Some Chinese restaurants focus on one thing, like dim sum or Beijing Duck.
There’s a legendary spot in Uptown, where they’ve been emphasizing Hong Kong-style barbecue for nearly 40 years.
Four decades is a mammoth accomplishment, no matter what kind of restaurant you have. But for the family behind this Uptown gem, it hasn’t come easy. In fact, it’s been the founder’s kids who’ve taken up the mantle, and have kept the tradition alive and well, with some innovation and a lot of hard work.
Since the mid-80s, Sun Wah Barbecue has been an Uptown staple. From Argyle, it moved around the corner 15 years ago to its current location on Broadway.
“The term barbecue is a little misleading when it comes to Hong Kong-style barbecue. It isn’t just roasted meats, we do a variety of marinated meats,” said co-owner Kelly Cheng.
“We do whole roasted pig, we do barbecue pork, we do roast duck,” she said.
As a classic Cantonese restaurant, they also do egg rolls, the bane of Cheng’s existence.
The Food Guy
“It’s a love-hate thing, but it’s the peanut butter,” she said.
It binds together the barbecued pork, shrimp, cabbage and celery, as well as bits of roasted duck, since they have so much on hand, a result of their popular multi-course Beijing Duck Dinner. It starts with ducks delivered from Culver Farms in Indiana.
Feeling out of the loop? We'll catch you up on the Chicago news you need to know. Sign up for the weekly Chicago Catch-Up newsletter.
“We clean them out. We pour in our 5-spice sugar, brining spices, and then we have a garlic and bean paste sauce also goes in there,” said Cheng. "We sew it up, then we pump it with air. The air actually plumps the duck up in that it creates a cavity inside."
It also separates the skin from the meat, you’ll see why that’s important in a second. They’re briefly dipped in hot water…
“And then we dunk it into a vinegar, rice wine, honey or molasses. And then it’s left to dry,” she said.
Hung for about four to five hours, then into a vertical oven to roast, until the skin glistens a deep, dark mahogany. At the table, they present the entire duck.
“Carve it so that it’s only the meat and the skin,” she said.
Rather than flimsy wraps, they use puffy gua bao, which are layered with duck, housemade pickled radish, raw carrot and scallion and a thin hoisin sauce - a perfect Cantonese sandwich.
“We also do a second and third course with the rest of the duck, so once the duck is carved out, the leftover bones and meat are scraped out, chopped up, and then the bones go into a soup that has winter melon or opal squash depending on the season; the leftover meat is turned into fried rice or fried noodles,” said Cheng.
Another classic Hong Kong noodle dish is the Singapore Mai Fun, using up bits of pork, shrimp and vegetable. “So it’s basically a dried curry, stir-fried with skinny rice noodles – mai fun,” she said.
Cheng and her siblings have been running the show for years now, and she says the secret to longevity is pretty simple.
“Love and care. So our dad instilled in us the love for food and the care in our work. Easy to preach, very hard to practice,” said Cheng.
Here's where you can go:
5039 N. Broadway; 773-769-1254
