boudreaulicious wrote:yet another website without days/hours they're open...ugh!!!
Next week I can do Monday (not sure if they're open), Thursday or an early lunch on Friday (would have to be done by 1:00).

Anyone else?

Just to keep the thread uncluttered, I think we should move the event planning over to the Events forum.

Would someone be so kind as to start a thread over there?

Thanks,

=R=

I'm glad to see my recent post sparked renewed interest in this place. The hot n spicy wontons are outta this world and the fried rice is the best available in the suburbs IMO. My 10 year old declared the beef fried rice the best he's ever had in his decade on this planet. I'd love to join you all for lunch during the week. Alas, I work in the Loop.

Wow, can't believe there was a place this good so close to where I used to live. I would have been here all the time if I had known. Luckily the stars aligned, and I ended up going home for the day and took my mom and sister out to dinner to give this place a try. The place was packed tonight, and though there were definitely some service issues, the food was spectacular.

You guys weren't kidding. There were so many things I wanted to try, so we ended up ordering way more than the three of us could hope to eat (I think the waiter actually started to laugh when we kept listing all the things we wanted to order).

Twice Cooked Fish was great. I've always loved twice cooked pork, but after all the talk about the fish (and my sister's dislike of pork) we opted for this instead. Wow, it was great. The fish was cooked perfectly and had a wonderful texture. (Haven't been to Lao Hunan yet, but if the tilapia is anything like this, I gotta get there pronto.) Leeks had a nice chew. And there was an acceptable amount of beaniness. Only two things I guess I could nitpick about: I wish it was a bit more beany (just because I love preserved black beans and bean paste) and the fish did seem a bit too salty (come to think of it, more bean paste probably would make that worse). But otherwise, the dish was fantastic.

Boiled beef was hot (they may have toned it down for us, but that's what my mom and sister would have preferred anyway), but not overbearingly so, and the 'ma la' was fragrant and pronounced. My sister has always hated when I've put hua jiao in food I've cooked at home, and long since sworn off the stuff. Yet when administered by the more deft hand at AB, she fell in love with it like I did long ago. Goes to show how great the dish and place was that it could turn a 'ma' averse person to a die-hard fan.

Went with the sliced potato. Never my favorite thing, but every since eating it in China, it has this feeling that's both unique and nostalgic for me. Potato was good, super oily (though it almost always is), but a bit more done than I'd like.

Had the shrimp fried rice. Good, but I don't know if it was the best I've ever had or anything. All in all, it was a great meal (Twice Cooked Fish and Boiled Beef were by far the standouts), and I was so happy to bring my family an authentic and delicious Sichuan meal. My sister once broke my heart by telling me she didn't like all this 'authentic' Chinese food I ordered and would rather eat at Panda Express. But she liked this place. Thank God.

We'll be back.

Hey, I was there too tonight with my son, who is going back to school tomorrow.

Szechuan wontons were great, with a pile of minced garlic to stir into the sauce; we made sure we kept the bowl of sauce in case they needed a pick-up, but the only thing bland was the rice.

Lamb two ways was fantastic: human style had lots of onion and sesame oil, reminding me off a dish I had as a child, but not since. Their version off lamb with cumin is a little richer than LSC, I think, and plenty of heat.

Yu Shiang Eggplant was also delicious.

Service was definitely a problem. We didn't get the hot and sour soup until after the mains, and it was served with plastic teaspoons. The fork I asked for (for the rice) showed up after we'd finished eating.

But I'll be back hopefully later this week for lunch (go to the events page)

My wife, two young sons, and I spent a long day at the Arlington Park Race track yesterday afternoon followed immediately by a little league baseball game that ran past 7pm. Exhausted and not wanting to make dinner, my 7 year old son and I conspired to get dinner from Asian Bistro. Boy oh boy, did we hit a grand slam with the family as Asian Bistro totally delivered a fantastic and satisfying meal for us. Seeing as my boys had school this morning and it was getting late, we ordered light - 3 orders of spicy Szechuan wontons, chive pancakes, don don noodles, and upon entering Asian Bistro to pick up our order, I called an audible of Szechuan pickles. Everything was out of this world delicious. This is by far my family's favorite Asian restaurant in our area. We're addicted to the spicy Szechuan wontons. Really who wouldn't be? But the star of the night at least for me was the Szechuan pickles. We'd never had them before and I ordered them solely because of the praise they got on this forum. Wow - fresh, crunchy, spicy, cooling and delicious. I couldn't stop eating these. Is it bad that I'm about to have them for breakfast right now?

As I picked up my order, the kind elderly matriarach of the family looked at my sunburnt Irish skin and said without hesitation, "You really know how to order Szechuan." With that unexpected compliment, I left proudly with my head held high knowing it wouldn't be long until I was back. This place is beyond great. It didn't hurt having my cute 7 year old son turn on the charm for all the employees while we waited for our food. He left with over a dozen fortune cookies.

Stopped by here again today, which was my 2nd time in a month after not going for two yrs or so. They do a great job. The Sichuan and non dishes are all really good. It makes it easy to bring all types of eaters here.

Today among the usual dishes mentioned here I had their fried rice for the first time and it was some of the best I've had. Great flavor and texture with plenty of breath of the wok. Another non Sichuan dish was the sesame combination. Chicken and shrimp done in the typical "sesame" style but better. While the sauce was a tad sweet the shrimp and chicken were cooked dead perfect and had great texture. Lastly today was the scallion pancakes which were different than ones I'd had previously. They were fried nicely for a crisp exterior and chewy dense interior.

Only thing I have to remember is to really stress I like spicy when ordering Sichuan dishes but that's my only minor quibble. I'd like to see this place get a bit more talk here and hopefully be in discussion for a GNR in the future.

Does anyone have any idea how they make this addicting food??

Mod Note: Threads merged. The inquiry is about the delicious Szechuan Pickles @ Asian Bistro.

Wondering about this place?

Yes!

For the second week in a row, I found myself in the Arlington Heights area. After mediocre ramen last week, I was much happier with this meal. As generally accounted for above, it's all very good (at least the eight or nine dishes or so I tried).

Making it that much more enjoyable, the staff was super friendly and accomodating. They gave it a stab to translate for us, the daily specials. Then, they worked to find dishes for the non-meat eating Condiment Queen, including something I've never tried, a dish of very thin sliced fresh lotus root.

I'd go here again without having to be in Arlington Heights, or should I say, because of this place, I might be in Arlington Heights more.

After a great lunch today with three friends, I too will be spending more time in Arlington Heights...

We had bom bom chicken, szechuan pickles, sliced tendon with roasted chili vinaigrette, sauteed lamb with cumin, szechuan string beans, chengdu mien and gai lan with crushed garlic. All were expertly seasoned and prepared, but the pickles and string beans stood out the most for me.

An unassuming place with a nice service and staff who are very willing to help you pick out great dishes from the -as yet- untranslated menu. I have an app on my iphone called Waygo that translates Mandarin and Japanese to English that was very helpful - the free version translates a maximum of ten items per day, the full app is $6 - no internet connection neccesary. Our waitress vouched for the accuracy of the translations and hoped that there would be an English to Mandarin soon...

The owner mentioned to me that they are extremely busy on Fridays and all during the weekend and I believe her; when we arrived at around 1:15 nearly all the tables were full

had a dinner for 11 on Saturday night, thankfully some on the table were willing to share & as a bonus they were lamb fanatics like myself, so we ordered the 3 of the 4 lamb dishes on the menu

ma la lamb - lots of Szechuan peppers & shredded bamboo shoot
sha cha lamb - served with a Taiwan style BBQ sauce = close to teriyaki
lamb w/cumin - Szechuan peppers, bell peppers, jalapeno, onion & cumin

Lamb w/cumin is still my favorite lamb dish here.

Starter of Szechuan wontons were as good as always. The scallion pancake was just ok, thin & dry compared to the pancakes one gets at Korean places.

One dinner attendee was not a fan of "Chinese" & her go to dish was egg foo young. This dish was passed around as the person didn't eat very much & didn't want it to go to waste. The sauce was more soy/sweet based than the normal brown gravy base but the surprise hit was how light and delicious the egg patties were, very good, this dish quickly disappeared.

Interesting info, Willie. I love lamb dishes too, and Sweet Baboo always orders egg fu young. And while we wait for Yu's Mandarin to open on Route 60 in Vernon Hills, no other Chinese food option around here seems appealing. Guess I'll need to organize a multistip errand run to Arlington Heights soon.

My most recent dinner at Asian Bistro was in 2012 with two Filipino employees of mine. My most vivid remembrance was that the food was excellent, that we ordered way too much, and the 90# Asian lady with us ate both of us guys under the table.

With a hankering for sichuan, and not wanting to brave traffic in the Old Orchard area (LSC Skokie is a similar distance), we had a very good meal at Asian Bistro.

We'd wanted the Thai- or possibly Korean-sounding chicken wings, but they were out of them (and interestingly, they're not listed on the online menu). Instead we had the Szechuan Wonton (which aren't listed either). Quite nice sauce on these: we were pleased they didn't whisk the bowl away once it was emptied of wontons, as it made leftover rice quite tasty.

Lamb Twin Delight on the Signatures section of the menu is fantastic: Lamb with Cumin was nicely spicy, and I think a slightly better dish than the LSC version (I'm not pleased with LSC's scrawny little pieces of onion and bell pepper, for one -- this has more robust pieces of veg). The second dish is sauteed tenderloin lamb, with lots of sesame oil and slices of onion -- it's the dish I've been remembering from my young years at Northbrook's long-gone "Mandarin Garden" as "Beef with White Onion" (except, obviously, lamb). Rich, oily, sweet from the onions... I wish I knew what else was in this, because it looks simple to duplicate, but I've never quite gotten it right at home.

The Honey Glazed Shrimp (aka Mayonnaise Shrimp, Lemon Walnut Shrimp, etc.) is one of SueF's favorites. This was tasty, but a bit wet compared to other versions: they were served over lettuce, which was pretty much drenched in the sauce (which made a decent salad dressing, but still).

Service is still a bit of an issue: we could not get attention to get some water, and collecting the check was rather slow too. They're doing very good business on a Sunday night, but a little more attention to the customers would be nice.

JoelF wrote:Service is still a bit of an issue: we could not get attention to get some water, and collecting the check was rather slow too. They're doing very good business on a Sunday night, but a little more attention to the customers would be nice.

yeah, forgot to mention that in my recent post, good wait staff know how to "check back" with the table to make sure anything else isn't needed (drinks, more water, another order, etc). Wait staff here definitely do not check back.

bummer, I've been through the thread and none of the menu links posted by folks work. With my admittedly poor searching skills am unable to come up with the Chinese language menu for Asian Bistro.


FYI, for those interested, there is an LTH dinner on Sept 12 planned, all are welcome: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=43852

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Sweet Willie wrote:bummer, I've been through the thread and none of the menu links posted by folks work. With my admittedly poor searching skills am unable to come up with the Chinese language menu for Asian Bistro.

I think they've combined them -- at least there's Chinese in the URLs

Asian Bistro Menu

And I see Szechuan dumplings under "Classical Snacks"

Using my google-Fu, I don't see another menu -- searching on the site for 紅油抄手 only yields the Classical Snacks page.

Just back from a really delicious dinner with some other LTH members.

Our group dined on (fellow diners, please keep me honest if I've forgotten anything)

wontons in chili oil
Black pepper ribs
Spinach in ginger sauce
Szechuan pickeled veggetables
Chengdu dried beef with Szechuan chilies
Yu Hsiang eggplant
Chengdu smoked duck
Ma Po Tofu
Szechuan green beans
La Zi Chicken
Shrimp w/shell on
Hunan Lamb

I really enjoyed all the different vegetable dishes, although the eggplant was not up to par (that being Ed's Potsticker House version).

Dried beef, La Zi Chicken & Ma Po tofu had lots of good ma la going on.

Duck had a very heavy smoke, I think I'll pass on duck next visit.

A table next to ours ordered a whole fish Szechuan chilies and it looked delicious but our group had lots of food and I know I rolled out a very pleased diner.

It was an excellent Dinner! I think the "official" name of the shrimp dish was Golden Shrimp, and it was a preparation I had never seen before. It was kind of like salt & pepper shrimp, but there wasn't all that much pepper, and the shrimp were very moist inside a super crunchy, batterlike coating.

Sweet Willie wrote:Just back from a really delicious dinner with some other LTH members.

Our group dined on (fellow diners, please keep me honest if I've forgotten anything)

wontons in chili oil
Black pepper ribs
Spinach in ginger sauce
Szechuan pickeled veggetables
Chengdu dried beef with Szechuan chilies
Yu Hsiang eggplant
Chengdu smoked duck
Ma Po Tofu
Szechuan green beans
La Zi Chicken
Shrimp w/shell on
Hunan Lamb

I really enjoyed all the different vegetable dishes, although the eggplant was not up to par (that being Ed's Potsticker House version).

Dried beef, La Zi Chicken & Ma Po tofu had lots of good ma la going on.

Duck had a very heavy smoke, I think I'll pass on duck next visit.

A table next to ours ordered a whole fish Szechuan chilies and it looked delicious but our group had lots of food and I know I rolled out a very pleased diner.

Thanks for putting this together, Willie. I really enjoyed the meal and it had been a hella long time since I'd last been to Asian Bistro (May '08). Given that it only took 30 minutes at rush hour from Deerfield to Arlington Heights, I can easily see doing this again on a weeknight. Overall, the food was at Chinatown level, though some was above it and some a bit below it.

My favorites were the pickled vegetables, the wontons in chili oil (effectively Chengdu Dumplings) the Ma Po Tofu and the Chengdu dried beef with Szechuan chilies.

One note on your list - those Shrimp with Shell On were called Golden Shrimp, iirc and they were kind of a cross between Dry Chili Prawns from LSC and Salt & Pepper Shrimp from LTH.

=R=

On 12 September 2017, seven LTH'ers assembled for a menu-exploring dinner at Asian Bistro restaurant, in a strip mall on the southwest corner of Golf and Arlington Heights Roads in Arlington Heights, IL.
To cut to the summary, most of the items ordered were quite good. The spice | heat level requested was normal | average, and it was provided. I believe the two entrees ordered which were felt not as savory as the others were the Chengu smoked duck and the Yu Hsiang eggplant. My favorite was, intriguingly, the Ma Po Tofu (I do not classify myself as vegetarian | vegan, but I went for seconds and thirds on this.).
Here are the images I took of our entrees. [I am testing another free image uploading service. As far as I know, it does not stick any NSFW images on pages where the content was declared 'family safe'.]

Just so there's no confusion (this was discussed on a recent Event thread), I wanted mention that Asian Bistro is not byo. They have what appears to be a full bar and definitely offer beer and wine, as well. There was plenty of Tsing Tao beer flowing at the tables next to us the other night.

=R=

I think the best dishes here are the pickles, cumin lamb, twice-cooked fish, and boiled fish. Most of the time, we just choose from those. Also very good: la zi chicken, string beans, fish with tofu; and from the appetizers: spicy wontons, tendon in chili oil (the five spice is not as good), and the husband and wife lung slices (or whatever they call fuqi feipian). Avoid the dan dan noodles. It's a humongous menu and there are for sure some clunkers on it, but with judicious ordering you can put together an outstanding meal.