Lao Sze Chuan

After ordering a home delivery we received an order that was missing rice for two entrees and two appetizers. Those who have patronized this establishment know that their prices are higher than most any other Chinese establishment in Chicago, so when they indicated that it would be 45 more minutes before they could get us the remainder of our order and were unwilling to make any sort of effort to compensate us for their error I vowed never to order from the again.

The wife and I have walked past this restaurant a number of times and finally decided try it out for lunch. The server first brought us some tasty cabbage, which was spicy. I had a coupon for fried spring rolls, which were also good.
The wife offered ma Po tofu. She reported that it was surprisingly tasty and flavorful. She has ordered this dish all over Chicago and is used to it being bland. Here it is not bland.
I ordered sole in chili sauce. It was spicy and good.
We also had soups. The hot and sour soup was very good and the egg drop soup was okay.
The service was impeccable and friendly.

I can’t figure this place out — it SEEMS to be authentic — but then, why isn’t it better? Some dishes come swimming in oil, and others are dry as a bone. There are also a lot of things on the menu that I can’t believe many people are interested in eating. I’m all for authenticity, but, having eaten in Hong Kong and Monterey Park, California, as well as New York’s Chinatown, I think I can say that Chinese food doesn’t have to be greasy or bizarre to be authentic. Well, okay, I’ve eaten some stuff that’s bizarre as well as authentic (duck’s tongues, pig’s blood tofu), so I realize that this is a pretty personal issue. I guess my real complaint with Lao Sze Chuan is the careless execution of most things I’ve had there — and their inconsistency.
There are also a lot of things on the menu that sound virtually the same, with no explanation given. It would have been nice to know the difference between Chef’s Special Dry Chili Chicken and Tony’s Chicken with Three Chili. The result is that you can never be sure exactly what you’re getting (not everything is pictured on Unilocal!). It’s a gamble, and sometimes it pays off, but more often it doesn’t.

The food and service here wasn’t too bad before, but now this place is not worth going to.
We ordered several dishes and all had dark soy sauce and that’s about the only flavor you can taste. Traditional Chinese food is high in sodium so everyone will be thirsty afterwards. IMO you should stay away if you have high blood pressure!

I finally decided to try this spot as TONY Hu is acclaimed (minus his criminal investigation).
All I can say is what a joke. The Mongolian Beef (tenderloin) literally could have been dog meat. It was definitely a good cut of meat and is drenched in a flavorless sauce. The look and texture felt like slime. Honestly was consistent for one of those hole in the wall places that just add sauce to the same meat. I had such high hopes, but now I am angry I wasted $ 30 when I could’ve had better quality and flavor elsewhere .
Also– how do you mess up white rice? It was over cooked and awful.
I gave them 2 stars because the soup wasn’t bad and food was hot.

I’m new to Chicago and this was the first place I ate at in the city! After a long hard day at ikea/​assembling furniture, my mom and I forgot to eat and it was already 10pm! This place was one of the few restaurants still open in the area so we just went not expecting much.
BUT It was one of the best Chinese restaurants I’ve ever been to (which means a lot considering I’m from the Silicon Valley which has an abundance of great Asian restaurants)
Think PF Chang’s but 10 times better, double the portions, and more options!
We had the shrimp ho fun, beef and broccoli, and the soup dumplings. All very very good, HUGE portions, and seasoned perfectly! My mom thought the beef and broccoli were a bit bland but I thought it was great! The beef was extremely tender and the ratio of beef to broccoli was perfect (PF chang’s usually has double the amount of broccoli to beef)
I definitely will come back if I ever feel like getting Chinese food again!
The service was great too! It was 30 minutes prior to closing time so we expected the service to be slow but our waitress was great and kept checking in on us!

Located near the Green Mill — which, fun trivia fact, is home to Al Capone’s favorite booth — and in the heart of Uptown, Lao Sze Chuan’s outpost in the little Vietnam neighborhood is by far my favorite location.
Here are three reasons why:
1. The décor here is unexpectedly gorgeous. Wow. OK. So when you walk in, you think it’s gonna be a run-​down, sorta scummy-​looking restaurant… But BAM! GOTCHA! It is actually rather beautiful inside. The floors are clean and newer. The booths in the back are sectioned off by lovely, lacquered, latticed, dark wood wall dividers. And all the furniture and fixtures look on the new side. Looks like a revamped, throwback version to an intimate, classy, little, Shangri-​La type of lounge. A place where you can play Mah-​Jong in a traditional cheongsam and knock back the drinks.
2. Service here is, like, shockingly efficient and attentive. Anyone who’s been to the Lao Sze Chuan (Chinatown location) knows what I’m talking about. Ya know what I’m saying? Instead of ignoring their customers and their needs, this location anticipates your needs before you even need ‘em. Lack of napkins? No problem. Here’s a big ol’ stack of ‘em. Your table needs clearing? Boom! Done! You will not need anything here. They got you, boo.
3. How can we not talk about food? The Sichuan food here is darn good! As a half-​Chinese person, I will happily vouch for the authenticity of their food. My S.O. and I had the Spicy Cabbage Szechuan style, the Sliced Beef & Maw Szechuan style, and two lunch specials, which came with your choice of soup and appetizer — either the egg drop soup or hot ‘n sour soup or crispy spring roll or crab rangoon. For my money, it was seriously SUCH A STEAL. Dude, for a mere $ 6.95 for my lunch special, I chose the Mapo Tofu, a savory, soppy, gloppy, glorious mixture of broth, scallions, Sichuan peppercorns, broad bean paste (Doubanjiang or Toban Djan) chili oil, firm tofu, and some kind of thickener. We shared the cabbage and beef & maw as our starters — which, by the by, in case you’re wondering, «maw» is the fourth stomach of a cud-​chewing animal like a cow or pig — So if you love textured foods, offals, and chili-​based, Chinese food, then these appetizers are for you!
Verdict: This Lao Sze Chuan location is basically the best.

The food here is pretty good, but definitely overpriced. I loved the fresh and creamy crab ragoons as an appetizer, but you only get 4 pieces for $ 5.95. However, the best part about this location is that they offer a Groupon which is a great deal for eating out with several people. My favorite dish is the crispy shrimp with lemon sauce, it is similar to honey walnut shrimp and I highly recommend trying it if you dine here. The staff here is very nice and professional as well and the atmosphere is quite nice and modern.

Order took over 1.5 hours for delivery with not even as much as an apology. Food was cold and overpriced. Absolutely will not return and do not recommend to anyone who enjoys warm, prompt food.

Not my favorite. My boyfriend enjoyed the Mongolian beef, thought there were far more vegetables than beef. As for me, I ordered salt and pepper tofu .it’s was horrible! Not only was it soggy and definitely not fully fried, it tasted like it was mixed with a meat sauce! Sorry but salt and pepper tofu should NOT be soggy, I think I’ll stick to the other chinese delivery places up north or just trek to Chinatown when babe doesn’t want to cook. What’s up with no drink menu? Not even can soda? And the rice, SUPER dry, like it was from the bottom of a rice cooker

Lao Sze Chuan is overrated for sure. There’s a number of dishes that I’m really not fond of at all. Like Izzy N. wrote, they put too much corn starch in their food. I can’t stand the gloppy near pudding-​like sauce. It’s so gross.
I work in the neighborhood though, so I like their lunch menu. I’ve figured out what I really like here: the boiled sole fish filet in spicy Szechuan sauce. In Chinese, it’s called shui zhu yu, which roughly translate to fish boiled in water. It’s a very simple dish, too simple in fact for Kenny O. He’s not a fan of it and said it’s too bland. I like it for its simple complexity. The fish filets were perfectly cooked and layered on top of a bed of napa cabbage, bean sprouts, and leeks in a bowl filled with hot and spicy chili oil and water. The dish cost around $ 9 and includes a bowl of soup (I always order the hot and sour soup over the egg drop soup) and an appetizer (I choose the egg roll over the crab rangoon). The soup and appetizer are not great. In fact, the hot and sour soup is too syrupy for me. The egg roll is okay, there’s nothing to write home about those two items. But for $ 9, I’d happily order this lunch special every single time I come here. It’s the best thing on their menu.

I’ve even here twice and it was pretty good. I feel that Chinese food sort of sucks in Chicago and I don’t hate it here, so I guess that’s saying something.
However, there have been THREE separate occasions where we’ve looked at the super extensive menu for an hour and then we’re told they were closed once we called. Update your menus and website if you want to close 1 – 2 hours early please, Lao Sze Schuan.

Well it’s for sure. this is my new favorite Chinese restaurant. .ok I should have taken pix of the food but was starved and ate it! General Taos chicken was excellent! Mongolian beef was absolutely great! I’ll be checking in here a LOT! Sun is the manager and does a great job making sure his customers are satisfied. too bad Sun Wah! You lost a LOT of business to Lao Sze Chuan.

This place is legit! Their fried rice and hot and sour soup are amazing. Wasn’t a huge fan of the chilli chicken (which they say is one of their more popular dishes but I felt it was not spicy at all and really dry), but it is definitely quality Chinese food whether you get it delivered or dine in.
Also, the restaurant has a really nice/​upscale ambiance (at the Uptown location) and the quantity is massive. Two dishes fed me for 3 – 4 days easy.

Been here a couple of times and also the Chinatown and downtown location. I love this location because is not crowded as the one in Chinatown and downtown.
The food menu is the same for all of the locations.
The food is always amazing!
They have a full bar.
The staff is very nice.
Will come back here again for sure.
Check out Groupon for an awesome deal!

On busy Broadway Street, their signage is not very large nor colorful and it’s a little easy to miss, so pay attention to the street address and you’ll be fine. Once there, you will find this Lao Szechuan has an interesting and colorful space. It is also a long and narrow space, but we found it cozy and comfortable by the sunny window towards the front anyway. We were there for lunch and had:
— jumbo shrimp (6) appetizer
— moo shu chicken
— beef noodle soup
It was all in the ok range. The fried jumbo shrimp was heavily battered but tasted fine with some hot yellow mustard and sweet and sauce sauce. The moo shu chicken also tasted normal, but the crepes were a bit dried out and flimsy, and didn’t hold the chicken/​vegetable mix too well. The beef noodle soup was let’s say unusual and consisted of a mild and blandish chicken like broth, with spaghetti like noodles and thin beef brisket. It tasted ok but also wasn’t the somewhat spicier Szechuan style beef noodle soup we expected. Good to try, but we probably won’t be back as the Skokie location is much closer to us anyway. Free street parking is available if you wander one block westward from Broadway.

Lao Sze Chuans’s Chinatown location was a go-​to spot throughout college under the customer column of «large, annoying group of people wanting massive amounts of food while sitting together around a single table on Saturday night». When I saw Groupon was offering a nice deal at an Uptown location within reasonable walking distance, I definitely wanted to check it out, albeit this time with a group of only two on a Sunday night.
First, the good: The food is excellent. For starters, there was literally the best crab ragoon I ever had, accompanied by some excellently crisp egg rolls. This was followed by a heaping mound of Pork Fried Rice and a lovely Orange Beef. We had also ordered the 3-​Cup Chicken, but we had to remind them of that, in order for them to bring it out. I’m guessing this is why it tasted a little thrown together.
Which brings us to how the service was a resounding mixed bag. We had gotten seated and our order taken quickly, and our water and drinks were always filled. However, along with the 3-​Cup Chicken delay, it also took a crazy long time for them to bring us the check and, when we did, we saw they had charged us for two Fried Rice instead of the one we ordered. We ended up just bringing the extra home, but it was still kind of a pain for people going out on a end-​of-​the-​month budget, since it was kind of pricey, even with the discount.
I’m swinging back and forth between 3 and 4 stars, but the fact that I’m eating the leftovers of the generous portions for lunch right now swings it towards favorable. I definitely will return, though probably with a large annoying group of people instead. That just may be where Lao Sze Chuan will always shine, no matter the location.

Ok already, after 4 visits, here is my review for their Uptown location. The food is consistently good and I’ve been to the Skokie location a number of times as well. They serve things on the spicy side so be careful, beginning with the complimentary spicy cabbage appetizer.
We’ve enjoyed everything, particularly the crab Rangoon, the orange (or was it lemon) shrimp, fried eggplant, Mongolian beef, Singapore noodles, etc. Darn, we like the entire menu — how’s that for a sweeping generalization.
Well, actually there are a few things we didn’t like, uhuh, yes indeed. But these are minor — the crab Rangoon came out room temperature on one occasion. The spicy chicken came out too spicy but duh — why did we order that dish in the first place. Hardly anyone touched that hot dish. Finally, you have to pay extra for white rice — gasp! That’s like paying for the air we breath at a Chinese restaurant. So we skip the white rice because we are all trying to remain buff anyway.
The service is polite and attentive, the restaurant is fine for a nice date. The parking can be tough around the neighborhood. The Lawrence Redline stop is just 2 blocks away though. I’ll be visiting this and the Skokie location, sorry Ken Kee in Chinatown.

Had delivery from here a few nights ago. I was excited, as this place advertises all their awards and how famous they are. Unfortunately, the food was a big disappointment. A bit pricier than your average Chinese, which is fine if the quality is there. Unfortunately, the quality doesn’t stand up.
They market themselves as one of the top 10 Chinese restaurants in the US, really? Sorry, but no way! I wouldn’t put this place in my top ten Chinese in Chicago.
They cook with lots of corn starch and thickening agents and cheap ingredients. The portions are large, but who cares if the food isn’t good?

The food, aside from being served cold hot and sour soup twice, is delicious. It’s the service that is extremely disappointing. For instance, I have no idea who my server actually is. A woman took my order, guy #1 brought me cold hot and sour soup, guy #2 took the cold soup, guy #1 brought the dried spicy chicken without rice or serving plates. Four minutes later guy #1 brought the second entrée with rice (No plates), then guy #2 brought plates with lukewarm soup. Later, the lady came back and asked us how everything tasted. Haven’t seen any of them since…
I’m just so disappointed. I don’t think I will ever come back. I wish I could just rate the entrees, but this place as a whole doesn’t deserve much attention.