Quarantine Canteen Dispatch #1: Lee’s Chop Suey

This is the first in a series highlighting some of the best places to take out or order delivery from in Chicago during the COVID-19 quarantine.

I live roughly 1,056 feet from the front door of Lee’s Chop Suey and have ordered delivery from them almost every week for seven years.

This is not, however, a marriage of convenience.  36 Chinese restaurants deliver to my house. If I involve Postmates, which will deliver pretty much anything from anywhere (please don’t unsubscribe, but Taco Bell is the leader in this particular clubhouse, err, my account), that number grows significantly. 

I have, while systematically removing most of the 36 other Chinese restaurants through deliberate trial and eating, settled on Lee’s because it is very good. It is, in the words of Mr. Fresh Off the Boat, Viceland journalist, and Sprite soda pimp, Eddie Huang, “bulletproof” Chinese.

The egg roll is golden, dappled with fry oil spatter marks, and sealed not with love, but peanut butter. One of Chicago’s best chefs recently told me this is gross. You may also think, WTF is wrong with you, Nagrant? I assure, you, a lot is wrong with me. However, peanut butter in egg rolls is righteous, a sticky gravy that imparts salty, sweet, and umami in a single dab.  If you are familiar with satay sauce in Thai cooking, you know what I mean. 

The rangoons are sick too. Wait, this is a Coronavirus-related newsletter. Sick is no longer a tolerable adjective. The rangoons are healthy AF.

Even better, you know how most spots have shifted to the terrible plastic packet sweet and sour dipping sauce (they give you these too if that’s your thing), Lee’s provides tiny Solo-brand-type plastic tubs of satisfying viscous nuclear orange house-made plum sauce. It’s the kind of plum sauce (some people call this duck sauce) that sits in those pour spout glass bottles, the ones generally filled with fake maple syrup at diners, when you eat in.  Unfortunately, Lee’s has shifted to plastic packet hot mustard, and not the prepared stuff that burns the hairs out of your nose with a single drop. Still, the packet mustard supply is good, and you can, as I do, save the extras to pair with McDonald’s sweet and sour sauce for dipping your chicken McNuggets, since McDonald’s no longer serves its own hot mustard sauce in Illinois.

Speaking of eating in, Lee’s has a huge dining room filled with red paper lanterns and what not. I walk by the restaurant at least once a week. I have never seen anyone inside the dining room, which tells you that if a place can survive as long as Lee’s has (and you know it’s been open forever, because no one has put “chop suey”-a white American dog whistle phrase thought to be invented for America Chinese restaurants from the literal Chinese words tsap seui or “miscellaneous leftovers”- in their restaurant’s name since 1953) on delivery alone.

That being said, the dining room looks sweet. It’s on my mental bucket list to actually step foot inside, once we are allowed to step feet in anything again. In fact (hat tip to Eater Chicago journalist Ashok Selvam for this…when we can attend movies once more, the move is to get take-out and sneak in a styrofoam clamshell from Lee’s while you catch a flick at the Regal North a block away).

Orange Garden on Irving Park road serves the best sesame chicken in Chicago, but Lee’s is really good. The General Tso’s is just ok.  Other American Cantonese favorites at Lee’s that rule include orange beef, shrimp with lobster sauce, moo shu pork, egg foo young, and Mongolian beef.

The fried rice is also righteous, but if that’s your thing, Chef’s Special Cocktail Bar’s “special combo” rice has the best fried rice in Chicago right now.*

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*my wife says this is wrong and Lee’s is best.

Lee’s is located at 2415 W. Diversey in Chicago

Chicagoleeschopsuey.com

773.342.7050

Side Order

Because you may not live in Logan Square, also check out the following other spots (you can find phone numbers and website info pretty easily via Google. I am lazy or I’d type them here – but if you’re unsure, drop me a line mike@michaelnagrant.com and I’ll make sure to find the right place)

1)    Lao Szechuan (Uptown) – greatest dry chili chicken ever

2)    Orange Garden (Irving Park, Lakeview) – also solid egg roll, and killer sesame chicken

3)    Shanghai Inn (Lincoln Square) – great standards

4)    House of Bing (South Shore) – General Tso’s

5)    Potsticker House (Bridgeport) -lamb with cumin