Shui Wah Chinese Cuisine
Chicago, IL 60616-1514
Phone: (312) 225-8811
- Price:
- $
- Cross Street:
- Cermak Road
Editorial Review for Shui Wah Chinese Cuisine – by Valerie Moloney
The Scene
Cramped quarters and long lines don't keep the mostly Chinese families away from this bright one-room restaurant off the Market Square. Round and square tables leave only inches of walking space for the harried servers carrying steaming bamboo baskets filled with dumplings, crepes and rolls. Save for a few black-and-white photos of the neighborhood hanging on the wall, decor is minimal with white table linens and black metallic chairs. Conversation levels are boisterous considering this is a breakfast/brunch spot.
The Food
No less than 50 affordable dishes--baked, pan fried, deep fried or steamed--make sampling an adventure. Shredded chicken bits accent sugary sticky rice packed in a lotus leaf, while plump shrimp stuffed in a pasta-like roll swim in a shallow pool of soy sauce, adding to the sweet flavor. Cotton-ball sized pork dumplings are hot and paste-like inside. Diced pork married with cilantro takes a tang of barbecue flavoring.
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Insider Tips
When to GoThis is a dim spot revered by locals; lines often wind out the door at peak times. Get there before 9:30am to get a table. After that, expect at least a 20-minute wait.
ParkingA metered parking lot behind the restaurant fills up quickly; if you can't find a space there, try the lot just across from the Chinatown gate on Wentworth or anywhere on the street along Archer.
User Reviews for Shui Wah Chinese Cuisine
04/18/2008 Posted by Coda95
Shark fin is tasteless. The soup is flavored with chicken or beef broth to get flavor. Chinese view sharks as having medicinal qualities, but sharks get tumors, cancer and other diseases as well and no scientific evidence has shown shark fin soup to have ever provided health benefits. Shark Fin Soup has led to the decline of the world's shark populations by up to 90%. Annually millions upon millions of sharks are slaughtered exclusively for their fins. The sharks entire body is then dumped back into the ocean, therefore wasting the entire shark. DON'T EAT HERE!!! If you do eat here, don't order the shark fin soup and demand they remove it from there menu.
03/01/2008 Posted by rg7
My wife and I have been to several dim sum restuarants in Chicago and San Francisco and we're generally very picky about the quality of food we get at restaurants, especially since we cook all our own food from scratch at home. We were extremely happy with the food at Shiu Wah. It's the best dim sum I've had so far. The food, service, cleanliness was far better than another well known dim sum place a few doors down. We went on a Sunday around Noon and we waited about 25 minutes for a table for 2. Larger groups (5-8 people) were waiting for 25-40 minutes it seemed like. Waiting was a litlte confusing since we had to flag down a particular waitress who had a scrap of paper she was holding with some numbers on it. Apparently that was enough for her to keep track. She actually seemed to keep pretty good track of everyone, but we made sure we still stood inside the restaurant within view of her while waiting, just to make sure we weren't forgotten. The food was well worth the wait. And the dishes (teapot, cups, silverware, plates) were all clean (unlike another dim sum place we went to nearby which had stained, cheap looking teapots, cheap chopsticks, and sweaty unkept staff). Some of the food seemed to take a little longer than I expected, but it worked out because we ordered about 5 different dishes, so we weren't hungry for very long anyway. I didn't know they ask what type of tea you'd like, so I was pleasantly surprised by that. We got the Jasmine tea and it went great with our food. We saved a little bit of our appetite to sample more dim sum at another restaurant nearby. We were so disappointed (like I mentioned above) that we couldn't wait to leave that place. They had handmade colored pieces of paper taped all around the whole restuarant, and it seemed very amateurish and cheap. We plan on going back to Shui Wah several times each year, so I hope our experiences continue to be as outstanding as the first time!
Pros: Great tasting food, good prices
Cons: Noisy one-room dining area, service can be hit-or-miss
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