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Friends - happiest of holidays. I join you in spirit and mentioned to the staff today (Sunday) my joy that they will be welcoming such a wonderful group tomorrow.

While I'm sure this event will bring Chicken Crack to almost every table and heart, this is perhaps one place to pitch my master project for 2008, which is ordering, describing, and photographing every single item on the menu at LSC, including both the laminated central menu, and the lunch and snacks menu, and anything else Tony tells me that he makes. If anyone wants to help with a head start, please remember the menu item numbers when you take your photos; I'll start a master thread!

http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=16931

Excellent. Glad you can make it after we missed you at Manny's.

Best,
Michael

You all can have Robyn and my spot. I hate to do this- I feel like I've done this 2 times or so now. I am ungodly sick right now. Let's just say trying to have lunch was an unpleasant experience.

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is making all his reservations under the name Steve Plotnicki from now on.

Sorry you can't make it.

We already had room for Donna and Ronnie, so that leaves a couple open spots for any last minute people.

We may be one shy of our 9 -- my brother-in-law-in-law is coming in on a two-transfer plane trip, and the odds of everything working out are pretty slim.

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What is patriotism, but the love of good things we ate in our childhood?
-- Lin Yutang

First off I just wanted to give a big thank you to Eatchicago & Cookie for putting together yet another fantastic Jewish X-mass dinner. I have really come to rely on this dinner to give me something to do while the goyim are home drinking eggnog and placing presents under their trees... well... I think we get the better end of the deal! Overall it was a great meal, great company and I can't think of a better way to spend someone else's holiday!

The tables













The food:

Cabbage app


Chengdu dumplings


Szechuan wantons


Stir Fried noodle


Ma Po Dofu


Eggplant in garlic sauce


Pork Peking Style (pork candy)


Tea Smoked Duck


Mixed S&P Seafood (Squid and Scallop?)


Chicken Crack rock


Szechuan green beans


Lamb with cumin


Dry Chile prawns


Crab Rangoon


"Yes he does indeed have the most highly developed palate of any 9 year old in Chicago but, on the other hand, who doesn't like fried dough and crab meat?!?"


Thanks again to all involved! Hope to see you all again next year!

We're really thrilled with the great crowd last night. A few minor logistical snafus (not enough tables, missing food, absentee waiters, a couple cranky kids) didn't keep everyone from thoroughly enjoying themselves.

I've never before seen Lao Sze Chuan so completely overrun with customers and (I'm glad that the fire marshall didn't show up). Just two short years ago, we took over three tables there and it wasn't nearly half this crowded.

The food, as usual, was terrific (even though the 3-chili chicken for my table never materialized).

The company was even better and it was great to see some new faces.

I hope everyone has a great Christmas and New Year.

Best,
Michael

Liam turned out not be cranky so much as... let's just say that the very phrase Cathy used in regard to her family and the sauerkraut came into play. Susan, thankfully, grabbed a plastic bag in time and managed to get as far as the entryway, so at least it didn't happen in the restaurant. Technically.

The sight of presents this morning seems to have induced a miraculous recovery, however.

Thanks again, Michael, for setting up one of my favorite LTH events, and thanks to the Fishers and Stagger for handling the ordering part for us distracted parents. Great stuff and I'm looking forward to having much of it again in a couple of hours as I prepare my roast beast for tonight.

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Watch Sky Full of Bacon, the Chicago food HD podcast!
New episode: Soil, Corn, Cows and Cheese
Watch the Reader's James Beard Award-winning Key Ingredient here.

Yikes. Sorry about all that.

Liam wasn't the first on my mind when I mentioned the crankiness. My friend ex-coworker new-LTHer Derek and his wife had to leave with their 15-month-old long before we had our first plate of food at our table.

Oh, I know, but he clearly fell into the "couple of cranky kids" category, no offense taken.

I've been to four or five different events or lunches or whatever with LTHers in the last couple of weeks and I continue to be blown away by the welcomingness (ITAW?) and selflessness of this community. I want to pay tribute today to that generosity of spirit as evidenced by last night and the other recent gatherings I've been to.

Thanks for the pics, Stagger. Santander's quest is begun!

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Watch Sky Full of Bacon, the Chicago food HD podcast!
New episode: Soil, Corn, Cows and Cheese
Watch the Reader's James Beard Award-winning Key Ingredient here.

Michael,

Thank you for coordinating last night's delightful evening.
Sure there were a few glitches, but in the company of such warm and friendly LTHers these were negligible.

Happy holidays!

Jyoti

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Jyoti
A meal, with bread and wine, shared with friends and family is among the most essential and important of all human rituals.
Ruhlman

Whenever 6 people get together for a meal, it takes coordination-this was above and beyond. Thank you from Evil Ronnie and I. As always, it's a pleasure to mingle with such a terrific crowd.

Thanks Michael and Jill-sorry you had to get your chili chicken to go.

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"Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic that waived off the dessert cart"
--Erma Bombeck, Humorist/Writer, 1927-1996

Man, I just pretended they didn't have them and hoped Sparky wouldn't ask, which he didn't...

I realized that the only pix I have of food were much better represented above, so, instead, here are my shots of the excellent company:

Cathy2, LeeK and guest


MHL, Giovanna, JoelF, Stephanie S, Tarte Tatin


And me with Sparky and the Bat-Copter, courtesy of MHL


Sorry my camera somehow missed part of our jovial company, and I wish I'd had time to visit with more of you. As always, lovely to finally put faces to screen names and enjoy those I've met before. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and Sparky was so excited he talked nonstop about the food and people for the entire hike to the car, whereupon he lapsed into exhausted silence for the rest of the evening. Sorry to hear about Liam, Mike - but it ain't officially Christmas until somebody does it...

BTW, thanks again MikeG for bringing the dog kibble cookies, which not only were excellent but provided Sparky with something not too spicy to nibble on while we waited to order, and, of course, thanks to eatchicago for setting this up.

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No guts, no glory.
http://www.chicagonow.com/quips-travails-braised-oxtails
http://quipstravailsandbraisedoxtails.blogspot.com/

Aka pfeffernüsse. (Though I now add ginger to the American ones as well.)

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Watch Sky Full of Bacon, the Chicago food HD podcast!
New episode: Soil, Corn, Cows and Cheese
Watch the Reader's James Beard Award-winning Key Ingredient here.

Thanks so much to EatChicago and Cookie for setting this up! Good food, better company, much fun!

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Leek
SAVING ONE DOG MAY NOT CHANGE THE WORLD, BUT IT CHANGES THE WORLD FOR THAT ONE DOG.
American Brittany Rescue always needs foster homes. Please think about helping that one dog.
http://www.americanbrittanyrescue.org

OK, upon grazing on leftovers, I'm wondering if anyone knows WHAT the green veggie is in the "Pot Herb"? YUM!

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No guts, no glory.
http://www.chicagonow.com/quips-travails-braised-oxtails
http://quipstravailsandbraisedoxtails.blogspot.com/

If we actually got it to go, it would've been a minor victory. I just wound up having them take it off my bill.

What plant they use is a mystery to me. Although, I think "potherb" is a catch-all term, used to indicate a green, herby plant used in cooking.

Some friends and I ordered the potherb regularly after LSC opened, and one of our botanists said it was mizuna, which is a mustard green (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brassica_rapa ), but I was never positive on that.

What an event - I marvel at the descriptions and pictures every year. Questions:

1. what was the mainstay of the szechuan string bean topping? Tony makes it with ground pork and ginger for my little choir group, but your variety looks like peppers and some sort of flaky fish or pickled vegetable.

2. what is the difference in the sauce / oil between the Chengu dumplings (which I have had many times) and the Szechuan wonton?

The sauce difference between the dumplings and wonton was minimal.. more soy sauce in the wonton sauce. The main difference was in the dumplings themselves, with the wontons having more nooks and crannies, and a better (to me) wrapping-to-pork ratio.

I've always been a devotee of the dumplings, but I really liked the wontons, and will probably get them next time.

I'll also say that the pork with peking sauce ("pork candy") was very good.

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Ed Fisher
my chicago food photos

RIP LTH.

"I am very sorry, sir," said Bob Cratchit. "I am behind my time.... I was making rather merry yesterday, sir."

Please excuse my tardiness in adding my voice to the chorus of those praising the warm atmosphere, great conversation, and wonderful food at the Christmas Eve dinner at Lao Sze Chuan--and thanking Eatchicago for arranging a great evening!!!

I am now a official addict of chicken crack--as well as most of the other dishes we sampled at our table. The fact that our orders of lamb with cumin and salt-and-pepper squid went missing in action just gives me a reason to try to make it to LSC again soon! As I commented that evening, the only sad thing is that--as visions of chicken crack dance in my head--I'm now going to have trouble ordering from my local carryout joint again....

Sign me up for next year!

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"Life is a combination of magic and pasta." -- Federico Fellini

Today, on a quest for my brother's final chance at Chicken Crack on the way to Midway, I asked this very question and one of the waitresses was kind enough to write it down for me in both English and Chinese: Yu Choi, now added to my H-Mart shopping list along with ground pork...

Has anybody deciphered an actual recipe for the Szechuan stringbeans? Specifically, what the crunchy fried brown bits that are neither shallot nor scallion that seem to carry the flavor? (I'd have guessed pork, but it looks totally different from the pork in the potherb)

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No guts, no glory.
http://www.chicagonow.com/quips-travails-braised-oxtails
http://quipstravailsandbraisedoxtails.blogspot.com/

Having finally gotten an order where the crunchy bits weren't completely minced, I can confirm that they are dried shrimp. It's basically preserved vegetables and dried shrimp, since the LSC version doesn't involve minced pork.

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Ed Fisher
my chicago food photos

RIP LTH.