Perhaps it stems from being in the Midwest, but Chicago is perpetually fighting the perception that it is less sophisticated than its coastal counterparts, namely New York and San Fran/LA. Heck, one of the city's prominent nicknames is even "The Second City," with the implication that we are always struggling to reach the top. This aura certainly extends to Chicago's Asian offerings, as the city's Chinatowns are nowhere near the size and development of NY or SF. However, despite the lack of large, concentrated ethnic enclaves, Chicago does have a number of high notes in cuisine, if you choose with discrimination.
One foodie favorite in particular is Tony Hu's triumvirate of
Lao restaurants, each with a focus on a particular Chinese province. I dined at
Lao Sze Chuan 老四川, his flagship restaurant, a couple months ago with Jen, and it was quite good, though we had to share a table with another party, college dining-hall style. Just this past March, Hu opened up sister restaurants Lao Shanghai and Lao Beijing, in the same shopping plaza as the original. The initial reviews were mediocre, which is often the case for new restaurants, but since then, things seem to be running smoother. So, last night, I dropped in on Lao Beijing with Katherine to scope it out. We were greeted by an thick imposing door with a metal ring knocker, something out of an imperial castle. Interesting choice, so far.
There are two problems that perenially plague Chinese restaurants. The first is poor service. A harried waitstaff coupled with mediocre English skills often mean that meals feel like an imposition on the kitchen. As I said before, we ended up splitting a table on a previous visit to Lao Sze Chuan, which lead to some confusion over who had ordered what dishes. I was also nervous because Katherine has a nut allergy, and it can be difficult to explain this to servers if they have poor English. Much to my relief, our server had almost unaccented English, and readily assured us that there would be no traces of nuts in our food. The rest of the evening passed unintrusive (or somewhat lax) service, though we were able to flag down help as needed. So, no complaints here.
The second problem you often face is a menu the length of
Ulysses. Lao Beijing was no exception, with line after line of densely packed entree items. This serves mostly to overwhelm diners, and for me, it makes the food all start to sound homogenous. Furthermore, it's damn near impossible to execute hundreds of menu items well with consistency. I will continue praying for the day that Chinese restaurants pare down their offerings and give us more choice by providing fewer choices.
At first glance, the menu looked fairly familiar, and in fact, listed most of the items on the Lao Sze Chuan menu. There was an additional section of Beijing specialties though, and after not too much thought, we opted for the infamous Peking duck, a 3-course meal for $30 between the two of us. This was the first time I'd ordered this dish (though I've tried less-authentic versions elsewhere), and I wasn't disappointed. A holistic approach is taken to the preparation of the meal as every part of the duck is used. We began with a simple soup of napa, shiitake mushroom and tofu made with duck broth, which was rich in duck flavor and had small bits of floating duck as a teaser for more to come. The next course was a stir-fry of duck with scallions, carrot and bean sprouts over rice. At this point, I was nearing a full stomach, but then the final course arrived, the classic Peking duck presentation with duck slivers, vegetable garnishes, thin Chinese crepes and a hoisin-based sauce. There was even a tomato sliced into the shape of a bird on the side. Cute!
As I was valiantly chewing, I thought about how funny it was that we were basically eating tacos, albeit with radically different ingredients than those found in Mexican food. And for that matter, even an authentic
carne asada taco is a different species than one picked up from Taco Bell. The same goes with many other cross-cultural foods (tamale vs
zongzi, ravioli vs pierogi vs dumpling). I wonder, is it possible for me to go to grad school for a degree in food etymology?
Anyway, there were oodles of leftovers, which I will be savoring for the next week. Lao Beijing's Peking Duck: a five-star experience.
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