Pros and Cons about living in Chicago (Lincoln, Albany: fit in, neighborhoods)

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Backstrom

Agreed that Chicago is a hotbed for great ethnic-derived foods. However, I will burst the bubble and say that Chinese/Asian is not one of those cuisines. Having moved here from the West Coast, I am sad to report that while the Chinese food here is probably best in the Midwest, it is still subpar relative to West Coast cities.

I agree - all my Asian friends have said this, though there are places in town to get some legitimately good Asian food, again according to my friends who grew up in Asia. I agree that the West Coast does it better on average though, but I think Chicago has gotten better with it.

[NorCal Dude]

Complaining about a lack of good asian in chicago is like complaining about a lack of good bbq or soul food in sf/la.

If you don't have the demographics to support it, it is what it is.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by NorCal Dude

Complaining about a lack of good asian in chicago is like complaining about a lack of good bbq or soul food in sf/la.

If you don't have the demographics to support it, it is what it is.

Demographics aren't the only thing - Asian food in reality is very popular in the gentrified hoods of Chicago and the Asian population is the fastest growing in Chicago. According to the US Census, there's over 160,000 Asians in Chicago city itself and this is not to mention a few hundred thousand more in the suburbs. According to the ACS, the Asian population increased by 15,000 between 2010 and 2012 too in Chicago. While the percentage is low in the city (6% now), 160,000 is still a lot and there are some suburbs that are 20-30% Asian and a number of them between 10 and 20%. Schaumburg at 75,000 people for example is about 20% Asian. Morton Grove may be the highest or near it at 28% Asian.

[NorCal Dude]

Lol get real, asians don't even make up 10% of the entire chicago metro.

Its hard to get an abundance of something, when there is no one there to cook the stuff (token places for yupsters aside).

A simple trip to Toronto, will show you the glaring difference. No need to go all the way west.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by NorCal Dude

Lol get real, asians don't even make up 10% of the entire chicago metro.

Its hard to get an abundance of something, when there is no one there to cook the stuff (token places for yupsters aside).

A simple trip to Toronto, will show you the glaring difference. No need to go all the way west.

Sorry, but your post wreaks of naivety just for not understanding what I just said . First of all, again there's 160,000 Asians in the city. Nobody to cook for? Give me a break - you think that 160,000 Asians aren't enough to cook for? While the city only has 6% Asian population, that's still a lot of people.

Second of all, when and where the hell did I ever say they made up 10% of the Chicago metro? I said there are numerous cities in the metro which make up over 10% for Asians. I also said that it's the fastest growing group in Chicago (which again, you can verify through stats), and there are actually many Asians in the area. There's 65,000 or 75,000 Koreans in the metro area for example (no, I'm not trying to compare this to LA - I'm just stating a fact, and that's still a sizable population). If you think there's not enough Asians to cook real Asian food in the metro area, then you are just ignorant about this.

I never said the best Asian food is in Chicago at all and specifically said so. However, saying that there's nobody to cook for is just ignorant in general.

[Backstrom]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Demographics aren't the only thing - Asian food in reality is very popular in the gentrified hoods of Chicago and the Asian population is the fastest growing in Chicago. According to the US Census, there's over 160,000 Asians in Chicago city itself and this is not to mention a few hundred thousand more in the suburbs. According to the ACS, the Asian population increased by 15,000 between 2010 and 2012 too in Chicago. While the percentage is low in the city (6% now), 160,000 is still a lot and there are some suburbs that are 20-30% Asian and a number of them between 10 and 20%. Schaumburg at 75,000 people for example is about 20% Asian. Morton Grove may be the highest or near it at 28% Asian.

Let's back up for a second. The Census lumps all Asians-- East, SE, South-- all together. Having grown up mostly around Chinese and Koreans, I usually mean East Asians when I refer to Asians. The Asian population in Schaumburg (and in the rest of Chicagoland, for that matter) is predominantly Indian. When we're talking about East Asians (or SE Asians), it's a smaller contingency. However, I've been around a bit and have noticed concentrations of Asian "enclaves" (for lack of a better word) here and there: Niles has a sizable Korean population, and I was just down in Naperville where there is a relatively greater number of Chinese/Korean.

[NorCal Dude]

Excatly. You will find good halal on devon, but dim sum? Might have to dig a little deeper.

Hell even schaumburg. Mostly indians, and how many of those indians are clustered around international village and tree house apartments? LoL.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Backstrom

Let's back up for a second. The Census lumps all Asians-- East, SE, South-- all together. Having grown up mostly around Chinese and Koreans, I usually mean East Asians when I refer to Asians. The Asian population in Schaumburg (and in the rest of Chicagoland, for that matter) is predominantly Indian. When we're talking about East Asians (or SE Asians), it's a smaller contingency. However, I've been around a bit and have noticed concentrations of Asian "enclaves" (for lack of a better word) here and there: Niles has a sizable Korean population, and I was just down in Naperville where there is a relatively greater number of Chinese/Korean.

I'm aware of this and the thing is that there's still sizable populations of these things. For example, there's still 45,000 Chinese people in Chicago. Of course, this is Asian alone, so it's not counting anybody who may be half Chinese and half white or black or something.

According to the 2012 3 year ACS estimates, there are 370,009 people of non-Indian Asian alone background (not counting people who are mixed say white and Asian). Here are the non-Indian Asian populations of the area for Asian Alone (doesn't count mixed race):

Filipino: 108,015
Chinese: 101,331
Other Asian: 66,794
Korean: 55,184
Vietnamese: 22,834
Japanese: 15,709

A few counties are missing data from here but it would probably only push the totals up by 1000 or so. There's also 46,427 people who are Asian+White. Doesn't say about Hispanic+Asian or Black+Asian. The point wasn't about whether the west coast is better or not (because we've all said that, including me). The point was if there's a high enough population to have legit food. Every single one of those merits it. Most of these are concentrated in a few counties (Mainly Cook, Du Page, and Lake).

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by NorCal Dude

Excatly. You will find good halal on devon, but dim sum? Might have to dig a little deeper.

Hell even schaumburg. Mostly indians, and how many of those indians are clustered around international village and tree house apartments? LoL.

Stop switching your story. You were stating that there's not the demographics to have real Asian food because there's nobody to cook it, which is wrong. I showed that above with the area having almost 400,000 non-Indian Asian people. Cook County alone has almost 240,000 of that including almost 70,000 Chinese, almost 40,000 Korean, 11,000 Japanese, 15,000 Vietnamese, etc. These are race alone too, not a mix. There's enough people to cook this and this was never about if it's the best or better than certain cities. I specifically stated that the west coast has better Asian food as well.

Originally Posted by NorCal Dude

If you don't have the demographics to support it, it is what it is.

Originally Posted by NorCal Dude

Its hard to get an abundance of something, when there is no one there to cook the stuff (token places for yupsters aside).

And you can get authentic dim sum in Chicago - If you don't think so, then you don't know what you're talking about. It may not be better than SF's on average but it's authentic. I have a lot of Asian friends, actually from Asia (mainly China, Malaysia, and Korea). My Chinese friends say the Chinese food in Chicago is passable on average - not bad, but not amazing (and they say that SF has the best Chinese in America on average). They have pointed out actually good places though. My last girlfriend of over a year was Chinese who grew up in the Chinese community in Kuala Lumpur and lived in Shanghai for a few years too - she said the same thing. Passable, but with some actually great places but no shortage of authentic cuisine. She was actually very high on a few Thai places in town mainly up north too. My Korean friends say the Korean food here is pretty good, but not as good as LA (no brainer) and actually on average better than NYC. But again, this isn't about if it's better than some other city's. It's about whether you can get authentic or not, and the answer is yes. Anybody who doesn't think you can get authentic Asian food in Chicago is a n00b.


And Schaumburg - just under 50% of the Asians there are Indian meaning there's actually slightly more non-Indian Asians in the city than there are Indian Asians.

[Bucktownbabe]

Cons: Winter, segregation, corrupt government.

Pros: Pretty much everything else.



As for Asian food, I've never known an Asian person who didn't consider at least some (and sometimes much) of the food in Chinatown or the Asian areas way up north to be legit. Those are the places to go for Asian food. If you're looking "in the gentrified hoods" for any kind of ethnic food, you're doing it wrong.