Tein Li Chow

I can hardly remember a time when it wasn't common practice for Kosher Chinese restaurants to have ridiculously bad puns for their names. And nothing says "terrible pun for a name" like Tein Li Chow. For those of you who don't know, Tein Li is Hebrew, and translates to "Give Me." Chow means chow. As in food, not goodbye. So the name is a bilingual/stupid-slang way of saying "Give Me Food." Ridiculous. That being said, they serve food. Which I will now discuss.

Tein Li Chow is located inside of a Jewel Osco, roughly on the corner of Howard and Kedzie, just over the border between Chicago and Evanston. They serve primarily the generic "chinese food" that Kosher Chinese restaurants tend to homogenize portions of Cantonese, Szechuan, and Hunan cuisines into. Tein Li Chow is made unique by both their willingness to make just about any substitution or allergy/health accommodation you could ask for, and by the fact that they are strictly a take-out joint. And the food is pretty good too. The meat is always tender, the vegetables are usually fresh. In terms of quality, they excel.

That's not to say, however, that it's all Hunky Dory (for instance: Tein Li Chow is a restaurant, while Hunky Dory is a Bowie album). While the food is good, they offer very little variety. It's not that they don't have a full menu, it's just that alot of the different dishes can be quite same-ey. Essentially, they have about 8 entrees which they then dress up in different ways until they look like 30.

And also, there is the extremely prohibitive price. They have monthly specials which help with this, but ultimately those specials always fall into the category of "mostly noodles," or "mostly rice." If you want a dinner portion from Tein Li chow, you're looking at about $20 per entree, and that's not including any soups or drinks.

What I've found my main beef with Tein Li Chow to be is that they are fundamentally at odds with themselves. They offer take out food, inside of a convenience store, and yet expect people to shell out prices that would seem a bit high at a nice classy sit-down restaurant (where, by the way, you would likely get free water and a soup or salad with your entree). Ultimately, the good food is overshadowed by the lack of variety, and the ridiculous price. I would give it a 2.5/5, however I think that the amount of substitutions they are wiling to do, including making things wheat free for Celiac sufferer's, or taking out vegetables for those allergic, or even just making things with less salt should earn them an extra point. And so I give Tein Li Chow a 3.5/5.