Get the special

cheffin' it up

Hi, everyone!

If you didn’t get a chance to see Maggie Hennessy’s last review, I highly recommend you check it out, because this place sounds intriguing as shit — and is definitely an outlier in a neighborhood I mainly associate with uninteresting bar food.

That being said, it’s behind the paywall this time, as I firmly believe excellent food writing (and all writing, really), deserves to be compensated for.

All paid subscribers get access to the archives, which means you have a full backlog of over 100 restaurants to read about, which hopefully inspires you to go out and really explore Chicago.

Speaking of, Davida and I went to a place new-to-us for this week’s edition of The Party Cut, though it’s definitely not new for many of you. It serves its own interpretation of Chinese-American food, and it’s a great spot to visit before or after a movie (which is why we went), or just to enjoy a summer night over a few cocktails and some dinner.

Chef’s Special Cocktail Bar is a sibling establishment to the lauded Giant, and it’s on Western, near Fullerton.

It opened in early 2020, which means it’s not new at all.

We’d just never been. And full disclosure: I wrote a freelance piece for Resy (the restaurant reservation service) about Chef’s Special years ago, and was invited in, but never took them up on their offer. I don’t accept free meals as a rule.

Davida and I were out because we’d gone to see the zombie movie 28 Years Later, which in retrospect was probably not the best way to perk up our appetites. Since there are no restaurants near the movie theater that serve human blood, we opted for Chef’s Special instead, since it’d been on our list for years. It was long enough since I’d written that Resy piece (2022), plus we were in the mood for Chinese food anyway, since there’s barely any in our home neighborhood.

In terms of food, Chef’s Special serves Chinese-American-inspired dishes, interpreted through a bit of a well, “cheffier” lens. Yep, there’s orange chicken, kung pao, and crab rangoons, but not in the quick-service style of which you get at the takeout-only spot. There’s a strong Sichuan lean with the use of chilis, chili crisp, and Sichuan pepper too, which are flavors Davida and I love very much.

I know a lot of friends of mine who are huge fans of this place, so the visit was long overdue, and for a weeknight, this place was absolutely packed. We walked in, thinking it’d be relatively quiet, and were quoted a wait of 20 minutes, but were seated within seconds because a reservation suddenly canceled. I recommend you get a reservation if you plan on going, it was that busy.

Note the full name of the place, “Chef’s Special Cocktail Bar.”

Most people just call it “Chef’s Special,” but the cocktails are just as big of a draw as the food. I was driving, but Davida snagged a cocktail, of which I took a small sip.

The Midori sour ($13) tasted like a decidedly more adult version of the one I remember from back in the day. Their version preserves the kitschy color along with that classic cool melon flavor, made a touch more crisp with the addition of things like shochu and cucumber bitters.

Speaking of cucumbers, we did get the smashed cucumbers ($6.50) to munch on while the other stuff was being prepared.

We had some mixed feelings about them. While the marinating liquid is salty and vinegary in a really appealing way, it somehow doesn’t penetrate the fresh cucumbers all that much. So that leaves you with raw cucumbers that aren’t particularly all that seasoned, but if you sneak a few sips of the dressing in between bites, that’ll trick your mind into thinking they’re soaked all the way through.

Once the cucumbers sit out for a while, they do absorb more flavor throughout your meal, so if you pick at them throughout, they do become more flavorful. You can feel the Sichuan peppercorns start to tingle here, and the spice quietly sneaks up on you.

The egg rolls with pork and shrimp ($10.50 for two) may actually be some of the best egg rolls I’ve ever eaten.

I think it’s because egg rolls are generally filled with cheap basic ingredients, like lots of shredded cabbage with only tiny scattered bits of protein like shrimp or pork. The ones at Chef’s Special are generously packed with big chunks of both shrimp and fatty pork, relying much less on filler material like cabbage and glass noodles.

These aren’t made with peanut butter like some egg rolls around Chicagoland are, which Davida missed, but I was so enthralled with these things I was secretly kind of bummed we didn’t order another round of them. We may have to come back for a happy hour, which happens between 5 and 6 p.m. daily, because the egg rolls go for $6 then.

The trio of dipping sauces served with the egg rolls includes sweet and sour sauce, chili crisp, and hot mustard.

Out of the three, the hot mustard was easily our favorite — it’s sharp and unabashedly sinus clearing, perfect for something as rich as an egg roll. And though that chili crisp is nice and red, it surprisingly isn’t spicy, but it rather falls more on the savory side of things. If they bottled that mustard, however, I’d probably be dipping everything at home in it.

(I am well aware Chinese restaurant-style mustard is easy to make at home, and the secret is likely just Coleman’s powder, but still.)

The wontons in chili oil ($14.50) come six to an order, and sit in a pool of chili oil and black vinegar, which are two of my favorite flavors when mixed together.

These are great — I think anyone would be happy crushing this plate by themselves. The springy pork filling is flavored with ginger and garlic chives, and you’ll probably want to bite a corner off of each dumpling just so you can spoon more of the vinegary oil into it.

I’ve heard from a lot of people that the dan dan noodles with ground pork ($17.50) are a highlight, and that we should order them.

These are easily some of the richest noodles I’ve ever encountered. That’s because these thick-cut noodles are absolutely doused with an oily ground pork sauce and sesame paste, which makes them particularly heavy. I can definitely see the appeal, but the richness of the sauce might have been a little too much for me.

I’m sure some of you reading this have had them before, since they’re a staple of Chef’s Special’s menu, so feel free to weigh in with a comment. I had a hard time eating more than a few mouthfuls.

If you love savory and spicy dishes, it’s hard not to think of dry chili chicken ($17.50) as scratching so many itches all at once.

The dry chili chicken here is good — but somehow it’s missing something. Though it certainly looks spicy, it never quite reaches past a medium level, and though it’s also clearly aggressively seasoned, there’s something important that feels lacking. It might have been the chilis used (these are Thai), so perhaps there’s a different flavor profile in Sichuan chilis that accounts for that missing bit of flavor. I thought I was nitpicking, but Davida independently noticed that something seemed a little flat too.

The aromatic bits like soft-cooked garlic and bits of onion are absolutely delicious, however, and I wanted to eat so much of that remaining stuff so badly. Even after the chicken was gone I kept picking at those oily slices of vegetables even though I knew I should have stopped. Also, what looked like a wild amount of chicken actually ended up being much more modest than we’d thought.

See?

Davida and I actually managed to finish the entire serving of it, which seemed unthinkable based off of its first appearance. I’d say a good third of the bowl was filled with the chilis and flavoring ingredients. I’d keep the portion size in mind depending on how many people you’re eating with — if you’re sharing with even just two people, this stuff’ll go quickly.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still great dry chili chicken, but I think I’d probably try something different next time around. We have Sichuan specialists not too far from Chef’s Special serving dry chili chicken anyway.

We made sure to get a healthy dose of fresh veggies in there too, in the form of the charred snap pea salad ($13.50).

This thing is new(ish) to the Chef’s Special menu (I’m guessing it’s seasonal), and is easily the best thing Davida and I had at dinner that night. The greens are dressed in a bracingly bright scallion-ginger vinaigrette, and they’re topped with grated salted egg yolk and crunchy pumpkin seeds. Beneath the salad is a bed of creamy whipped tofu, and this was exactly what we needed in between bites of the much oilier other dishes. It’s fresh and light, and something I’m craving again even now.

$13.50 is an absolute steal for a dish this good. It truly succeeds because it’s its own thing, and doesn’t appear to be a reinterpretation or a tweak on anything else. I’d happily return just for this and the egg rolls — and you should visit this summer to try this salad before it leaves the menu.

Out of the three desserts on the menu, the banana custard ($9.50) was the one that called our name.

This banana custard is accompanied with a salty miso caramel and is topped with fluffy whipped cream and garnished with large pieces of fortune cookie. It sort of evokes a banana pudding with a savory tendency to it, and it is definitely something we’d happily order again, though it’s not exactly the lightest follow-up to such generally heavy food.

Part of me is a little torn today, thinking about the food here. It’s respectful towards its source material, and I don’t think it qualifies as cultural appropriation because the restaurant isn’t claiming to make any of these dishes better, nor is it taking ownership of its identity. (Trust me, I got pissed when people fucked with Korean food the way that they did for a while.)

I think what I’d expected was the exact version of the dishes themselves, which was my problem. You’re not going to get that at Chef’s Special. Instead, you’re getting versions that have been quietly tuned to the key of the chef, and that’s resonated with nearly everyone I know who’s been there.

Just kick back, roll with it, and if you head there this summer, do not miss that goddamn salad. You might just see us in the corner eating one too.

Chef’s Special Cocktail Bar
2165 N Western Ave
Chicago, IL 60647
(773) 666-5143

Hours:
Monday - Saturday: 5 p.m. - 11 p.m.
Sunday: 5 p.m. - 10 p.m.

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Speaking of Chinese food, Davida and I recently got takeout from the newish Avondale takeout only location of 3 Little Pigs (which I wrote about towards the beginning of this newsletter).

The crab rangoons that day were absolutely killer, plus they also serve a really fun hot pot-style Italian beef sandwich, so, just something to think about.

Anyway, if you enjoyed today’s edition of the newsletter, don’t forget to hit that little heart button, and I’d be forever grateful if you share this thing. Any word of mouth helps:

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Every other edition goes to paid subscribers only, and paid subscribers get full access to the archives. This is over 100 locations and rising, and you guys simply cover expenses — the time spent visiting and writing (which is usually my entire weekend), is on me. As in, this thing doesn’t make any money.

Okay, I’ve yapped for too long today, so I’ll leave you here. Have a great week, everyone. It’s summer. Go explore the city. Love you guys.