Chicago / Boston Marathon double race report, part 3: Food porn, part 2

Saturday... the day before the Chicago Marathon and my sub-3 attempt. What's on the itinerary? Absolutely NOTHING. As minimal physical activity as possible. So, that means staying inside my room the vast majority of the day, and only venturing out to get lunch and dinner. (Since I have something to eat for breakfast and snacks with me in my room.)

Well... I remembered the dim sum restaurant I stumbled upon five years when I did the Chicago Marathon the first time: Minghin Cuisine, in Chinatown. When I had gone in 2016, apparently it was after lunch hour, or something, because it was not all that busy. But this time... I got there right at the height of lunch hour... this place was HOPPING! It was a 30-minute wait for me to get a table.

Finally, I make my way inside and am handed both a dim sum-oriented menu (which has spaces for me to write the number of orders of each item on it) and a tablet. I turn on the tablet thinking that maybe I'm actually supposed to place my order that way (I've been to such restaurants before), but it turns out that their standard Chinese restaurant fare is listed there, not the dim sum. Off it goes, and study the hardcopy. So much to choose from, but I know that I don't want to go TOO far overboard.

Shrimp and chive: while these look pretty nasty, as it's a more slimy/starchy kind of wrap for these, the stuffing is one solid piece. So, when the first one I picked up with the chopsticks fell apart out of the wrap, it was no loss when I left the wrap behind and merely ate the stuffing. Mmm...!

Steamed BBQ pork buns: I was almost disappointed that these came out with the shrimp and chive and well ahead of the other two dishes. This is so sweet, it could easily qualify as a dessert. Oh, wonderful! And these particular buns, if/when they fall apart, you definitely want to make sure to gobble up each little bit that drops to the plate. Wonderful!

Fried roast pork sticy rice: Very simple dish, and one that even novices with chopsticks could handle with aplomb. The sweetness of the stick rice with the saltiness of the soy sauce used while stir frying this paired very nice. A smattering of roast pork throughout was a nice complement.

Fried corn and shrimp cakes: It seems like these got lost in the shuffle back in the kitchen. I had to wait about 5-10 minutes extra after all of the other dishes were finished and I flagged down the waiter to let him know this last dish never arrived. But this dish did not disappoint. Scrumptious. And it also had a hint of sweetness to it, that it was a good "substitute" dessert where the pork buns would have been my default, if everything arrived simultaneously.

While this was my full meal, it PALED in comparison, volume-wise, with what the lady next to me (and fellow Chicago marathoner) was eating. I don't know exatly what dishes she got, since I made it point not to stare and I thought it would be rude to make any overt comment a la "I hope you're going to be bringing half of that home for dinner tonight." However, this relatively thin woman had one large bowl of soup, one dim sum "small plate" (like mine above), and SIX full-size regular entrees brought out. It was just her at the table eating. And slowly but surely making her way through it. She arrive after I did, so it was a bit of a marvel as dish by dish got brought out, maybe 2 or 3 at a time, with the soup being the last to arrive while I was still there. I can't fathom how much of it she actually ate -- I wasn't there to bear witness to the entirety. But even what amount I was there for, it was impressive. And I'm sure, just like with everything I had for my lunch, it was likely all delicious.

Like with Giordano's for deep dish, you *must* make it a point to get to Minghin Cuisine to get dim sum if you are in Chicago long enough to do so. Personally, I would choose Minghin over Giordano's if given the choice, but that's not exactly a surprise.