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My nomination for an LTH Great Neighborhood Restaurant is Ed’s Potsticker House.

Antonius and I learned of Ed’s back when we first started reading and posting on Chowhound. It’s been the Chinese restaurant we go to most often, ever since. Probably 95% of the food we have had at Ed’s has been outstanding: the eponymous potstickers, soup dumplings, pork and scallion cakes, lamb with cumin (apparently not to all LTHers’ taste, but we are addicted), potatoes with vinegar, eggplant, various other vegetable dishes, beef stew with noodle, etc. etc. Lucantonio’s standard order now is noodles fried with pork and green beans: he recently told Brenda, the owner, that he’d like to eat it every day. (She offered him an apartment upstairs and a job washing dishes. ) Shall I mention that Ed’s is also extremely family-friendly?

The location of Ed’s – not in Chinatown but rather in an unlikely stretch of Bridgeport – makes it especially well suited for being recognized as a great neighborhood restaurant. A newcomer to Chicago would probably never stumble across this place and give it a try: it’s not downtown in the touristic areas, nor in Chinatown where a visitor might head just to find some place that looks promising. I imagine most Chicagoans are as unaware of this wonderful little restaurant as we were before we discovered the world of internet food writing. It would be great if recognition by LTH forum brought Ed’s a wider audience.

Most of the discussion of Ed’s on LTH may be found in the following thread:
http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=712

Another enthusiastic review by hungryrabbi is here:
http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=14442#14442

And the search function will pull up any number of posts with brief mention of enjoyable meals at Ed’s.

Of course, Ed’s has been thoroughly discussed on Chicago Chowhound as well. Here is a link to a lengthy and complicated thread, from December 2002, when few if any of the interesting dishes were listed in roman orthography:
http://www.chowhound.com/midwest/boards ... 19070.html

RST’s comments further down in the CH thread is how I learned that Ed’s cuisine is not only northern Chinese but also northeastern (dongbei). Thanks, Richard.

It’s worth pointing out that Brenda has changed the menu so that it is now much easier to order many of the dishes discussed here on the boards: the first page of the menu has labeled pictures of the cigar-shaped potstickers, the soup dumplings, lamb with cumin, etc. The interest shown by chowhounds and LTHers broke down the earlier division between the “secret menu” and the English language one. For me, this kind of responsiveness is yet another reason why Ed’s Potsticker House is worthy of special notice.

Amata

Ed's Potsticker House
3139 S Halsted St
Chicago, IL 60608
312-326-6898

I strongly second the nomination for Ed's International House of Potstickers. I was not aware that the owner's name was Brenda, however. She has always been known to me as Ran (pronounced like Ron). That must be her Chinese name.

Amata,

I've had many a wonderful meal at Ed's, quite a few of in the company of LTHers, and add my voice to Steve Z's second of Ed's nomination.

Enjoy,
Gary

After hosting our Christmas party and having had numerous meals at Ed's since they were awarded the GNR, I've got to say that I don't think there should be any queston about them getting renewed.

I would enthusiastically agree about the renewal. I've only been there maybe four times over the last year, but I've been very happy with every meal. I usually go as a single diner on my way home from work, and I've always been treated as well as a group of six.

The various pancake dishes, and the fried eggplant are winners. And I think the lamb with cumin is fabulous.

This restaurant is currently up for GNR renewal. Please post your comments below.

Thanks,

=R=
for the GNRs

I have only dined at Ed's a handful of times but I can honestly say that my last several meals have been terrible. One account can be found here. I am not saying Ed's doesnt deserve renewal, I just hope people take a close look at this one.

SaintPizza and I went recently. The smoked pork pancakes were still pretty good. The eggplant in garlic sauce was pretty bad; the eggplant was not cut or cooked as consistently, resulting in pieces of varying size and texture rather than the uniform crisp exteriors and soft insides of the past. And the garlic sauce was much sweeter than it had been, which is too bad. It was still a good dish but not a great one, and far from transcendent as it once had been. We also had soup dumplings without soup (the filling was very tasty but just wasn't wet the way you expect soup dumplings to be). I've forgotten what else we ordered, maybe ma po tofu? It was all OK, no big complaints, but no tingles in the toes either.

I still like Ed's, but the quality has taken a turn for the worse.

The pork pancake is still fantastic, along with many other favorites described here. Some of the criticisms leveled against Ed's upthread focus on dishes unrelated to the reasons why Ed's won a GNR in the first place. As for the eggplant, it has always been a bit inconsistent because the crispy exterior / gooey sauce dynamic ensures that it has a short shelf life. Fifteen minutes out, it's no longer very appealing. It's the nature of the dish, and has been since Ed's was initially credited with a GNR. I have had no difficulties with the quality of the lamb in the lamb-with-cumin. Ed's was never originally held in high regard for its moo shoo pork, or its kung pao chicken.

I think that posters who focus on the strengths of the establishment continue to have positive experiences. The salt-and-pepper fish fillet is delicious, especially when dipped in the house chili oil. Other posters report positive experiences here.

Here is a translation of the Chinese-language lunch specials. This is a fantastic value, if you can make it to this strip of Halsted during lunchtime. It would be a shame to let some "meh" reviews, which don't address the restaurant's strengths, result in its loss of a GNR certificate. I support renewal.

Lunch specials - most dishes are between five and six dollars. Here are the details:
11 am - 3 pm, Monday - Friday.
All specials include 1 egg roll or 2 crabmeat rangoon; steamed rice; cookie; and choice of a soft drink or soup of the day (5 items total).
The English-language lunch specials include many American Chinese classics.
The Chinese-language lunch specials (which aren't translated on the menu) include:

24. savory thin potato strips with fresh chili *
25. chinese bok choy with shitake mushroom
26. stir-fried celery & lily flower
27. stir-fried eggplant Beijing style *
28. sauteed string beans with garlic
29. mapo tofu *
30. stir-fried chicken with bean paste
31. kung pao chicken *
32. chicken with hot peppers & bamboo shoots *
33. stir-fried tofu with shrimp
34. twice cooked pork *
35. shredded pork with garlic sauce *
36. shredded pork with onion & soybean paste
37. shredded pork with fresh chili *
38. stewed pork belly with seaweed *
39. stewed pork belly with cellophane bean noodles
40. shredded pork with pickled cabbage & peas
41. shredded pork with pickled radish
42. stewed pork belly with mushrooms & preserved tofu
43. sauteed beef & bitter melon
44. mongolian beef
45. mushu pork Beijing style (no pancakes)
46. stir-fried preserved pork &
47. chinese sausage Hunan style *
48. stir-fried pork stomach & liver with garlic
49. shredded pork with bamboo
50. stir-fried pork intestines with garlic
51. stewed beef with potato
52. stir-fried beef stomach with cilantro
53 (54?). sauteed pork stomach with fresh chili *
54. manchurian sourkraut with bean noodle
55. stir-fried pork kidney *
56. sole fish fillet with pickled caggage
57. Szechwan shrimp (with shell)
58. shrimp (with shell) in tomato sauce

Items 46/47 appear to be one dish, and there is one missing because the numbers don't quite sync up with the menu. Ran was so kind to translate this for LTH, and I'm transcribing it from handwritten notes. So, it could be my error. I wanted to correct it, but I've been too busy. I thought I would post it as-is, just to let people know what's available.

More on Ed's here

http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=179173#p179173
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=21435&p=222493
http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=191602#p191602