Chinese | Eating in Chicago

Hello Everyone,

I am well aware that I haven’t updated my blog in a very long time and I am very sorry for that. I am going to use the excuse that we are currently in a recession and I have been eating at home more often.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I just stayed home and invited some friends over and I cooked my first turkey! The turkey came out better than expected. Everyone said it was delicious and I am pretty proud of myself 🙂

Also during Thanksgiving break, we discovered a wonderful Szechuan restaurant in Arlington Heights called Asian Bistro. Our friends recommended the place and when I heard the name of the restaurant, I wasn’t impressed. The name just didn’t ooze “awesome Chinese food.” They all gave the place rave reviews, so we decided to give the place a chance.

The first thing I noticed when I walked in was that it was quite crowded and all the customers were Asian, which is a good sign. We ordered two cold dishes to start off: FuQiFeiPian (spicy sliced intestines) and KouShuiJi (spicy chicken). Don’t let the redness of the chicken dish scare you…it isn’t THAT spicy.

Next we ordered some main courses: ShuiZhuYu (spicy fish in oil), GanBianSiJiDou (green beans), and XiangGanChaoRouSi (tofu stir fry with pork). The two latter ones were not spicy at all.

Everyone that knows me knows that I cannot eat spicy foods. Even though some of these dishes sound and look spicy, I was able to handle it; I just needed to have a constant supply of water and rice. I really enjoyed the spicy fish, but I had to be careful to make sure I didn’t pick up any pieces of fish that were covered with the spice mix. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed the spicy dishes more than the non-spicy dishes.

I also want to note that the spiciness of Szechuan food is different than curry and jalapeno. Szechuan spicy is very aromatic and slightly numbing so when I eat Szechuan food, I have the burning sensation in my mouth, but it also tickles my taste buds. It’s as if my taste buds were set on fire and they were enjoying it.

Overall, Asian Bistro is a very good authentic Szechuan restaurant. It’s too bad it’s located all the way in Arlington Heights. The service is very typical of a Chinese restaurant and the prices are very fair. It is about 10 minutes east from Woodfield mall, so if you are ever out there shopping, consider dropping by and giving it a chance.

There are a lot of things that I love in this world; for example, my girlfriend, my parents, football, and food. Now, “food” is a very broad term. Within “I love food” I can say that I love Chinese food, meat, buffets, and sauces. When you start to compound things that I love together, things start to get exciting, just like last weekend.

After doing some hiking in Naperville last weekend, a group of 10 of us went to Chinatown to Mandarin Kitchen for hotpot.

For those who are unfamiliar with hotpot…it is just a pot boiling broth and you throw in raw meat, seafood, vegetables, noodles, and anything else that can be boiled. Once everything cooks in the boiling broth, you dip the food in sauce and consume as much as you can. Best part? It is all you can eat! For all of you that are keeping score, that covers Chinese food, meat, buffet, and sauce… enough said.

There are two main kinds of broth that you can pick from when at a hotpot place: spicy and non-spicy. Most places will also serve a combination where they put a divider in the pot and half if spicy and half is non-spicy. I do not enjoy the feeling of burning flames in my mouth (and I was the only one at the table who felt that way), so we had to order the combination broth.

Can you tell which side is the spicy side?

To order at Mandarin Kitchen, they give you a sheet of paper with all the different food they offer and you just mark what you want and how much of it you want.

We ordered a lot of meats and vegetables. For meat, they offer lamb, beef, pork, chicken, squid, fish and shrimp balls, and tripe. Vegetables include bok choy, cabbage, turnip, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, tofu, and much more.

Once the broth started to boil, we dumped all the food we could into the pot without having it overflow. You want to keep a close eye on the meat you put in. Meats tend to cook rather quickly and you don’t want it to sit in the boiling hot broth for too long or else it will overcook and get chewy.

Doesn't that just make your mouth water?

Once the food cooks, the battle begins. When a person has determined that the food is cooked and ready to eat, everyone in the table is going to want to get into the action. There will be five to six spoons digging in the pot at one time trying to grab all the food they can. Whatever you can find, you claim as your own. For the unfortunate hungry people that did not get any food this round, they dump more raw food into the pot and hope for better luck next time. (Okay, I may have exaggerated a little… the fight for food isn’t that bad. Everyone should have no problem getting food.)

The sauce that you dip your food in is quite simple. There are three different types of sauce (peanut sauce, garlic with sesame oil, and satay sauce) and you can combine these three in any way you want. Personally, I mix all three together.

Once you run low on food, call for a waitress and ask for another sheet and order more! We went through at least three or four rounds before we called it quits. Don’t be alarmed when you look at the mess you made on the table…it is supposed to look that way after eating hot pot. If you didn’t make a mess, that just means you didn’t enjoy hot pot to the fullest.

The aftermath...

The aftermath...

The price for hot pot at Mandarin Kitchen is reasonable (16 dollars per person for all you can eat). A little Chinatown secret (this goes for most restaurants in Chinatown); if you pay in cash, they usually will waive the tax on your bill. But do not assume that they will do this, always inform the waitress or owner that you are paying in cash and if it’s okay to get the tax waived. Mandarin Kitchen is a great place to go with friends to have a good time; just make sure you go hungry!