Dim Sum at Ming Hin

There is a new place called Ming Hin in the new Chinatown square plaza. My parents heard good things about this place and invited us to try this place. When it comes to dim sum my parents are pretty picky. It's not only the flavor they are picky about but the innovation in the dishes. My parents are from HK so nothing will ever compare with dim sum there but in Chicago, you don't get much variety than your typical standard 8-10 items you see at every other dim sum restaurant in Chicago.

I really like the decor here. It has a very classy touch but not too classy where it scares people away thinking it is an expensive Chinese place to eat. There are 40 inch TVs upstairs if you are looking to catch a ball game while you eat dim sum on Sunday. This isn't your traditional push the dim sum cart around and you pick from the cart (something I prefer) but by not doing it this way, the food comes out hot instead of luke warm.  Don't worry they have pictures on the menus where you can pick and choose the items to order.

Overall I would recommend others to come here. It's clean , service is pretty good for Chinatown standards and the food is good here. You might pay a little more but I think it's worth it. It feels much more comfortable than most dim sum places because the seats are well spaced not like most dim sum places.

I also wanted to mention we also came here for dinner 4 weeks later and I think the dinner is REALLY good better than Dim Sum!  For dinner I would say this place is one of my top 2 places in Chinatown.  Dim Sum I would have to try it again with a larger group to check for consistency.  Dinner items I will order again!

-Chiu Chow Platter

-Pea Pod Tips w/ Salty Preserve Egg

-Fish Eggplan Casserole

-StirFriend SHP Scallops and Mushroom

Baked BBQ Pork Turnover - My parents love this dish because it's something that reminds them of HK. We all liked this dish.

Preserved Egg and Pork Shredded Congee - This was good plus the additional to the fried crispy doughs (in the picture below) Most places that serve congee doesn't even come with that and in HK, that is very traditional to eat congee with that item.

Short Rib with Honey Sauce - Very Americanized dish here but my wife wanted to try this. It was surprisingly good!

Sweet Egg pastry - This was okay

Beef Brisket & Rice Noodle Roll in Pot - **** GET THIS DISH **** the beef brisket is full of bold flavors and the meat is so tender making every bite so savory

Chicken Feet with Special Sauce - This was okay, the flavor wasn't there.

Pan Fried Turnip Cake - You can't mess this dish up but it had the perfect texture not too hard. It needs to have this fluffy texture when you bite into it.

Baked Egg Creamy Egg Yolk Bun

Baked BBQ POrk Turnover

Sweet Egg pastry

Preserved Egg and Pork Shredded Conggee

Shrimp Dumplings with Green Chives

Beef Brisket & Rice Noodle Roll in Pot

Short Rib with Honey Sauce

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Chicago Cut SteakHouse

We had some friends in town and they wanted to try a steak house so we picked Chicago Cut in river north.  It was hard to fit in 8 people last minute on Saturday and Chicago Cut had a table for us.  There is outdoor seating overlooking the Chicago river and there is plenty of indoor seating.  The decor is very mod here.  There is a good mix of the crowd here.  The service is very good and attentive.  I would definitely come here over some of the more popular places like GIBSONs because the food is just as good , better service and less crowded. 

If you do decide to order wine, their wine menus are on IPADs where you can select your wine from region, price, taste.  You place the order and their automated system picks it up and they bring it over no waiter necessary to take your wine order.  For the appetizer we ordered an entree and shared it with everyone. 

We ordered the Crispy Amish Brick Chicken.  The chicken was really good.  The skin is crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside.  Their steaks here are all hand chosen and dry aged.  First thing I check for a good steakhouse is how my steak is cooked.  If a steakhouse can't cook their steaks correctly then they shouldn't be called steakhouses.  I asked for medium rare and it was perfect all the way through. 

Wine Menu on IPAD

Delmonico

Amish Brick Chicken

26 oz Bone-In Rib Eye

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GT Fish and Oysters

GT located in River North is part of the BOKA restaurant group. Depending on where you sit, in the front they have the large boomerange table where everyone is near the oyster bar or towards the back where it's a bit more intimate communal style dinning. There are a few tables for 2 where you can sit alone. I like the ambiance and the decor at GT.  The decor has a modern feel near the front of the restaurant while in the back it reminds me of being somewhere close to a dock overlooking the ocean.

We came here for a friends birthday on a Thursday and it was packed! So make a reservation or you end up waiting 45min + This restaurant is similar to tapas style.  The dishes can be shared throughout your party.  I would recommend this restaurant to others for it's good seafood and a cool place to eat.  Service here was attentive and not overly expensive.   Here are the dishes we ordered below:

Crab Agnolotti dungeness crab, bok choy, maitake mushrooms, coconut, black tobiko - This okay

Crab Cakes pepper aioli, pickled vegetables - This was so GOOOD,

Fish And Chips beer battered cod, steak fries, malt vinegar, dill pickle remolade - reminded me of fish and chips in the UK and Australia. The batter wasn't too heavy, it had just a good layer of breading over the fish. I love the presentation of the dish in the newspaper.

Tuna Poke preserved mango, cucumber - I thought this was okay nothing really memorable.

Lobster Roll lobster salad, toasted roll, fried onions - My favorite dish here at GT. The lobster was very tasty and I loved the roll they used. They toasted the roll where it wasn't too crunchy. I actually thought the roll was better than the lobster =D

Fish Dip smoked haddock, taro root, radish, pine nuts, paprika - This was an interesting dish.  Instead of a typical potato chip or bread, they made a chip made from the taro root.  I liked this dish.

GT LOBSTER “MAC AND CHEESE” - It was really creamy, the cheese was nice and saucy where it didn't over power the lobster but I wish it had more lobsters. 

BAJA SHRIMP BRUSCHETTA avocado, toasted pistachio, grapefruit, cilantro - Nothing special here.  I wouldn't order this again.

HOUSE SMOKED SALMON horseradish crème fraiche, dill, caper berries, cauliflower - This was good

BBQ EEL wasabi, potato octopus salad - I thought this was an interesting combination with the bbq and potato combination.  It was good but I probably won't order it again because there are lots of other dishes I'd rather eat again.

Blue Point , Cusshi Oysters

HOUSE SMOKED SALMON horseradish crème fraiche,
dill, caper berries, cauliflower

Taro chips and haddock dip

New England Clam Chowder

BAJA SHRIMP BRUSCHETTA

Crab Cakes pepper aioli, pickled vegetables

Tuna Poke

Crab Agnolotti

BBQ EEL wasabi, potato octopus salad

GT Lobster Mac & Cheese

Fish & Chips

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Deca at Ritz Carlton

There was an opentable coupon worth 50 dollars for 25$.  So we decided to try out Deca otherwise we would probably never make our way into the Ritz if not for the coupon.  I really like how the restaurant was in this giant lobby area with the water fountain as a divider from the bar/louge area.  The crowd is much older here at Deca since it draws mostly their hotel guests to the restaurants.

We started off with the Steamed Mussels Pistoum White wine that came with a side of hand cut french fries.  I have never seen such big mussels.  The sauce was very flavorful and eat bite of the mussels were very plump.  We all loved this dish.  We also got the steak tartar as our 2nd appetizer.  This was also another dish I liked.  I liked how they gave us some of the french bread to eat with the tartar for some crispy texture along with the tartar.  We didn't realize our entrees took longer than we expected because we were having some great conversations.  The manager came up to use with some soup and told us that our entrees were on the way and they wanted to let us know they were sorry for the minor delay by offering us their soup.  I thought that was a nice gesture.

I ordered the Halibut and my wife ordered the Lamb Cutlets.  My Halibut was REALLY good.  It was cooked perfect.  Each bite of the Halibut melted into my mouth.  The flavoring was just perfect along with some veggies right on top of the fish.  My wife and our friend also liked the lamb.  It was a bit salty but other then that, it was cooked very well.  For dessert, we ordered the 10 layer cake.  That was really yummy.

Steamed Mussels Pistoum White Wine, Hand Cut French Fries

Steak Tartare

Grilled Lamb Cutlets Rosemary, Lemon, Picholine Olive Jus

Halibut En Papillote

deca-dent Cake Ten Layered Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Frosting

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WHY I WILL TRY MY HARDEST NOT TO FLY AA ANYMORE!!!!!

Ignore any grammatical errors =D  I was writing this in a pissed off state of mind.

Destination: Miami Port for Norwegian Cruise 5/23 Monday 5pm 

Review

We got a phone call about our flight getting cancelled for Monday morning which meant, our cruise was bye bye, so i called AA and said ummm i need to catch my cruise so i need to get there by 4pm to catch the boat at the port so the lady is like ohh here's a flight leaving at 9 am and arrives at 1pm, I’m like ok please book it, and i said it's for Monday right ??? She’s like yes, so 1 hour goes by and I decide to check us in and then I saw the record locater and it showed the plane leaving for Tuesday!

So I called them back and said wtf, you guys told me it was leaving Monday so why was I told otherwise.  So then I spent 45 min on the phone with the guy and I was searching on orbitz and he told me nothing was going out from AA, but I told him I saw flights from UA and continental and he said he could he me book those for me, so we found a ticket going to Jacksonville Florida on continental (united airlines) and then from Jacksonville to Miami 6am-1pm total flight time.

I told Ly and her sister to get ready and we needed to be there 3 hours ahead of time.  We get to the airport like 1.5 hours before the flight.  Keep in mind flights have been cancelled and it's hell at the airport security.  Since the ticket was not issued by AA we had to go to the United counter to get this ticket issued there.  It took them 30 minutes to get the ticket for us because AA are a bunch of retards and they can’t get their eticket numbers entered in correctly so the agent at the UA counter also had to be placed on hold like the rest of us to speak with an AA reservation agent.

So now we have 1hour and 10 minutes to get to gate G5.  I was thinking G5 should be close 1-5 like 1 minute of walking.   We are in line, security is total shit, and we waited about 1 hour and 5 minutes in line.  We have like 4 minutes left to get to the gate.  That should be enough time right?  WRONG, first off Ly’s sister is pregnant so I was the only one trying to run to the gate which was not close at ALL, you had to cross 1000 feet and then up the escalator and then run another feet.  Yup we missed the flight to Jacksonville and 1 of our luggage is flying there and we aren’t even on the plane.

 

We had to go to the UA reservation desk to see if could get another flight to Miami, so we waited in line for 25 minutes at the United counter.  I asked the agent if they had any flights when we finally got to our turn, they said no, but he said what we could do is to   fly to Ft. Lauderdale and then drive to the Miami port about 40 minutes away. He said there are 4 tickets open but only thing is I have to run back out to American Airline counter to get the ticket issued since that was where I purchased the ticket originally and then once they book the continental flight, I have to head back to the continental counter to get the tickets.  So after we’ve figured out our ticket situation another issue was our one of our luggage was checked in and heading to Jacksonville.

 All of my sisters-in-law’s cloths are in there.  So now how the heck do we get the luggage from jacksonville to ft. lauderdale, so the guy was nice enough to get that sorted for us, they couldn’t get the luggage to ft. Lauderdale, but instead they shipped it to Miami airport.  So now the plan is to fly to ft. lauderdale, rent a car then drive to miami airport pick up the luggage and then drive to the port.  Now I need to get the tickets reissued at American Airlines counter.  I had to leave the security area again and recheck back in once I get the ticket.  I’m sprinting from terminal 1 to terminal 3.  It had to be a 1 mile sprint to get to the counter.  As I was sprinting I thought back to my track day’s haha.  When I got there i had to wait in line again for 45 min again because everyone was looking to reroute their flights from AA.  Once I got the ticket issued I had to pick up the ticket from the Continental counter.  I had 1 hour to get back to gate and security was still a mess. So when i got my ticket I ran like hell, got to the gate with 35 min left.

So when we got to Ft. Lauderdale, we rented a car and drove to Miami  airport to pick up the luggage.  The rental office was not near the airport so by then we got in around 2.30 .  We had to take a shuttle once we returned the car to the airport which took around 15 minutes.  Then it took another 35 minutes to retrieve the luggage.  There was a shuttle that goes to the pier but it’s located at the rental office.  So we had to take the shuttle back to the rental location.  We saw the bus that goes directly to the port and we were running to the bus the bus just took off.  Just our luck!  The guys that worked with the routes told us that was the last one.  So as we were walking away the taxi driver asked us if we needed a route then Ly told them no because I think these guys wanted to make some money so I ended up giving them 20 bucks.  It probably would have cost more if we took a cab to the port.  So we finally made the cruise with 30 minutes left.

Review

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Upcoming Food Reviews

Deca - Ritz Carlton Hotel Chicago

Chicago Cut SteakHouse

GT Fish & Oysters

MingHin

SanFran - pending......