Chinatown
Night and Day: 24-hour dining on the South Side
This time last year, the Weekly came out with its first guide to 24-hour restaurants on the South Side. In that issue, we covered classics like Izola’s, Depot, and the original Maxwell Street Polish stands. We’re back this year with a few more selections from the South Side nightscape. From the welcoming diners of... »
Best of the South Side 2009: Chinatown
Chicago’s Chinatown lacks the characteristic bustle and grit of a major city Chinatown. The streets are broad and the sidewalks are crowded more with tourists than with old women pushing carts of chickens and bruised greens. This Chinatown is young; it developed around the intersection of Cermak and Wentworth when a red light district... »
Shanghai Comes to Chicago: Lao Shanghai dishes up timeless elegance
In general, Chinese restaurants put little stock in looking good, whatever the quality of the food they serve. Speaking with the sole (and vague) qualification of being Chinese myself, I suspect this is a simple reflection of the utilitarian preferences of Chinese diners, who seem to have an almost calculated disregard for such incidentals... »
Dour in the Streets: Millions of Dead Cops rise from the grave
When the Austin hardcore punk band the Stains played their first Los Angeles show in 1981, they were dismayed at the presence of another Stains on the bill, bringing to three the number of hardcore punk bands with that name. When Dicks bassist Buxf Parrot suggested “Millions of Dead Cops,” the now-former Texas Stains... »
Droves and Fishes: Lawrence’s Fisheries satisfies the masses with frogs’ legs and fried fish
Driving north on Canal Street near Chinatown, one is instinctively drawn to a towering sign that gleams yellow in the pale orange sky. It is not a pair of golden arches, but a rectangular display advertising Lawrence’s Fisheries, a beacon of light and a hub of activity in an otherwise deserted part of town... »
Umbrella Music: Europe comes to Chicago for an experimental jazz festival
The lights are dim in Berlin’s B-Flat club. A single room painted in shades of gray extends indefinitely past the bar. Fifteen-page drink menus lean against cloudy glass candleholders on constellations of small round tables. Tonight, the chic middle-aged couples, students, and bohemian types are packed six to the square meter. Eight-euro cocktails traverse... »
Best of the South Side 2008: Chinatown
Chicago’s Chinatown district has changed a substantial amount since the late 1800s and early 1900s, when the beginnings of a Chicago Chinatown were born. In the late 1800s, most of the Chinese immigrants in Chicago lived near Clark and Van Buren in downtown Chicago. However, Chinese-Americans faced substantial housing discrimination in Chicago, and established... »
“Country Food” for City People: Restaurateur Tony Hu injects authentic Chinese flavor into Chinatown
It began with his first taste of Smoked Tea Duck. The crispy fried skin, seasoned and infused with flavors of Sichuan pepper, camphor leaves, and black tea, created an urge to ask for a duck to go; he had to have more. Charlie Chaplin, in the company of the notable former Premier of the... »
