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The "problem" with Chinatown re. publicity is that it's on the South Side, so not really convenient to most people in the "Green Zone" or whatever you want to call the affluent core areas.
And while Chinatown is pretty big, most of that growth is really over in Bridgeport. Chinatown proper, on its own, is not super-impressive, though it's certainly the best in the U.S. outside all the coastal Chinatowns. But if you have seen Flushing, or SF, or Sunset Park, or Manhattan, or San Gabriel Valley, Chicago Chinatown is small potatoes.
The "problem" with Chinatown re. publicity is that it's on the South Side, so not really convenient to most people in the "Green Zone" or whatever you want to call the affluent core areas.
And while Chinatown is pretty big, most of that growth is really over in Bridgeport. Chinatown proper, on its own, is not super-impressive, though it's certainly the best in the U.S. outside all the coastal Chinatowns. But if you have seen Flushing, or SF, or Sunset Park, or Manhattan, or San Gabriel Valley, Chicago Chinatown is small potatoes.
Only idiots consider the "South Side" universally bad, and Chinatown is less than 20 minutes by train from Fullerton. That's closer than Wicker Park if you're using transit, and if you're driving, Chinatown is usually only about 5 minutes further way than Wicker Park is from Lincoln Park.
And if you think Chinatown is inconvenient to get to from "The Green Zone" then the coastal ones sure aren't going to be any more convenient so I'm not sure where the comparison comes from. Lincoln Park is no East Village (Manhattan's), but that doesn't mean everyone shuns it.
Only idiots consider the "South Side" universally bad, and Chinatown is less than 20 minutes by train from Fullerton. That's closer than Wicker Park if you're using transit, and if you're driving, Chinatown is usually only about 5 minutes further way than Wicker Park is from Lincoln Park.
And if you think Chinatown is inconvenient to get to from "The Green Zone" then the coastal ones sure aren't going to be any more convenient so I'm not sure where the comparison comes from. Lincoln Park is no East Village (Manhattan's), but that doesn't mean everyone shuns it.
Correct, Chinatown is really freaking easy to get to. I don't know what people are talking about here anyway. It's always packed on weekends when I go there.
Only idiots consider the "South Side" universally bad, and Chinatown is less than 20 minutes by train from Fullerton. That's closer than Wicker Park if you're using transit, and if you're driving, Chinatown is usually only about 5 minutes further way than Wicker Park is from Lincoln Park.
I don't disagree. All I'm saying is that it makes a difference is something is on the South Side vs. the North Side. We all know this, and it plays a role in relatively popularity, especially for tourists and some residents.
Correct, Chinatown is really freaking easy to get to. I don't know what people are talking about here anyway. It's always packed on weekends when I go there.
Same. Whenever I go to Dim Sum at one place, which is a large banquet type of place full of at least 150-200 people eating, it's always full for a constant 3-4 hours. I usually have to wait in the minimum of 30 minutes to get a table, and last time I waited 50 minutes. Other places are pretty busy too. Places are always packed, and Chinatown is easy as **** to get to. if you really think that Chinatown is hard to get to from the "green areas" then you just plain don't know the city. From my place in Gold Coast, it takes less than 15 minutes on the train to get there. It takes me that long, possibly longer to get from my place to Wrigleyville.
Also, there are some nice places in Chinatown. Go behind Chinatown Square and tell me those places are ****ty. From the Red Line stop there to the Monroe red line stop, it's almost exactly 2 miles. You know what's 2 miles north of the Monroe Red Line stop? The Gold Coast portion north of Division. Lincoln Park, Lakeview, Wicker Park, Lincoln Square, etc? All further away from the middle of the Loop than Chinatown is to the middle of the Loop. Chinatown is a great location. I also agree that a lot of expansion is happening in Bridgeport now and would be really cool to kind of see Chinatown "expand" into there, officially if you know what I mean.
I DO think that it being on the "South Side" does deter some transplants or people who don't know the city away, but one visit to Chinatown would show you that the area is far from dangerous or shady and actually a really damn good location.
I think the reason people are giving different opinions re. accessibility is because they're using the train. Most people aren't using the train to go to a restaurant in Chicago. They're walking, or driving.
Why would your "typical tourist" family on Michigan Ave. take a Red Line to the South Side after dark to find some Chinese American joint? Or why would your "typical Green Zone" family in LP or LV take their kids on the Red Line, when they already have cars, and most every restaurant has parking accessibility or valet?
Fact is, South Side is less popular than North Side. You can rationalize it all you want, and maybe people are idiots, but there's a reason that there are like 100 times as many restaurants north of the Loop as opposed to south of the Loop.
Actually, many tourists go to Chinatown. I always see tour buses there on the weekends whenever I'm there, and it's not just one. It's a handful of them. In other cities (i.e. SF, NYC), Chinatown is a tourist area, and there are many tourists who do the same in Chicago. Go there on a weekend, especially in the summer when more tourists are here and you'll see tour buses and people walking around with the typical tourist gear (i.e. Canon camera around the neck). If you really think that almost no tourists go there, then you're mistaken. It's not like Michigan Avenue or close, but there's still a fair share of tourists especially on the weekends who go there. There has never been a time when I've been in Chinatown where I haven't seen them. In fact, when the Red Line was down this summer, I took the water taxi down to Chinatown a few times and remember that most of the people there were actually not locals. I remember meeting a family of 6 from NYC there and another time a family of 5 from Germany who were using that mode of transportation to get there.
There's a reason why there are more restaurants - of course. There's more tourists in the immediate area and there's about 6X more residents in the Near North Side than Armour Square. However, per capita the amount is pretty high in Chinatown. There's way more restaurants there than suffice for under 15,000 people, and I'd bet the per capita restaurant/food place count for Chinatown is actually higher than some other areas of town (not Near North Side, Loop, South Loop, Lincoln Park, West Town, or Lakeview)
Why would a typical family go to Chinatown? To get some food, why the hell not? I think you're missing the fact that many people in this city actually travel to get food and don't always just stay in their neighborhoods. Again, if you think that then you don't know a lot of people in this city very well. Certainly some do stay in their neighborhoods only, but there are plenty of people who live in say River North who will go to Logan Square just to eat food. Let's not forget that in the Near North Side, there's barely any Chinese food options. Lao 18 recently opened, but outside of that, PF Chang's, and Big Bowl, there's almost nothing. Most of the Asian food in this area is Japanese and Sushi, not Chinese or even Korean. There's only a handful of Thai places in the area.
I'm not saying that it's crawling with tourists, but there are tours that are always there and a decent number of tourists there on their own terms because Chinatown is "cool" to go to in other American cities. Furthermore, there aren't many Chinese options in the Near North Side or Lincoln Park. There have been a few new Chinese and Korean places to open up in Lincoln Park and Lakeview in the last few months, but there is actually a massive gap in the amount of Chinese food in these areas. The fact is that if you want good Chinese food save a place like Lao 18 (maybe, mixed reviews), you either have to go to Chinatown, carry out, or go to Argyle, a few places in Albany Park, or some other ones scattered throughout a few neighborhoods. If you want real dim sum, ****ing forget about it. There's one or two places in Argyle but they are not that good. Chinatown is where you want to go if you want dim sum.
Last edited by marothisu; 11-22-2013 at 03:11 PM..
I think the reason people are giving different opinions re. accessibility is because they're using the train. Most people aren't using the train to go to a restaurant in Chicago. They're walking, or driving.
Why would your "typical tourist" family on Michigan Ave. take a Red Line to the South Side after dark to find some Chinese American joint? Or why would your "typical Green Zone" family in LP or LV take their kids on the Red Line, when they already have cars, and most every restaurant has parking accessibility or valet?
Fact is, South Side is less popular than North Side. You can rationalize it all you want, and maybe people are idiots, but there's a reason that there are like 100 times as many restaurants north of the Loop as opposed to south of the Loop.
Ok, I'm done.
You say "some Chinese American joint", which means you've either never been to Chicago's Chinatown or never been to China, or both. Chicago's Chinatown has plenty of restaurants that serve authentic Chinese food, not Chinese-American food. Parking in Chinatown is very easy and inexpensive - moreso than most of the North Side - and it's very safe.
And we're not talking about the whole of "south of the Loop," we're talking about a destination center that happens to be less than two miles from the Loop and has more restaurant density than most parts of the North Side. Rationalize YOUR opinions all you want, but Chinatown is doing fine and is probably in the top five for mainland U.S. Chinatowns - and it's not just me saying that, either, Chicago's Chinatown even gets mentioned by the South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong paper, as being in the top six U.S. Chinatowns. I've been to Chinatowns in Madrid, Paris, Toronto, Seattle, Manhattan, Flushing, San Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles and Boston, and while New York's', Toronto's and San Francisco's are clearly better, Chicago's is as good as or better than every other one I've been to.
You say "some Chinese American joint", which means you've either never been to Chicago's Chinatown or never been to China, or both. Chicago's Chinatown has plenty of restaurants that serve authentic Chinese food, not Chinese-American food. Parking in Chinatown is very easy and inexpensive - moreso than most of the North Side - and it's very safe.
Yeah, most every place there is serving authentic stuff. Some of them do have small sections of the menu where you can get stuff like orange chicken, but often times it's labeled under something like "Americans' favorites" and is basically for some of the tourists. Not to beat my dead horse, but my last girlfriend was from Asia from a Chinese family, only in the US for 2 years when I met her, and she lived in Shanghai for a few years. We had a lot of friends from Asia when we were going out, some from China, and we were in Chinatown at least once a week to eat. I asked her about how good the food is and authenticity and she basically said it's not perfect, but it's fairly decent and it's authentic. All her friend's shared the same sentiment, including our friends who had only been living in the US for under a year directly from China.
And yeah, there's a lot of parking there. There's two large parking lots right next to the red line, not to mention Chinatown Square has a sizable lot across from that, there's a parking ramp down the street, and then plenty of street parking around that you can easily find.
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And we're not talking about the whole of "south of the Loop," we're talking about a destination center that happens to be less than two miles from the Loop and has more restaurant density than most parts of the North Side. Rationalize YOUR opinions all you want, but Chinatown is doing fine and is probably in the top five for mainland U.S. Chinatowns - and it's not just me saying that, either, Chicago's Chinatown even gets mentioned by the South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong paper, as being in the top six U.S. Chinatowns. I've been to Chinatowns in Madrid, Paris, Toronto, Seattle, Manhattan, Flushing, San Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles and Boston, and while New York's', Toronto's and San Francisco's are clearly better, Chicago's is as good as or better than every other one I've been to.
Yeah, NYC and SF are the tops in the US, but as far as the other ones I've been to in the US - LA and Honolulu, I'd say that Chicago's is just as good if not better. In fact, I found Honolulu's Chinatown to be pretty upsetting and overrated.
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