Emperor’s Choice Restaurant

Best I’ve ever had. Spicy salt and pepper chicken was out of this world! Lightly breaded crispy perfect.

I highly recommend this place. It feels good to know that when you go to a restaurant they appreciate you. I want to try other restaurants in the area, but this place will always have my support. Not only is the food good, but it’s fresh. When comparing this restaurant to those outside of Chinatown in other neighborhoods, it’s not the same. If you want good quality food and food that will taste good days later… this is your spot! I’m never disappointed.

I’m originally from Chicago, however I lived out of state for 16 years and wanted to a new Chinese restaurant. I ordered take out and the chicken fried rice and egg rolls are delicious! The service was great! I highly recommend for a good place for dinner.

Came to Chicago to visit from NJ and I must say this place had amazing service and amazing food. The only compliant was that the pinã colada was very watery but that’s so minor because again the food was wonderful.

I first have to start off with great customer service! He treated us amazing! We ordered the spicy salt and pepper shrimp and spicy salt and pepper squid they were on point! We also ordered egg drop soup it tasted really good. This was our first time there and it certainly will not be our last time!

After living in Chicagoland for almost 30 years, we finally made it to Chinatown. Since we love Asian culture and foods, I can’t believe it took us so long. After being in Chinatown in NYC, Philadelphia and San Francisco, Chicago’s is much smaller. But they do have a wide variety of restaurants for all tastes.
Originally, we chose another restaurant by looking at reviews on Unilocal.But, we arrived a little early and while browsing through shops, I asked the clerk «where the locals go.» She said Emperor’s Choice (right across the street from this shop) was the place to go.
Emperor’s Choice is not a large restaurant, and it was early when we arrived so there were seats available. Over the course of the couple of hours we were there, it filled up.
We ordered a variety of items — soup, noodle, shrimp and beef dishes. The food was hot when served and it was excellent. For a Chinese restaurant recommended by a local person, I was surprised that the menu was a pretty traditional Americanized version of Chinese food. They had a few traditional offerings, but it was not what I expected it to be. However, as I said, what we ate was very good.
I need to say something about their service. I unfortunately did not get the waitresses name but she was outstanding. She kept coming by our table to make sure everything was good, she kept the tea pot and water glasses filled at all times, and was very helpful navigating the menu. I really can’t say enough about how much she made the experience all that much better.

Very good
We had the shrimp and lobster sauce and the emperor’s chow fun
Great service too

Very good place!.. good food for a Very good price and very friendly service… only could use a bit more room for the dinning area. other than that, Great place!

My current go to for Chinese delivery. Ordering online through Unilocal is easy and delivery is always fast and hot. The food is tasty.

Great traditional chinese! Good delivery too, food arrived on time and hot. Highly recommend.

We won’t be ordering from Emperor’s Choice again.
Cons:
–The food was both bland and super greasy
–They didn’t include rice in our order. Their menu states it should have come with our order but it didn’t.
–We requested extra pancakes for our Moo shu pork. They gave us one extra.
–I couldn’t identify the meat (s) in the Moo shu pork. It looked like there was more than one type, some very dark, some very light.
Pros:
–None.

Three of us picked up takeout from here. I don’t even remember what we ate, because everything was so tasteless it didn’t even register. Really wanted to like this place, but out of 3 entrees, an appetizer, and soup, all I can say is that the food was ready on time and the people were pleasant when we picked up our order.

Solid delivery option at the Hyatt Regency at McCormick Place. Both Wonton Soup and Eggrolls were above average and the Salt and Pepper Shrimp was quite nice.

Absolutely in love with Emperor’s Choice. My mother and I visited Chinatown two weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon. We got our table just minutes before the lunch croud. *whew*
The service here is spot on. Somewhat better than any of the other establishments on this street! We ordered egg drop soup and egg rolls to start.
The egg rolls were fantastic and fresh. The house made sauce was also quite great! I did not have any of the soup but my mother really loved it.
The portion sizes for our two entrees were HUGE. In fact I had lunch for two extra days at work. Both dishes were deliciously prepared and full of spices, juiciness in the meat, and piping hot. I cannot wait to return.

I’ve gotta guess that the Salt & Pepper shrimp is the house specialty. That’s the only thing I ordered and it was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. Can’t speak to anything else, though.
Lightly breaded shrimp. Shrimp that are big, juicy, and firm pink flesh. Mixed in with an assortment of sliced peppers. Not served in a fishy tasting broth. Just tasted like really fresh ingredients. Loved it. I am always SO disappointed by shrimp at Chinese restaurants; usually they are small, few, and slightly discolored.
But these… make up for every nasty shrimp I’ve ever eaten. Real talk. I called my boyfriend after I ate it and raved about them for like 20 minutes to the point where he was just like… shut up. BUT I KNOW HE WOULD LOVE THEM, TOO! AND SO WILL YOU!

Excellent food, small space, but food is very well prepared! (vegetables aren’t mushy) Service is friendly. Get your parking stub validated, and parking was only $ 2.00.
We shopped afterwards, at Chinatown Bazaar– fun afternoon!

Some of the best Chinese food I’ve ever eaten at amazing prices.
I ordered the lunch Shanghai Rice Noodles combo, which came with a Hot & Sour soup and 2x Crab Rangoons. Additionally, I ordered a Cripsy Tofu appetizer.
The soup wasn’t spicy (maybe I should have asked them to kick it up a little), but it was full of amazing fresh veggies. The Rangoons were cooked perfectly, nice and crispy, but had very little crab in them (mostly cream cheese). The Shanghai Rice Noodles was amazing. The portion was huge, the meat was cooked perfectly (large shrimp and pork servings), the veggies were crips/​fresh. The saffron flavoring just popped in this dish and I highly recommend it to anyone. The Crispy Tofu had a great salt/​pepper flavoring with the addition of jalapeño added for a mild spice kick.
The restaurant is very clean with white linen tables. The bathrooms are well cared for. The wait staff is extremely professional.
Overall, a great restaurant for a family, couples, business meetings, or just a solo patron looking for a great meal at an affordable price (extremely cheap for the Chicago area).

My grandmother chose this place for her birthday lunch. I say «birthday lunch» and you think, «aw, cute. A small lunch». No. My grandma rolls in with 50 people for her birthday. We almost took over the whole place.
It’s modern. It’s clean. The bathrooms are lovely. I was worried. How could such a nice place have delicious, authentic food? Are they catering to lo fan?
Luckily, the food was AMAZING. Everything we had was fantastic. My grandma ordered banquet style so each table of 10 had the same thing. A steak and asparagus dish that was cooked perfectly was a big favorite. The lobster was cooked perfectly. The noodle dishes were crispy.
I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this place! get in and try it!

This is my first time eating chinese food in Chicago. It concerned me when we walked in and realized a lack of Asian people at this restaurant. I perceived that as a lack of authenticity. But we decided to try it out regardless.
We ordered the soft shelled crab, sizzling black peppered beef, and garlic stir fried snowpea leaves. They turned out to be pretty good, didn’t give me the cheap asian takeout food feeling. The dining environment was good for chinese restaurant (I guess this is an important aspect to attract non-​asian customers). Clean floor, white table cloth, clean and non smelly bathroom.

In all honestly, if half-​stars were an option, this one would be a 3.5. However, due the beautiful interior and consistent attention-​to-​detail, I’m bumping them to 4. Unlike most of their counterparts in Chinatown, Emperor’s Choice keeps their establishment meticulously clean and their wares up to date. This is by far the most aesthetically pleasing of the restaurants I’ve been to in Chinatown, except maybe Kai, but much cleaner. I don’t know if they’ve recently updated their décor, as this was my first time dining here, but they did a great job. Tables are pristine, bathrooms spic and span, and the bar when you walk in didn’t have a crumb on it. Definitely a welcoming place!
Food was good! We tried the hot and sour soup, which was among the best I’ve ever had. For entrees, we ate the Hunan Beef, which features some of the freshest veggies I’ve ever tasted. The fresh bamboo was my favorite, as I had only had this in chute form, previously. Beef was extremely lean, which is always great. The seafood dish was not as good, but still tasty. It had shrimp, squid, scallops, jalapeño peppers, and snow peas. Scallops are my favorite, and I wish there were more than three or four of them in the dish. Server was routinely checking up on us, but not in an overbearing, creepy way like some servers in Chinatown.
While this isn’t my favorite in Chinatown, I’ll add it to my list of options every time I go back. Disclaimer: I go back quite often and refuse to eat Chinese in Chicago outside of Chinatown.