month. P.F. Chang's might be your sweet Aunt Bessie'ss, who lives in Northbrook, favorite Chinese restaurant and you kindly accompany her.

Me, my 94-year-old grandmother, who lives in Milwaukee, loves Olive Garden, I love my grandmother, every once in a while we go for lunch.

Anyhoo, if you like Ben Pao, well, then you like Ben Pao.

Enjoy,
Gary

*In truth I did mean it as the most gentle of tweaks, though most certainly not in a mean spirited fashion

Sorry I misread your subtext, G Wiv.

Ben Pao opened, I think, around the time Jimmy Wong's closed, and at first I enjoyed the food, service and ambience. There was a duck dish I really liked. But, then I had bad service several visits in a row, wrote a letter documenting my experience and never returned. I think it's been six years now.

Granted, Ben Pao might not be the most "authentic" Chinese restaurant. But, it is does deliver very good cuisine served in a very nice and elegant atmosphere with well appointed service. Personally, I love the food and find it much better than PF Changs. It might not have the esoteric ingredients that a great find Chinese place in CHina Town might have but then that place wont have some of the redeeming qualities that Ben Pao has either...

Not to say one is better than the other, but I prefer Ben Pao.

Snark wrote:Personally, I love the food and find it much better than PF Changs. It might not have the esoteric ingredients that a great find Chinese place in CHina Town might have but then that place wont have some of the redeeming qualities that Ben Pao has either...

This statement gets to the crux of it, by implicitly bringing up the question of category.

Ben Pao is widely perceived as belonging to the same category as P.F. Chang's. My contention is that this is an error, and that it is more accurately viewed as belonging to the same category as a good restaurant in Chinatown.

The first (valid, but superficial) categorization is based on externals, like decor, location, being operated by a large "restaurant group," etc. The second (more meaningful, I claim) categorization is based on the food.

People have a "mental taxonomy" that places restaurants as belonging to particular groups of species and genera, because this is a convenient and necessary shorthand. The food that went into my mouth earlier this week convinced me that Ben Pao belongs in a different place in this taxonomy than many have put it.

This is not to deny that some (like G Wiv) categorize Ben Pao as mediocre based on the food. With them, I truly do have simply to "agree to disagree." I also wouldn't claim that Ben Pao has "the best Chinese food in the city," or any such thing, because I haven't tried every Chinese restaurant in the city. My polemic is aimed rather at those (many, I feel) who have put Ben Pao in the category of P.F. Chang's because of a mental shorthand and not because of an evaluation of the food actually served.

I think that Ben Pao is, in many ways, very much in the same category as P.F. Chang's, in that it's trying to be trendy, stylish Chinese that isn't really Chinese, but draws from many Chinese techniques and flavor palettes while also liberally incoporating other Asian cuisines and some European influences. In terms of style, I think they're extremely similar.

The difference, in my estimation, is in the level of quality.

Grant me a little leeway if I seem a touch off, since it's been a while since I've eaten at either, but my impression from eating at the two is that Chang's is very much a mass-market restaurant that dumbs down a lot of items to achieve mass appeal. It certainly isn't going to do it for G Wiv (or me), but the aforementioned Aunt Bessie may think it's the bees' knees. Ben Pao, on the other hand, is like most Lettuce restaurants, in that while you're never going to have an exceptional or enlightening or amazing culinary experience there, what you will get is a good meal, well-prepared with quality ingredients, and you won't have to deal (usually) with condescending service.

So yes, I agree with Gary in that Ben Pao and Chang's are absolutely in the same category. I think they're totally from the same mold. I just think Ben Pao is significantly better, and whereas you'd have to drag me into a Chang's, I'd happily tag along for a dinner at Ben Pao.

To address one other issue raised here, that of Ben Pao vs. the authenticity and deliciousness of Chinatown, while I understand the desire to make that comparison as good, authentic places are underappreciated by the mass-market, I don't think it has anything to do with the subject at hand. It seems to me that comparing Ben Pao to Lao Sze Chuan, for example, is almost as ridiculous as comparing Ben Pao to Lazo's Tacos. Ben Pao and LSC, despite both being "Chinese" restaurants, bear almost no resemblance to each other. I think the key, however, is that I don't see LSC as superior to Ben Pao because of its authenticity, but simply because I think it's a better restaurant. To be clear, however, while LSC certainly is far, far more interesting to me, and while I'll choose to eat at LSC nine times out of ten given the choice, I believe quite firmly that there IS a place for restaurants like Ben Pao, and I think this is the point that riddlemay is trying to make. Because a Chinese restaurant is inauthentic and trendy and funky and bears little or no resemblance to actual Chinese doesn't automatically mean that it isn't a good restaurant. And I heartily agree.

There's more than one way to "frame the debate," and your way is as good as mine, dmnkly. Sounds like whichever framing you choose, we come out about the same place.

http://www.suntimes.com/business/649949 ... oming.html

Ben Pao closing September 10th.

The impending closure of Ben Pao is one of the great American tragedies. I can't say I didn't see it coming, though. Up until the end, It always felt like the mid-1990s in there. When they never fixed the amazing waterfall columns and pond, I knew the restaurant's days were numbered.

While some food snobs deride it, Ben Pao was an prime example of an important subset of Chinese cuisines: ersatz Amero-Chinese. The restaurant redefined the Crab Rangoon with its signature Chopstix. Every single morsel of the standout sesame chicken, deftly fried, was all-white meat and toothsome. Seven-flavor beef was so savory and unctuous that it seemed like the MSG faeries imported it to the restaurant from across the Pacific. For this former San Francisco-based Chinese restaurant snob, Ben Pao made me miss places like Eric's, Alice's, and Eliza's a lot less.

Ben Pao's closure is the another instance in a disturbing trend, the loss of a stalwart LEYE restaurant for a project by the Melman scions. I loved Brasserie Jo. While the new place looks great, Paris Club smells and the only good dish, the beef tartare, is the one carry over from the old restaurant. What a loss. Now Ben Pao is gone and we get some lousy sushi or italian concept. If the Melman boys can keep one thing from Ben Pao in the new concept and it can't be any of the aforementioned menu items or the cherry bomb shrimp, I hope it will be the after meal presentation of the special dessert easel!

Fans of Everest, Scoozi!, Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba!, and Mon Ami Gabi better get their fill while they can before they are converted to supper clubs where the importance of the former portion of the concept is subjugated entirely by the latter.

Still mourning the loss of Tucci Milan, Papagus, Hat Dance, and Fritz That's It.

Now Ben Pao is gone and we get some lousy sushi or italian concept.

Based on the menu at Hub 51 and the response to Paris Club, I think it's more likely that we get a lousy sushi and Italian concept.

Everytime I went into Ben Pao it stunk like sewage. Never made it to a table.

kitty wrote:Everytime I went into Ben Pao it stunk like sewage. Never made it to a table.

In fairness, sometimes the food tastes different than it smells.

I actually had lunch here two days ago -- hadn't been in a very long time. It was pleasant enough; the scallops have always been something I enjoyed and the egg roll, while nowhere near "Chinese" was tasty. The ginger shrimp dumplings were very tasty too. This place has always been a decent place to eat -- it's never going to blow the lid off Chinese cuisine but it's definitely, with deference to the argument up thread, much better than PF Changs.

I'll tell you what was crazy, though. Pricing. Wow. $19 for 5 scallops. Crazy crazy crazy. I usually want to share my plates in a Chinese restaurant -- family style and tasting many diffferent dishes is part of the fun of eating Chinese food. But these plates were so small, even for lunch, that I really found myself getting angry about it. I wasn't even paying. We had chow fun which wasn't a bad rendition of it but there were like 10 noodles. Ridiculous. Maybe in retrospect they are trying not to order any new supplies. <grin>

Italian sushi, eh? Will that be rolls of sardines wrapped in prosciutto with a risotto?