Lao Sze Chuan

Really spicy but tasty food. The spicy chicken was just dynamite. Not for the faint of heart.

Sweet and sour shrimp, potstickers, spring rolls, Szechwan green beans, chicken fried rice, and Kung Pao Chicken were all delicious. Small list of beer and wine options but they have a BYOB option with a $ 10 corkage fee. With a big group, the tables with the lazy susans are perfect! We were able to share with ease.

For such a shady operation, the food is still pretty good. Service can be lackluster but what do you expect, it’s a Chinese restaurant! The waiters are hard to flag down and some only speak Chinese so bring a friend to help you if you don’t speak Mandarin! They’re very good at accommodating for large groups as well.
Dry chili chicken — I mean the dish is half chilis but the half that is chicken is delectable; my friends and I always order at least 2 of these when we come here (boys eat a lot!). Chicken is crisp but not overly oily
Garlic eggplant — whenever I go to a Chinese restaurant I MUST order this; without fail it is delicious here
Mapo Tofu — it’s spicy so be careful! It’s a little too oily for my taste though so I try to wipe it all off on my plate before I eat it
Green beans — standard fare
Note: They validate your parking! If you park in the lot, you end up only paying $ 2, just don’t forget to ask them before you leave the restaurant!

My fav spot in Chinatown. I love the ma po tofu, fish fillet, and crispy mayo shrimp. They have a good selection of spicy dishes. Great authentic taste!

I would give this place 3.5 stars. We came here on a busy Saturday afternoon. The service was rushed and our server seemed indifferent. She did not speak English and it seemed to me that she thought it was our job to speak Chinese. The place looked clean but it had the ambience of a high school cafeteria.
I went here with a friend who insisted that we have their crispy shrimp. I’ve had crispy shrimp before but their version is one of the best. We also had eggplant in brown sauce which was tender and tasty. These are two of my favorite Chinese dishes so I was glad to be able to get them in one restaurant. The prices were good and the portions were large which I’m used to having in a Chinese restaurant. I do plan to come back and check out their rather extensive menu and see if their other dishes taste as good.
There are several Lao Sze Chuan restaurants in Chicago but this one is located in Chinatown Square in the north part of Chinatown. It’s a touristy but still cool outdoor mall with dozens of little shops and bakeries. You can eat here and then wander through the mall to do some shopping or stop in at one of the bakeries to get something to nosh on when you walk around. For all I know you can pop in someplace for an acupuncture treatment while you meander through. There is a parking lot across the street.

Food here has generally gotten worse over time. Would have recommended as a place to eat in Chicago a few years ago, but now it is average at best.

Let me start out by saying Lao Sze Chuan is the best Chinese restaurant I have ever been to, I have been here multiple multiple times over the years and tons of other Chinese restaurants as well but none really could match the flavor of the dishes here, from the dry chili chicken to the Mongolian beef, to the Szechuan spicy beef everything here is almost perfect taste wise, do yourself a favor if you come here don’t order Cantonese don’t order fried rice or beef chop suey if you want that go to 3 happiness down the street or your local hole in the wall around the corner, this place specializes in spicy dishes get the dry chili chicken this is the best dish here and depending on the chef will set your mouth on fire and make you sweat all worth it, you could ask for dishes less spicy if you’re not accustomed to spicy food, Szechuan spicy beef is also delicious big old bowl of pepper cabbage and beef so bomb! Get the orange beef if you want a Cantonese dish this is very very good and not too spicy at all, Spring rolls are very good they don’t have regular egg rolls here so don’t even try it, another good appetizer here are the Szechuan dumplings Yummy, any spicy dish is good here Kung pao, Hunan etc. Shrimps are big not scampy, never tried the hot pot here looks really good but I don’t know why I have never tried it supposed to be a specialty here, now I deduct a star for a reason, The service is horrible, and I mean horrible they don’t come back they bring you your dinner before your appetizer, they don’t bring you The check they don’t give you water unless you ask they don’t give you a refill, sometimes they run out of rice, (run out of rice!) had a real bad experience here one time when they were down to one chef and it took forever for us to get all our food, I was ready to walk out luckily my family convinced me to stay, but I keep coming back luckily a lot of the staff know us so we tend to get better service than other people but still sometimes it’s the same old Lao Szechuan, still I keep coming back and I’m not the only one this place has been closed down twice reopens every time people know about it and they still pack the place, it’s really simple food is so damn good service is so damn bad gets closed down reopens, people come back I come back place is so damn good LOL!

Rude. And more so than what you’re used to at a Chinese restaurant.
Placed a pick up order and after 20 minutes came in. Waited and asked about our order.
«It’s not ready yet.» — The same guy who said that never showed again.
Waited 15 minutes. Asked a lady now about the order.
«Not ready yet. It will be there.» and gestures to a cart next to us.
Now that we have stood around in the restaurant, waiting, with no update and being ignored, we call eat24 who confirms the restaurant is open, but non responsive and cancels our order. Thanks, eat24!
We decided to head down a few doors to Chi Café.
Too many Chinese spots in Chinatown.
Never again, Lao.

Nothing like a legit authentic Chinese restaurant in a Chinatown! The food was fantastic. Only one other Chinese restaurant that I remember can match this place when it comes to food. We are a group of 7 and we ordered Chengdu Dumplings, Don Don Noodles, Combination Pan Fried Noodles, Eggplant with Pork, Mongolian Beef, Mongolian Lamb, Mongolian Chicken, and Lobster with Ginger Scallion Sauce. Everything tasted amazing!
The service, however, was a little disappointing. It was a Friday night and they were extremely busy, so I can understand to a point. But they didn’t check on us very often And while everyone was very polite and friendly when they did check on us, it was just very hard to get their attention when we needed something. And when we would ask for things like more napkins, more tea, or a fork, they seemed to do 10 other things before bringing them to us. Most of the staff did not speak English very well, which made communication difficult. There was one gentleman, however, who was very helpful. He seemed to be a manager and took very good care of us.
One final thought — when we ordered the lobster, we were told it was taking a little longer than everything else because they had to go buy it from the market. Extra points for freshness, but minus points for the long wait. It did come while we were still eating, though, so it wasn’t a huge deal.
I would come back here again if I’m in the area because the food is that delicious! But I will have to make sure I have plenty of time and patience when I do.

Szechuan food has always been one of those sub-​regions of Chinese cooking that I was never able to dabble with until recently. Why? Cause my butt was never able to handle spicy chili peppers until moving to Asia for a few years.
Now that I am living in Chicago and always craving for good Asian food, I am able to conquer my spicy fears with Lao Sze Chuan. With my friend from back home in California and a Wintery «Spring» day, we were craving some spice in our lives, and this place did the job.
Right from the beginning, they serve you some spicy cabbage as an appetizer, which turned out to be VERY tasty. Pair that up with some complimentary crispy egg rolls with your Unilocal check in, and you are set for your spicy food.
Following our small bites, we ordered a couple of dishes to share. The Szechuan wontons were another great tapas-​style bite, each piece packed with flavor steaming from the peppers. Along with that, the DanDan Noodles here were decent. Though they weren’t as red as we hoped for, they were still delicious.
The big plates that eventually came out included the Spicy Pan Fried Slice Pork and the Yangzhou Fried Rice. The pork slices were wonderful, tender, and savory. By itself, these can easily be your entire meal (the plates are huge!) The fried rice was great as well, but nothing out of the ordinary. Next time, I would settle for another spicy Szechuan dish instead of all the tempting carbs.
Overall, food was great and promising. Service is typical of any other Chinese restaurant, so don’t expect fine dining. This place lives up to its reputation of being one of the best in Chinatown, so don’t miss out!

I would like to eat here again, the food was delicious. Our group ordered the spicy garlic eggplant & dry chicken chili. Very good dishes-​eager to try more items from their menu.

Pros: Great food. Red spice chicken, and the curry fish were my favorite.
The potstickers are definitely worth it (though on a health adjusted basis are iffy).
Cons: The quality of the red spice chicken varies from day to day.

I came here with a group of friends. One of them being my classmate who is actually from Beijing China! He ordered for us and picked the fried pork with green onions, soft tofu, governor’s chicken, and garlic spinach. My favorite was the garlic spinach and governor’s chicken. The governor’s chicken reminds me of a spicy sweet and sour chicken. The chicken is breaded, with green bell peppers, onion, and spicy peppers in a sweet sauce.
This was my first time here and I really enjoyed the spot. Keep in mind that the region where the food comes from (sze chuan) cooks a lot with spices and peppers. I was told that this region highly believe in spices and peppers in their dishes. If you order the item not spicy, you may lose out on the essence of the dish, as the dishes are made with the intention to be spicy. I also asked my classmate if the food was very similar to the food in China and he said it tastes very very similar to food in that region!
Tip: if you pay in cash you can ask for 10% off!

This place looks a little basic. They have plastic chairs and easy simple tables. I did like the food a lot though, it’s close to Sichuan food. I tried the chefs special dry spicy chicken, the don don noodles and the fried bread with condensed milk. The last one was a little disappointing, the others were good. The chicken was crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, well made. I wouldn’t say the food was outstanding but this is a good solid option for some Sichuan food if you are in chinatown. I got free tea and kimchi with my order and the service was good, helpful waiters.

They wouldn’t redeem their Unilocal check-​in offer. They seemed upset that I would even suggest it. Why would you offer a check-​in offer if don’t want people to use it?
Horrible customer service!
The food is also nothing special.

Spicy Chinese food in the city!
Rolled in here on a cold rainy day to warm up.
The boiled beef was excellent very spicy and their ma po tofu was also very good to have.
Very small location but they do a good job with the service as well

This place calls itself the «best Chinese restaurant in the USA.» Not so much. Definitely not the worst, by any means, but the best? No way. Don’t get me wrong; we didn’t have any major issues with our food. My spicy food loving friend was happy with the spice in the boiled beef. My Mongolian tenderloin was nice and tender. My daughter was good with her orange chicken. The spring rolls were fine (used the Unilocal check-​in freebie). However, nothing was overly flavorful, blew us away, or was any better than what our local Chinese restaurants have to offer back home.
The servers seemed overwhelmed and had a difficult time keeping up. One brought a dish out to a couple just as they gave up on it and were about to leave. Another group next to us ordered additional food and the server forgot all about it.
I wouldn’t tell anyone not to go, but don’t expect to be amazed.

I looked forward to this place for an entire week. I knew it would be the night that Chicago would get its first anticipated snow for the season and I wanted to share the magical hot pot meal with my friend as it would be his first experience. So many things went wrong.
1. One of the main waitresses seemed like she was purposely ignoring us, even after speaking to her in Mandarin. When I told her I was interested in the hot pot, she grabbed the menus from our hands and left. The cool part about hot pot is choosing your ingredients and I was left sitting there really confused, thinking she would come back and ask. Instead, she brought out this party snack platter of a random stuff. Stuff that I didn’t want and don’t usually eat in my hot pot. I had to ask for beef and some other meat otherwise I’d just be eating $ 17 worth of mushrooms and pre-​packaged fish balls. The other younger waitresses were pleasant but the main waitress was just rude. If you hate your job that much, quit and become a basket weaver or whatever makes your cranky ass happier.
2. I am very, very, VERY disappointed in the quality. The frozen shrimp was disgusting, fish balls were the cheapest of the variety and the sliced meat seemed to be frozen and the meat tasted old to me. Even the «dipping sauces» were given to you in this huge container that looked like it’s been passed around a bit. Garlic (not even fresh garlic), Chinese bbq sauce and the peanut sauce were the only things that came out. What about cilantro, vinegar, green onions, or anything else? At the end of our meal, one of the employees takes it away the old containers and puts it near the registers which I am 99% it’s going to be given to the next hot pot victims. I understand that certain restaurants do this, but it was quickly noticed that quality and cleanliness are not the highest priority for this place. I guess that’s why they were given a bad health inspection review. I won’t go into details, but it’s bad and believe me, I wouldn’t have gone if I found it before I went.
3. When we left my friend noticed their back kitchen door was open and a huge crate of our shrimp sitting on the floor unattended.
4. My friend’s stomach hurt soon afterwards and I told him that it might be something else until my stomach started hurting a couple of hours later after his. My iron stomach has been through a lot of random eating and NEVER hurts. I’ve traveled to countries where refrigeration is more of a luxury and never had a stomach issue this bad.
The only good thing about the experience was that the ma la (spicy) section had great flavor.

Worst experience ever. My companion and I agreed that service, for a lack of a better word, was comptemptuous. We arrived after lunch while the waitstaff enjoyed a meal together in the dining room. After we were pointed to a table, we waited 25 minutes before finally asking if we could have menus. 10 minutes later, a party of two was seated in front of us, shortly thereafter a man behind us. Eventually, they inquired about our order, but only after first taking those of the other parties. Our server was abrupt and clearly not all that inclined to table service. She cut me off continuously as I placed the order.
Our food arrived haphazardly — the spring rolls were, as previously mentioned, served at room temp. We received our chicken dish at the same time we were served our dim sum. About 10 minutes later we were served our rice and second entrée. It was a total cluster.
Boiled beef — I’ve had it on numerous occasions, but apparently there was some kind of beef shortage on Friday because there was little to no protein in the huge bowl of chile gravy it was served in. I placed an order for the spicy cabbage, hoping to pay for a full size portion, not just what they comp every table. No such luck. Everything else we ordered was marginal at best. First time ever I noticed that we were unwittingly being charged for rice. Had they asked me, I would have gladly ordered and paid for rice, but we weren’t afforded the opportunity.
Additional eye openers: the men’s room was, according to reports, swarming with flies. It’s right by the kitchen. Also, the waitstaff was dutifully filling wonton wrappers from a huge vat of pink material that I’ve hopefully never put in my mouth. In addition, the server that brought us our check smelled like she’d just taken a bath in a dirty ashtray. This smell lingered and was inescapable.
Tony, you may want to take a more hands on approach managing the restaurant. Nobody seemed to be in charge. The place was almost empty and yet our service was shockingly poor. The food was barely passable. Lao is a shell of its former self. It’s really too bad.

I truly find this place delicious and I wouldn’t mind to come here again. Maybe it’s the crowd that makes me believe this place is something special, or the entrance door covered with Unilocal,Gogobot, Chicago reviews, newspaper etc. stickers to make sure everybody knows this place has been reviewed on every platform and has been rated excellent.
I would say this is a restaurant you should dine in when you visit Chicago’s Chinatown. It says Szechuan but I don’t think every single dish is spicy.
The menu is huge and it will be difficult for you to pick a dish unless you go with the usual Panda Express’ Orange Chicken lol.
The dishes we ordered were great. The service was very friendly at all time. I only wish all of them speak English.
Check-​In for free Spring Roll

Lao Sze Chuan is authentic Chinese as you can get. The service sucks, they don’t speak very good English, they don’t honor the Unilocal check in freebies and they forget your orders. If that doesn’t say Chinese, I don’t know what does.
LSC was given a Michelin Bib Gourmand in 2012 – 13 and I’m not surprised that they loss it. Why? Cause they’re Chinese and don’t give a flying f*ck about no damn Michelin award. I’m part Chinese and I don’t give a flying f*ck about awards. I only care about direct monetary awards and instant gratification. If it don’t make dollars, it don’t make sense.
Anyway, we had a few items on th

As a new resident of Chicago, and a lover of any and all things Asian related, I was SO excited that Lao Sze Chuan was the restaurant that took my Chinatown virginity.
I ordered (truthfully way too much food) the Pot Stickers, LaLaLa Chicken Pot, and the hostess gave me some complimentary spicy cabbage.
This was hands down the best Chinese food I have ever had in my life. And that says a LOT because I have eaten Chinese food, at one time in my life, for 7 days straight.
After all these years of thinking I’ve experienced the best, I hadn’t. Until now.
When the menu says spicy, it MEANS spicy. Which almost made me want to hug the chef considering when I go to some Thai restaurants and specifically ask for my dish to be extra spicy, I don’t even sweat. Not at Lao Sza Chuan. My nasal cavity was leaking ¹⁄₃ of the way in and I had to stop. I was so depressed, because I wanted to finish, but I couldn’t. It was amazing.
Those pot stickers… superb. Moist, savory, just the perfect appetizer. I LOVED the garlic infusion with the spicy cabbage. It was the first «taste» when I bit into a few pieces. This too was SPICY.
The ONLY reason why I simply cannot give the restaurant 5 stars is because (as most everyone else has said) the service lacks in comparison to the great food. I had to wave down 3 different people for a straw, to take my order, a refill, the bill, a box. Had the service rivaled the food, I would have given LSC a 5 star review.
But this food. Was heavenly. It tastes MUCH different than what Americans expect Chinese food to taste like. Will definitely return.

Great place to come if you want some high-​quality szechuan food. I have only been here during non-​peak hours (like an hour before prime dinner and lunch times), and I have found it to be quick!
The food is great and the hot tea you get is also very satisfying (although I always get a cup of iced water as well.).
The dan dan noodles are quite delicious and are better than many other places that I have had dan dan noodles. I think they’re spicy enough to give you a bit of a sweat but not melt-​your-​mouth spicy. The spicy beef in hot sauce (which I have a picture of) is my absolute favorite. It has a lot of beef and some other veggies. You’ll feel amazing if you eat this.
The spicy beef noodle soup is also a nice dish to start the meal with. I tend to order this one on the milder side just to prime my mouth. Finally, the dry chili chicken is VERY good but VERY VERY spicy. Highly recommended, but just order with caution.
If you come here you definitely will not leave disappointed!