Double Li

Eggplant with Garlic Sauce — INCREDIBLE. Seriously… I would venture out to Chinatown just for this dish.

Did Double Li close or just relocate? I tried to stop by on 04÷21÷13 it said another restaurant would be coming soon. Stopped by Moon Palace instead and was satisfied.

If I could leave a negative star I would too. This place is utterly despicable! The waitress was very rude! For example, I told her my girlfriend food is not edible because there’s too much fat in it. She persisted to tell me that there wasn’t any fat in her food. So then I had to show her all the fat that was in her food. She tried to tell me that that wasn’t fat that its normal for chicken to be chewy. I could see where this is going. Then another person comes out of the kitchen with raw chicken in a bowl and shoves it in my face. And says see there’s no fat. At this point I felt like I was being pranked. Soon after that I asked for a check. Of course she charges for the whole thing, I don’t really care! I just wanted to go somewhere else to get something to eat. She asks us if we wanted A to go box for that food. I just said Can we just have a check so we can go please.

2 years later, I still love it.
BF and I try to come at least once a month. If I go longer than a month without the chili chicken or the home style octopus, I start getting cranky.
This place is a little off the Chinatown beaten path but it is the most authentic, welcoming and well-​priced restaurant and it’s my favorite.
Also, don’t forget to BYOB, you’ll want some cool, refreshing beer to calm the fire in your mouth.

I am huge fan when it comes to spicy food.
My boyfriend brought me to his place because he wanted authentic spicy cuisine. We ordered the fried eggplant with fish sauce and water boiled beef. The dishes were amazing!!!
If you want to know where the local eats then this is the place for you.

Absolutely delicious! I had crispy garlic shrimp and my hubby had the Kung pow (sp?) combo. Both were tasty. The peppers in the Kung pow even made my Mexican husband’s eyes water so be ready for some heat.
We also had pot stickers that were excellent and spring rolls that while tasty, were cold in the middle (shockingly cold). Aside from that we had a wonderful dinner and will definitely return. All that for $ 34 (included complimentary tea)…Not too bad at all. We will definitely be back.

Came here on the coooldest day ever and it was completely empty. Warmed up with some awesome hot pot. I let my more experienced friends do all the ordering, I just made sure they got lots of meat. And meat we got! The best were the balls of meat, the white fish (think it was flounder), and even the sandwich meat (kinda like spam) was good. I can’t think of a single thing that I didn’t like after we cooked it in the broth. Wish I could give more specific examples but like I said, I didn’t do the ordering, just the eating!

NEVER come here. I wish I could give negative stars!
The restaurant was Szechuan-​style but all waitresses I saw there were all from northeast China.
The service is terrible.
I visited here with my friend. We asked for extra rice for several times and finally it was served after 15 minutes.
I asked to check then waited another 10 minutes. Then the waitress left again. I gave up and thought I’d better check directly at the cashier’s.
Guess what? The waitress said I need to pay more tips! Alight, I then added $ 1. She was still not satisfied, then she took out a calculator and showed me how much I needed to pay for tip! Since the waitress was from northeast China, where people are well known as rude, unreasonable, and collude with gangdom, I didn’t think it’s a good idea to argue with her, especially when there was no mobile network coverage in case I needed to call police.
The rating on Unilocal is unreasonable high. They must cheated on this.
Save your money, time, and life. KEEP AWAY FROM HERE!

This restaurant made me remember the saying Don’t judge a book by its cover.
I took the red eye flight to Chicago last weekend for a wedding. By the time I was well rested it was pretty late, so my fiancée and I decided to have a late lunch in China town. We found Double Li on Unilocal and went with gut instinct. We had a hard time finding it due to the way its entrance is set up. Also due to the odd hour, we were the only ones there. The place looked pretty run down and not very appealing. Call it being hungry or adventurous, we decided to give it a shot!
BEST DECISION EVER! We were in a mood for some dumplings and fish in chilli sauce, both of which did not disappoint! The food was delicious and everything we imagined. I wish we had more of an appetite to try something else. The hostess who seemed also like the owner was very warm. We had some fabulous fish in schezwan sauce in Boston, since then we have been craving and looking for that entrée everywhere. I can happily say we found it in Chicago. The price was very reasonable and the meal had good portions to it.
For any tourists or local people I would highly recommend this restaurant.

When I walked into this unassuming restaurant by chance a few days ago I knew I’d hit a home run. There were hand-​writtten Specials in Chinese characters pasted to the wall, which indicated I would find some authentic Chinese food. All I had wanted to do was to escape from the 105 °F heat after traipsing around with a 7 year old to buy a pink parasol to match her cheongsam. Problem: The 7 year old only eats food that has no color or taste and my 20-​something daughter, who was with us, doesn’t like anything cooked with oil. I like spicy food, the more oil the better. What to do?
The menu choices and the cheerful willingness of the restaurant to accommodate everyone’s wishes saved the day. From the menu we ordered a noodle soup (for the 7 year old), and a vegetable and tofu soup as a back up. The flavors of both were delicate but delicious and everyone loved them. The 7 year old gobbled up the noodles, of course, and even asked for more of the tasty broth.
My daughter asked if they could prepare for her a steamed vegetable dish with steamed chicken (not on the menu, for understandable reasons). It turned out to be a good call because the 7 year old surprised us both by woofing the broccoli and pea pods — and they’re not even white! I gave the steamed stuff a miss, but to please me we also ordered a spicy beef dish from the menu that was truly delicious. Even my daughter agreed. The 7 year old passed on that one.
I don’t go to Chinatown very often because there are not many restaurants whose food tempts me back, but I’ll certainly be going back to Double Li. In China I’ve eaten some great food, hard to find in most restaurants here, but that spicy beef dish was the real deal.

Great old-​school Sichuanese food, reminds me of home. Everything tasted pretty on-​spot, and it’s less glittery and commercialized than Lao Szechuan. My only complaint was that the la zi ji ding was a little too dry for my tastes, but that might be just catering to Americans. And the spiciness was thankfully authentic!
tl;dr: Come here for real Sichuanese food! Not your standard American/​Americanized fare.

Bad service, bad environment, bad dishes.
They even claim you for more tips! Which restaurant will do that! Never visit it again…

Needed some dinner with my fiancé before seeing a movie on a Saturday night and the wait at Lao Sze Chuan was 40 minutes. So I pulled up Unilocal and tried to find something decent that wasn’t going to take forever, and wasn’t Phoenix since we eat there all the time and I was insisting on something new.
We found Double Li tucked away in an unassuming area directly across from the arch that takes you into the main Chinatown strip.
*** FOOD (5 stars) ***
First off, their menu is huge. Don’t be overwhelmed.
The Szechuan Dumplings are what I was hoping for, dumplings served in essentially a soup of sauce that you fish out on a spoon. The sauce was great, but the dumplings themselves were a little light on flavor.
We also ordered a pork dish that I’m blanking on but was essentially julienned pork, celery, and bamboo with a nice sauce. And my fiancé got a shrimp dish with I think a black bean sauce that was also good.
By far the best dish, and perhaps one of the best dishes of Chinese food I’ve ever eaten in my entire life (and I have eaten a lot) was their home-​style chicken special. Picture a metal pot brought to your table and filled with mushrooms, bamboo, tons of dried chiles, a million szechuan peppercorns, and bite-​size chunks of chicken (some still on the bone) that is both crispy, and extremely juicy at the same time.
My fiancé HATES spicy food and I can’t get enough. She was brave enough to try this after she smelled how good it was, and because the peppercorns numb your tongue to the heat (and make your mouth tingle), she was able to eat this, and even she agreed it was unreal how good it was.
If you go here, you MUST MUST MUST order this dish. I couldn’t stop eating it, literally, and almost ate myself sick.
*** Service (5 stars) ***
Contrary to other reviews, our service was great. We had a very nice waitress who explained everything to us, talked to us about the restaurant, the food, etc. She even went into detail about how the home-​style chicken is made because it is her favorite dish too.
*** Atmosphere (3 stars) ***
They aren’t going to win any design contests. However if you enjoy small and cozy hole-​in-​the-​wall Chinese restaurants with amazing food, this is where you go. I personally enjoy that environment.

The first time I came here I wasn’t that impressed. Had the hot pot for two.
Second time I came here with two others and ordered some authentic food. Also ordered two glasses of water. The surprise is finding mold (not sure how old it is since I didn’t take some for bio sample). I guess this happens when not that many orders ice water. The tea was fine.
Service was slow since there was only one waitress. Took a long time to order and pack to go.
Food: 3. tastes fine but nothing too special.
Price: 4. is reasonable for the amount served. Not the best, but doable.
Atmosphere: 3. Pretty dim in there. Also quiet if you don’t more than two big tables of Chinese people (not meaning to be racist, but they can be very loud…)
Décor: 2 regular tables and chairs. Not ridiculously comfortable. Had a few paintings around. Tables were sticky…
Service: 3 there were like 4 tables of people (three small and one big one) and the waitress hung around the kitchen a while and it was difficult to get a hold of her. She checked up on us once.
I don’t know if I want to come back next time though.

I’d been here about a year and a half ago and really had a lot of different foods and had a great experience all around, well except for a few taste buds burnt to a crisp from the seasonings. Based on my memories of my other visit I decided to go back today and give myself a treat for lunch. I wish I’d have gone to McDonald’s instead! The only reason I’m giving the Double Li 2 stars is because the restroom was very clean and smelled of bleach.
I started my lunch with pot stickers. The pot stickers themselves were a little overcooked and a couple of the 6 were downright crunchy. They had very little flavor, so it’s hard to say if they were good or bad the taste was so faint. As for the sauce that comes with the pot stickers it was OK. It wasn’t the best or worst pot sticker sauce I’ve ever eaten.
For my main course I had sweet and sour shrimp that came with white rice. Maybe I’m just naturally a cheap person, but it seems to me that for $ 12 for a regular priced meal (as in NOT a $ 5 lunch special) I’d think it should come with a soup and an egg roll. At the time I was so disappointed in the 2 items I did get that I couldn’t figure out what was missing until just now when typing this paragraph. OK, based on that I’m now bumping my review down to a 1 star rating.
The sweet and sour shrimp was totally absent of flavor. Neither the coating on the shrimp or the shrimp itself had any flavor whatsoever except for the oil it was cooked in. I got so desperate for some flavor that I was totally drowning it in sweet and sour sauce and even that was almost flavorless. Normally even in the worst Chinese restaurants the sweet and sour sauce has lots of flavor, but not here today.
As far as the rice goes apparently they are no longer serving good Asian rice and have gone to using the terrible flavorless American grown variety. If they’re going to serve flavorless food the least they could do is serve a good rice with it.
I’m not exaggerating the least bit when I say I’d have enjoyed my lunch much more if I’d have stopped at McDonald’s for a double cheeseburger and a coke. I’m not a big fan of McDonald’s so that’s a pretty good indication of how disappointing this lunch was. Oh, I guess I should give them credit the coke was from a can so it was good.
I went to Double Li’s expecting to have a 4 or 5 star eating experience like I did last time I was there and walked away $ 20 plus a tip poorer. The server was friendly so I felt she earned her tip even if the kitchen staff had tried their best to make it almost impossible for her to have happy customers.
Shame on Double Li I will NOT be returning to this establishment in the future. In the last year and a half they’ve completely dropped their standards. There are to many other good to great restaurants in Chinatown for me to waste my money at this place again.
P. S. Unlike a previous diner I was given both a lunch menu and a regular menu when I sat down. I was prepared to insist on it based on a previous review, but they at least did provide both to me. So I guess the other reviewers experience is not necessarily the norm here which is good.

Sadly, racism is alive and well at Double Li. I have been a lawyer for 25 years, so this is not a charge I level casually.
I went by myself after a weekday work meeting for lunch. I was the only table at noon. I got the menu — several pages, no lunch specials. I ordered an entrée ($ 10, dry chili chicken) and soup ($ 1.50, hot and sour). I am a white, non-​Chinese guy.
Next table to come is was a Chinese couple. They were given a one page menu only, and then ordered. The waitress took their menus and slid them underneath a stack of the big menus that I got. I walked up and asked her to see one. Guess what? A lunch menu, with a host of $ 5 selections! I asked her why I was not given the menu, and she said, «Too small.» (FYI, I am 6 feet tall but not at all big.) I saw the portion size of the Chinese couple’s lunch, and it looked perfectly standard for a lunch service. My chicken dish was larger than I needed, and I finished only about ²⁄₃ of it and half the soup.
This is disgraceful conduct for a restaurant. Shame on them.
Also, I can report that the food was OK, but far inferior to Lao Sze Chuan, which is in the big mall two blocks away. The dry chili chicken here was breaded, and the breading prevented the dish from being smoky and spicy as it is prepared at Lao Sze Chuan (and in China, as well). Soup was standard, boring, nothing special.

Double Li is a hidden, non-​Cantonese gem.
Pepper it up! Turn up the spice notch!
Douse the fire in your mouth? Dare you not. Let the flavors savor.
Some of what we ordered:
1) Beef with Yu Shan Bean Sauce
2) Chicken with Orange Peel
3) Black Pepper Garlic Beef Tender Loin
4) Szechwan String Bean
5) Mapo Tofu
6) Dry Chili Chicken
P. S. If you’re not a fan for spicy dishes, I urge you to go elsewhere. Take up the challenge and you may result in perspiration and perhaps a scorched tongue.
P. P. S. Space can get a little tight when you have big groups. Our group of 20 took up the center of the restaurant and I was glad I didn’t sit with a lefty. (I’m not discriminating.)

One of the best Chinese food places hands down in Chicago! The food here is VERY FLAVORFUL and very authentic. If you are not used to pepper and spice, this place may not be for you. Dirty, authentic Chinese, the way I like it. My favorites here:
1. Szechuwan Dumplings
2. Garlic Beef Tenderloin
3. Green beens w/​pork
4. Eggplant
5. Dried Chilli Chicken
Yummy! I actually dreamt of the beef here, and I’m not joking!

I went back and ordered the black pepper garlic beef tenderloin and the baby octopus.
The beef was good. You can really taste the garlic flavor. I thought the portion was a bit small and the broccoli had a bitter taste too it.
The baby octopus was not too my liking. My guy thought it had a funny taste to it. I thought there would be like a broth to it, but it was dry. Just way too much going on in that pot for me.
I still think most of the dishes were good and worth going back for.

After some Unilocal researching, we settled on this place for some authentic Chinese food. I’m not sure whether I had high expectations, but we found this place to be just OK.
We wanted to try everything and figured we’d order more and have leftovers. We got the potstickers, the beef fried rice, chicken lo mein, black pepper garlic tenderloin, and the dry chili chicken. My favorite of those were the potstickers and the fried rice. I liked the tenderloin but some pieces just had too many spices for my taste whereas I felt that the dry chili chicken could use more flavor — it was just fried chicken. I really liked the lo mein noodles, but would prefer them a little less oily. There must be something about Chinese food, but I always overeat and then feel it later. At the end, I wasn’t really excited to take any of the leftovers home.
It was all okay, but nothing stood out to be stellar. I would come back if I was in the area, but am still on the search for my «go-​to» Chinese place.