Szechwan

This restaurant closed up over 6 months ago.

THE best Chinese food. Been eating here for years and have always left stuffed but extremely satisfied. Best to go with a group so that you can order a lot and taste everything.
For starters, my fav’s are Fried Shrimp Toast, Taiwan Chicken Rolls, Canton BBQ Spareribs, and Jelly Fish Salad. My hubby can’t get enough of the Vegetarian Duck and Drunken Chicken. For the main dishes, my friends and I really love the Lobster Cantonese, Sauteed Watercress, Moo Shu Pork, Szechwan Eggplant, and Walnut Shrimp. For special occasions, their Peking Duck is superb. Usually, we never have enough room for dessert but I’ll place an order of the House Special Fried Noodle to go. The bar is well stocked as well. Having a Chimay beer with a spicy dish really hits the spot.
Bottom line: Szechwan Restaurant serves a lot of dishes that you can’t find elsewhere. Even if you could find a place that serves that particular dish, Szechwan always does it better.

Was recently closed by the Dept of Health. Gross.

The Korean beef and black bean sauce noodles are awesome but the dim sum was pretty mediocre at best. Still on the look out for good dim sum in Chicago if anyone has suggestions.

The food is average Chinese — salty and sweet. Further, like so many Chinese restaurants it lacks ambience. The absence of patrons made me wonder how they can afford the location… until I read that the Chicago Department of Health closed them for cockroach infestation and unclean practices, today, August 27, 2007. Evidently they were taking some drastic money saving measures.

This may very well be the most negative review I have written yet… except maybe for Nacho Mamas in Park City, Utah. I’ve been to Szechwan a handful of times, as I work just up the street. While the service has never been stellar, the last time I visited about a week ago, will be the last. A friend from LA was visiting for a few days. She met me downtown with another friend to eat lunch. I have an hour to eat, and you would think that would be plenty of time to be served some sweet and sour chicken and egg rolls. Our waiter basically ignored us the whole time, never made eye contact, was terribly unpleasant and on the verge of mean and never brought us our food. Three tables surrounding us (that seated after us) were all served their meals before us. We pulled aside our waiter three times and he said «it’s coming out, hold on». Well, 52 minutes later, still no food. I have to get back to work. We walk out. As we’re walking out, the hostess asks us how our visit was. We tell her it was the worst service ever and we never got served. She smiled and bowed as we walked out. WTF.

I was staying at the Marriot next door because workers were at my house for the weekend. I saw several Chinese people go in and out here so I thought that this might be a pleasant experience. Oh hell NO. My order was simple too: an order of crab rangoon to splurge and an order of mushrooms and baby bok choy in brown sauce to keep the calories at a semi-​respectable level. Cut to the chase, the crab rangoons were overly creamy and bland. The mushroom and bok choy was absolutely disgustoid. No flavor, no «brown» sauce, just a clear slimy sauce. I don’t know what was up but the little I did eat made me feel very barfy. Just thinking about it now wants to make me barf!

This place doesn’t even deserve stars. When we got there, we looked at our glasses of water and noticed lipstick stains on the glass. We asked them to replace it and we never got another glass of water until we asked for it twice. We then had the garlic chicken — after two bites, we found a very long piece of hair smothered in the brown garlic sauce. We told the waiter and he said he would just cancel the dish and told us to share the rest of our food. We tried to ask for a free replacement but he just kept repeating he cancelled the dish. I dont’ think he understood the concept of replacing a dish free of charge if there’s a long piece of hair in it. Any other restaurant would do that. Then they went on to ignore us for the rest of the meal. We finally tracked the waiter and asked him for another garlic chicken. He got us another dish of it then proceeded to charge us full price for it.
I’m not sure how they afford to pay the rent in such a huge place when the place is half empty all the time. I’m also concerned with the basic hygiene of the place and plan on reporting them to the health department.

I stopped into the Szechwan for the lunch buffet after a doctor appointment next door that I had to fast for. Boy, was I hungry. I was impressed by the classy but not trendy décor, I felt I may have been in an 80s movie. The hosts were friendly, but my waiter could have used some personality. The food on the buffet was great– excellent General’s Chicken, some great seafood dishes, yummy rangoons. It was a little pricey at $ 17 including tip, but a small price to pay for a chinese buffet that doesn’t make you sick an hour later.

This is one of the best places for Chinese food around the Magnificent Mile. Their elegant décor belies their tucked-​away location in the basement. I highly recommend their crispy and not too fatty (for duck at least) Peking duck. That being said, I’m not sure their soup noodles are quite up to par. However, I’m very picky about my noodles. I’m not sure if they deliver, but you can easily call ahead and pick up food if you live close by.

I rarely ever eat Chinese food outside of Chinatown, and especially not dim sum. I have heard that there are good dim sum spots in the suburbs though. It’s just a no-​no in my book. I mean I do order Chinese food sometimes around work in Rosemont, but it’s because I’m craving it and I have a proximity issue with being able to drive to Chinatown and back within an hour. I didn’t have dim sum here, but I did have lunch and dinner here a couple of times. I think the food is actually pretty decent. I took my aunt and family here for my aunt’s birthday, and we needed a Chinese restaurant to go to that was downtown near their hotel. My family is from my hometown in Michigan. She grabbed a card and mentioned she wanted to come back since she liked it so much. The beef and lamb dishes I’ve had were tender, and the taste and flavor of the food is good. What I have taken into consideration about this place is that: 1. It is located downtown so it’s going to be a little pricier than most other Chinese restaurants. 2. It’s located downtown so it’s may be slightly less authentic. 3. it is located downtown so the overall appearance of the restaurant is a bit nicer than you’ll see in Chinatown. It’s a nice spot to go to if you want Chinese downtown.

i felt sick after eating the dim sum here. i’d stick to this place for the americanized chinese, not the ‘authentic’ stuff

Eh, the dim sum here isn’t the best I’ve had… i’d try chinatown first before settling on this place.