Chengdu Impression

Picture this: it's a freezing cold, Saturday evening in Chicago. My roommate Olivia and I were feening for something tasty and warm. Dare I say... we were feeling like lazy girls. But alas! A new restaurant serving Szechuan cuisine opened right in our neighborhood! While we were just looking for something quick and easy, we were pleasantly surprised with a delicious and filling meal.

Fair warning, we were not expecting to write about this experience, but enjoyed the food enough that we wanted to share! Apologies in advance for our lack of pictures (and amount of pictures of half eaten dishes).

Since we had never been here before, we opted to get a couple of different dishes to split so we could try as much as possible. We began with the scallion pancakes. While Olivia has had them in the past, I've never had a chance to try them! They were perfectly crisp and just a little flaky. The flavor was excellent, especially paired with a dip into their sweet, salty Hoisin sauce. While they were fried, they managed to still feel light and were not too filling. Collectively, we'd give these an 8/10... they were a great start to our meal.

Next, our personal favorite of the meal, was Zhong's Dumplings. These dumplings were simply delicious with a pork filling, served in a pool of chili sauce, and topped with green onions. They actually weren't very spicy, and instead had a great blend of sweet and spicy flavors. The pork was very tender and had a good salty, savory taste that paired well with the sweet and spicy in the sauce. Overall these were super flavorful and we will be ordering them again. Unfortunately they were so good we didn't get get a chance to snap a picture so you'll have to trust us. Definitly a 10/10 and a highlight of the meal.

The third and fourth dishes arrived at the same time: the Xiao Long Bao (left) the Shrimp Shu-Mai (right). The Xiao Long Bao were unfortunately lacking when it came to having a lot of soup broth inside, but the pork filling was still delicious and paired perfectly with the ginger vinegar sauce they were served with. On the other hand, the Shrimp Shu-Mai were another standout. The shrimp was perfectly cooked, leaving super tender, bite sized dumplings. We agreed that we've had better Xiao Long Bao so we would give those a 6/10. But on the other hand the Shrimp Shu-Mai were very flavorful and were definitely an 8.5/10.

Finally, we finished up the meal with some mochi ice cream: we tried both the strawberry and matcha flavors. They were pretty good, but honestly nothing special. The presentation on the plate was fun, yet they tasted pretty similar to what you could buy in a grocery store. Still a yummy way to end our meal so these still get a 6.5/10.

Overall, we would have to give Chengdu Impression an 8/10. We left feeling full, very satisfied with our meal, and were super impressed by just how big their menu was. We were also very pleased with how affordable all of the dishes were for how much food you were served. We only sampled a fraction of what they have to offer so we can't wait to visit again next time we're feeling like a couple of lazy girls!