Grill-N-Chill Cafe

On a recent chilly trip to Chinatown for some bakery buns we noticed the sign for a subterranean food court beneath an office building. Sounded quite warm and inviting so we checked it out. It was the Friday after Thanksgiving so only about half of the vendors were open (and several vacant storefronts too) so we obviously weren't hitting this spot on a high-traffic day. My wife was jonesin' for some pan-fried dumplings/potstickers and Grill-N-Chill was the only spot offering such goodness. Looked like a Mom and Son (or Grandson) operation. The wife ordered a strawberry bubble tea to round out her 'snack'. I was initially going to forego a mid-afternoon snack, but I spied an advertisement for a Spam, Fried Egg and Ramen noodle soup bowl for $3.99 with a free soda included. Too intriguing not to try. We paid and seated ourselves at a nearby table for 10-15 minutes while our food was prepared. The potstickers were lukewarm, but still pretty tasty. Served only with a couple packets of soy sauce when proper dumpling sauce would have made a huge difference in taste. The bubble tea was pretty good, but was advertised as 'fresh fruit'. We watched the guy prepare the beverage and he scooped a few strawberry pieces (in syrup?) into the mixture, but it was mostly powdered mix and tasted as such. My warm bowl of pan-fried egg and spammy goodness, however, was pretty great. If I worked in this neighborhood I think I'd often find myself here for breakfast and lunch during the cold winter months. This was simple comfort food and definitely hit the spot.

So all in all a good cheap mid-afternoon meal. We'll hit Joy Yee's for our bubble teas from now on, but the tasty ramen bowl inspires me to try some of their other offerings on a future trip!

Only tried a strawberry smoothie with tapioca. I liked that it wasn't too sweet, but the flavor was a bit faint. Tapioca were nice and soft. Also, for the price, they are a bit smaller in size than other places.

Will have to try something else out and I'll update from there.

This place got awesome fruit smoothie for $3! I was shocked.  They use real fruit and the size is ginormous! If I lived in Chicago, I would definitely come here weekly!