A few Chicago eats

Although I missed the meeting I mention below, we got to Chicago's Chinatown and ate at 重慶樓, 228 W. Cermak Rd., Chicago, IL 60616, 312-842-7818; I believe it's called "Double Li" in English; they have no English Google presence as of now. The other customers were almost all Chinese; always a good sign. The English menu looked pretty much like the Chinese menu, but I didn't make sure of the translations. We got the 蒜茸豆苗 Pea shoots in garlic sauce, 孜然羊肉 cumin lamb (meat was tough but tasty) and 潑辣魚片 spicy fish slices. The servings are pretty generous; we brought back the sauce from the fish. No charge for the rice. It looks like Lao Sze Chuan 老四川 has some competition!

At noon the next day we went to The Phoenix Restaurant 萬壽宮 2131 S. Archer Ave. 312-328-0848 for dimsum. It was OK, but not as good as it used to be; it's been so long that we've been to Chinatown that we didn't realize that inside the mall on Archer there were several other dimsum places, also packed with Chinese, suggesting they're just as good.

Sunday at noon we went to the New Maxwell Street Market and had some Mexican food. The tamales were OK, but the tongue gorditas were a little overwhelming.

Later we went to Devon planning to have some food from the Indian buffets. I know, buffets are often for people who don't know much about food, but anyway, there were few buffets, in fact there seemed to be fewer Indian restaurants than before. We ended up going to the vegetarian Mysore Woodlands 2548 W Devon Ave (773) 338-8160. We got a dosai with potato, which was pretty good, a couple of samosas and an order of paratha which were OK, and I ordered a vegetable curry which was OK, if too sweet for my taste. Although there was no charge for the rice that came with it, the rice was pretty awful. A good thing we didn't order the thali. But the batura we saw someone eating looked pretty good.

Our last night was at Thai Pastry Restaurant 4925 N Broadway St (773) 784-5399. It was a little disappointing; I guessed that as soon as I saw that I could choose any meat to go in my green curry. Also, almost no East Asian clientèle. The curry was passable, although the meat was a little tough and there were also some inedible leaves chopped into it. Although the jasmine rice was good, it cost a dollar a bowl!

Finally Monday morning we went back to Wentworth to get roast duck at Wing Chan BBQ 榮棧 2157 S. China Place (312) 791-9389 to take home. It's not Peking duck; it's Cantonese style, but it's pretty good.

We got there about 7 am and they didn't open until 7:30 am, so first we went down South Wentworth and finally found a breakfast place open where we had 皮蛋瘦肉粥 congee with preserved egg and lean meat. It was a little watery but had good flavor.

Reminder to self: next time stay in Tinley Park or Matteson; I think it'll be easier to get to Chinatown.