Chinatown Details

It's been a while since we visited Chicago's Chinatown. Lately we've had an urge for the kind of dim sum that Chinatown provides, but rain and other things delayed our visit for a few weeks. Sunday was clear and not very cold, so we drove to Oak Park, stashed the car in a conveniently free parking garage (free Sundays only) and rode the El to Chinatown -- Green Line to Roosevelt, transfer to Red Line for Chinatown.

On the sidewalk near the corner of Archer Ave. and Cermak Road, which is near the edge of Chinatown, Ann spotted a face on the sidewalk and pointed it out to me. Maybe the work of a guerrilla graphic designer. Not a Toynbee Tile, but it'll do.

We ate at Phoenix on Archer Ave., which serves up pretty good dim sum, though mysteriously at first the dim sum wagon ladies only would offer us "chicken feet with homemade sauce" and other items we didn't want. Actually, I would have gone for the chicken feet, but no one else wanted any. Eventually we obtained shrimp rolls, barbecue port turnovers, noh mai gai (sticky rice in lotus leaves), ha gao (shrimp dumpling), chui chow dumpling, pan fried vegetable & meat bun, mango pudding and sesame balls.

Then we wandered around the neighborhood. Mostly I was interested in talking pictures of details. Such as a dragon lamp.

And wall details on Wentworth Ave.

I noticed a lot more RPC flags hanging from buildings in Chinatown than even a few years ago, for whatever it's worth. But I also noticed that there will be a parade in Chinatown this Saturday to celebrate the 100th anniversary of overthrow of the Qing Dynasty -- Double 10 Day (even though Saturday is the 8th) -- which I understand is celebrated in Taiwan rather than the mainland.