Tony Hu selling most of his restaurants??

Forgive me if this has been posted elsewhere. We are at Lao Hunan right now and the server told us that her family has purchased the restaurant from Tony Hu. She said the name will change and the food will be from Sichuan province. She went on to add that he has sold hold his Chinatown restaurants except one. Another server, who I recognize from many prior visits, told me this is her last day here. I do not know if all the information is accurate but this is what I was told.

This CRAINS article from 02 Feb 2015-
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/ ... ao-beijing
Mentions his selling ONLY ONE
of his 11 restaurants "Lao Bejing"- to an employee.....but nothing of his selling off
his Empire!

Are you sure that you may have "misunderstood" the non-native speakers conversation?

Hi Hombre

No, there was no misunderstanding. Our server told us that her family had just purchased the restaurant from Tony Hu, and they are turning it into a Sichuan restaurant, to be called something like "Chef Bao Sichuan." They will paint over the current murals, and the staff no longer wears the Mao uniforms. There was a second server, who we have known since Hunan opened, who said that today is her last day there because of the change. The first woman, whose family is buying Lao Hunan, said that Tony Hu is selling all of his Chinatown restaurants but one.

There was no language barrier, I can assure you. That doesn't mean what she said is true (about selling all but one Chinatown restaurant), but that is what she said, and there was no misunderstanding (my partner was there as well and heard exactly the same thing I did. The woman was young and spoke very fine english).

Home to a couple of my favorite dishes, tai gan and dry chile fish filet. What's a a brother to do?

And the jade tofu!

http://chicago.eater.com/2015/2/16/8046 ... estaurants

Hi,

When we had the holiday party at Lao Szechuan in Skokie, there was a husband and wife who claimed to be the owners. When I asked if they were partners with Tony, they didn't quite offer an answer.

Since the food was largely the same as Lao Szechuan in Chinatown, I was happy with what was offered.

Regards,

Looks like Eater has confirmed it.

Hi- Somebody I know who is Chinese was in the Skokie restaurant just to pick up a menu last fall, and she told me that somebody there told her that they were not connected with the Evanston location whatever that means. They told her that the restaurants were owned by two different people.

Stopped in to Lao Hunan yesterday to ask about the timeline for changing the restaurant. Seems like they will keep the current menu for the next 2-3 weeks. So there is still a little time to get those favorites in before the switch!

Sadness...Lao Hunan is the only member of the empire, other than Lao Yu Ju for dim sum, that I really go to at this point. And there are SO many Sichuan/Szechuan spots around town. I don't profess to know how authentic their Hunan offerings are/were but as jazzfood noted above, there were definitely some dishes that I don't recall seeing anywhere else. If anyone wants to hit them for one last lunch with the hopes that the tai gan, jade tofu, crispy eggplant, dry chili fish, black bean chilis and pork with sour pickle are still what they were, I'm happy to organize.

Was there yesterday as well. Chef is gone, owner and staff are gone. No one knew anything, English included (which is fine w/me, but they had to call someone and put me on the phone so i could ask questions). The menu is there w/a new one as well. Hunan will be gone shortly.

On another note, seems like if the chef and owner are no longer affiliated w/a GNR, it needs to be re-examined as well.

Yes, we are keeping an eye on the situation. If the restaurant has significantly changed then it will be removed from the list of GNRs.

A few unique issues to deal with Mr. Sultan.

Based upon my last dim sum at Lao You Ju (which was terrific) and my fondness for many of the items at Lao Hunan, those are also the two Hu spots I'll miss.

That being said, I've been concerned for some time that Tony Hu's presence in Chinatown might have stifled some interest in opening competing restaurants. I obviously have no idea if my suspicions are correct -- time (and Chicago area diners's eating habits) will tell, but I'm hoping that we will ultimately benefit from a more diverse and unique offering of Chinese food in Chicago . . . I hope.

Yes, this creates an opening for a skilled person.......

I wouldn't start mourning the losses quite yet--while it certainly sounds like Lao Hunan may be going away, since the new owners are converting it to (yet another) Szechuan/Sichuan establishment, others in the Huniverse are already run by Tony "family" members and disciples--I believe Lao Yu Ju is one of those--so there may be minimal disruptions for them. We'll just have to wait and see.

If anyone is thinking of going to Lao Hunan for one last meal, don't bother. The menu is still primarily the same (they seem to have bought everthing in the restaurant - menus, awards on the wall, etc.) with a couple of items whited out with new menu items written over them. However, while the old items are still on the menu, they clearly aren't making them with the recipes that we're used to. It appeared that they were just looking at the pictures in the menu and reverse engineering them to try and make things look the same. Examples:
Old: The diced hunan chicken is cooked in a tin foil packet, basically steaming it with the sauce, and served with the foil. New: Fried dry chili chicken served on a piece of tin foil.
*The green chilis were basically just cooked chilis with a bunch of black beans sprinkled on top.
*Finally, the breading on the hot wok prawns, which used to have a delicious lightness and wonderful spice, was just plain, thick breading.

So, the menu is for all practical purposes, already gone.

bon2mic wrote:If anyone is thinking of going to Lao Hunan for one last meal, don't bother. The menu is still primarily the same (they seem to have bought everthing in the restaurant - menus, awards on the wall, etc.) with a couple of items whited out with new menu items written over them. However, while the old items are still on the menu, they clearly aren't making them with the recipes that we're used to. It appeared that they were just looking at the pictures in the menu and reverse engineering them to try and make things look the same. Examples:
Old: The diced hunan chicken is cooked in a tin foil packet, basically steaming it with the sauce, and served with the foil. New: Fried dry chili chicken served on a piece of tin foil.
*The green chilis were basically just cooked chilis with a bunch of black beans sprinkled on top.
*Finally, the breading on the hot wok prawns, which used to have a delicious lightness and wonderful spice, was just plain, thick breading.

So, the menu is for all practical purposes, already gone.

Just returned from dinner at Lao Hunan and agreed . . . go at your own risk. Lao Hunan is dead!

Jade tofu - the tofu was grainy and starting to disintegrate, as if it had been sitting in the refrigerator for weeks. The sauce was not the same either, and there was no cilantro. We didn't finish it.

A twice fried chicken dish tasted like it had been cooked in old oil, and unfortunately, that was about the only flavor in the dish. There were plenty of hot peppers, but none of the usual seasoned oil or other flavors.

Ground pork with sour bean - the pork was so overcooked and dry, the beans not cooked long enough, and barely any seasoning.

Stir fried lamb was perhaps the best item of the night, and at least decent.

The white rice was so clumpy and stuck together. I never expect great rice at Chinese restaurants, but this was just awful.

At the end of the meal, we were served some small cabbage dish that did not come close to resembling any complimentary cabbage I had been served there before. Again, bland.

Despite only a few tables filled, service was extraordinarily slow.

Overall, a bad meal and at this point if you visit Lao Hunan after reading this, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Another note about our dinner at Lao Hunan - we asked if they were planning to keep any of the current menu items (this was before we ordered when they were trying to push their new items on us...we should have gotten the hint) and their response was, "Yes, the orange chicken and kung pao." Again, we should have listened to our gut and taken this a sign to run away!

More info (need to register (free) to read whole article): http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/ ... ium=Social

BR wrote:More info (need to register (free) to read whole article): http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/ ... ium=Social

The duck service sounds fantastic!

Shit, I was really hoping for dry chili chicken for my birthday.

Pie Lady wrote:Shit, I was really hoping for dry chili chicken for my birthday.

Hi,

You can get it at Lao Sze Chuan still. He kept his location in Chinatown. The locations in Evanston and Skokie appear to be owned by others, though there is some arrangement (franchise?) with Tony.

Regards,

Made a visit to the new Michigan Ave location tonight. The peking duck is advertised extensively with a fish bowl work space in the middle of the restaurant where the pancakes are made fresh and you can see the duck roasting. Didn't try the duck tonight, but my order of pork with dry tofu and chives, moo shu chicken, orange beef, and water spinach was spot on (dinner with spice-averse friends). This is a great addition to River North.

Cathy2 wrote:

Pie Lady wrote:Shit, I was really hoping for dry chili chicken for my birthday.

The locations in Evanston and Skokie appear to be owned by others, though there is some arrangement (franchise?) with Tony.

Regards,

The Downer's Grove one too, apparently. Mother's not going to like this.

The Skokie location seems to have its own independent website up -

http://www.skokielaoszechuan.com/

. . . and here's Evanston - http://www.evanstonlaoszechuan.com/

turkob wrote:Made a visit to the new Michigan Ave location tonight. The peking duck is advertised extensively with a fish bowl work space in the middle of the restaurant where the pancakes are made fresh and you can see the duck roasting.

Good news/bad news about the new Michigan Ave. restaurant.The good news is they appear to have the chilis in black bean sauce from Lao Hunan on the menu.The bad news is that the service there was horrendous tonight. We had a Gilt City coupon for a 7 course duck dinner. We had called and made a reservation with notice that we were going to be eating the dinner. We waited over 30 minutes for our first course - the spicy cabbage that is given for free at Chinatown and springrolls - while the table next to us who arrived 15 minutes after us were served their duck. I complained to the manager and his reasoning was that the other table had called and preordered their duck service - which I had as well. The Peking duck finally arrived and was delicious. Followed by small servings of duck friend rice and szechuan green beans (that had a great crunchy, funky topping). Then our dessert was brought. We asked where our soup was - and the server looked at us mystified. She was going to go find out why we missed that part of the dinner but by now we'd been there for so long we just wanted to get out and told her to forget it. She offered to bring us a free drink, which we declined. Oddly she could have taken the drink we already had off the bill, but she didn't

The tables are also uncomfortably close together. The table next to us on the other side ordered one Peking Duck for one person and a beef entree for the other. They delivered the entree and the two people sat there for 10+ minutes waiting for the duck. Nobody mentioned to them that the meals would come out at different times. They eventually sent their other entree back since it had gotten cold while they waited.

So, the food we got when we got it, but the service really needs some work.

Prominent chef Tony Hu, who owns several Chinese restaurants in Chicago and the suburbs, was charged Friday in federal court with intentionally withholding state taxes by underreporting receipts paid in cash.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... story.html