Chinatown Crawl

The crawl concept is simple: Find an area chock-full of restaurants and hit it hard. Visit several places, split up courses, and try not to annoy the disappointed servers. In Chicago, it's almost too easy—the city is teeming with tightly packed neighborhoods and awesome cuisine. The A.V. Club set out to investigate Chinatown for these purposes and offers this advice: Arrive hungry.

Appetizers

Hot, cold, fried, steamed, or fresh—this is the difficult choice literally on the table. Any self-respecting crawler should pick a hearty mix, as it's the best defense against the next step along the crawl. Moon Palace serves up a delicious array of appetizers, and the staff doesn't bat an eye when the order ends with a single course and beer. As for that beer, Tsingtao is a good bet. On the food side, go for safe choices like green-onion pancakes and egg rolls, or venture into new territory with jellyfish and turnip.

Where to find it: 216 W. Cermak Rd.

Good alternative: Seven Treasures Restaurant, 2312 S. Wentworth Ave.

Drinks

Won Kow's drinks are insanely cheap and heavy with alcohol; though knowing what's in them requires guesswork. The menu opts for marketing over description—under a drink called Navy Grog, it simply states, "Let's go join the Navy." Under Blue Hawaii: "You don't have to go to Hawaii for this." Sounds good. The drinks come in two sizes, individual ($4.25) and volcano ($10.95), and aren't too sweet. Standards like martinis ($3.25) or beer (Heineken, $2.75) are also available for the less adventurous.

Where to find it: 2237 S. Wentworth Ave.

Good alternative: Joy Yee's (2139 S. China Pl.) has great bubble tea, but for booze, Won Kow is unparalleled.

Dinner

Head farther down Wentworth to House Of Fortune. It's a nice walk for digesting previous indiscretions and a welcome relief from the busy and overwhelming tourist shops. (There's apparently a huge demand for miniature Buddhas/dragons/pandas/Chinese lanterns.) The restaurant has a reputation for being one of the most authentic places not only in Chinatown, but in Chicago as a whole, and experts can order traditional dishes off-menu. Most attractive are the family dinners, which offer great value: It works out to about $12 per person, and the more people present, the more varied the food. Anyone lucky enough to have seven friends gets spring rolls, barbecue pork, fried won ton dumplings, lemon chicken, Mongolian beef, and shrimp with lobster sauce, to name a few. Step it up to $17 per person for quality items like Peking duck.

Where to find it: 2407 S. Wentworth Ave.

Good alternative: Evergreen (2411 S. Wentworth Ave.) —Emily Withrow