#1 Chop Suey — Restaurant in Jefferson Township

When we're hungry, we at and one of my favorite things is Chinese food. During my on-going quest to find the best Chinese food around Logan Square I hit up one of the hood's more popular restaurants which is #1 Chop Suey. Cheap and fast, nothing would describe this place better which is why it gets so much business. Going in I didn't expect much since typically these places are just small hole in the walls with broken tables/chairs all sending the vibes of "order and GTFO".

I got 2 combination plates (known as lunch specials), the orange chicken and shrimp with lobster sauce. Both came with a huge amount of chicken fried rice (easily over a pound) for about 5.50 which is what you expect from these places. The shrimp was pretty good, sauce was thick enough so it didn't spill all over the place which is a plus. Everything was cooked well including the orange chicken. There was a ridiculous amount of orange chicken, so much that I was eating it for 2 days. The fried rice was something I didn't like, even though there was a huge amount, it tasted like whatever oil they fried it in. Either they don't clean their cooking equipment properly or the oil they use is of such poor quality/ being reused without dumping for too long.

What you pay for is what you get. With these places expect lots of bang for your buck as that is the only way they can keep customers with the quality of food they serve. Great for those late night drunk sessions when you have the...

I was excited to see a Chinese spot with good reviews near Lane Tech since we're in that neighborhood a lot for sports activities. Anyway, on to my experience...

The dining area: it's tiny and cramped. This is one of those "order at the counter and clear your own table" places but they still ask you to tip. I might have tipped anyway (even though I strongly dislike the concept of tipping at places where you're your own server/busser, I get the post-covid struggles) but the person behind the counter was so unfriendly, I decided not to.

The food: I ordered the chicken and broccoli. When it arrived, it was remarkably bland. Have you ever had chicken breast cutlets boiled in plain water? It looked and tasted like that. I ended up eating the broccoli, one bite of chicken, and about 1/3 of the rice.

My total bill was around $16 for the chicken & broccoli, 4 crab rangoons (which weren't terrible), and 1 can of diet coke.

I don't know, maybe I was there on an off day but I'm not sure I'm interested in giving it another go,...

UPDATE: The last several times we have gone back this summer we were very disappointed. The chop suey was completely tasteless twice in a row. We were told the chef is the same and the recipe was the same, but it was drastically different. No seasoning. No taste. Then our standby Pepper Steak changed drastically. Not in a good way. The final straw were the best egg rolls we could find until now. Always super crisp, with freshly shredded ingredients, not frozen and reheated mush like other places serve. Our last visit we were served mushy egg rolls. We will give this place one last chance and post an update, with pictures. I think they were sold a year ago. I had given up on what I would consider great, inexpensive Chinese food anywhere near Ukrainian...