3139 South Halsted Street (map)
(312) 326-6898
BYOB
$

Ed’s Potsticker House is a dual-personality Chinese restaurant in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood, which is home to both the Daley family (famous for two mayors—Richard J. and Richard M.) and Comiskey Park, where the Chicago White Sox play their home games. On the one hand Ed’s is an eggroll/fried rice/egg fuyong emporium catering to neighborhood families. Yet just below the surface lurks a wonderful array of Northern Chinese specialties.

Northern Chinese cuisine can be quite hearty, with an emphasis on wheat flour (dumplings, noodles, and buns, as opposed to rice) and braised, roasted, and smoked meats. Northern cuisine, in a fashion similar to Szechuan, also has a tendency to be slightly oily to the American palate, and spicy with chiles.

Of particular interest is the smoked pork ’sandwich’, consisting of a scallion pancake stuffed with thinly sliced, fatty smoked pork served with house-made hoisin sauce and shredded scallions. A drizzle of chile oil elevates this rich dish to an almost obscenely delicious level.

Another specialty (not on the menu and only available on Sunday mornings) is jianbing, a Northern Chinese street food specialty. A simple crepe is transformed into a delectable masterpiece with layers of egg, signature hoisin sauce, and chili sauce wrapped around a crunchy center.

Ed’s has a number of dumpling starters, including its namesake, a long, loosely rolled “cigar” of a potsticker. It also offers quite good xiaolong bao (soup dumplings), vegetable potstickers and a variety of other small snacks, all of which make an excellent first course.

Hand-pulled noodles are a particularly specialty at Ed’s. They come in a variety of flavors including dandan (spicy with pork), dalao (mixed vegetables and meat), hongshao niurou (braised beef) as well as stir fried varieties.

Soups include tofu with spinach, and pork meatball and beef noodle. Other notable menu offerings include lamb with cumin, jellyfish, drunk duck, pork belly with garlic flavor, pan-fried seafood noodles, and sea cucumber with tendon.

Ed’s also has a number of flavorful vegetable dishes, including baby bok choy with shiitake mushrooms, and an amazing garlic-eggplant dish that with a less adept hand might taste cloyingly sweet. Potatoes with vinegar flavor are a study in simplicity, as is fried tofu in Beijing sauce, which contains large pieces of star anise.

From the clean, bright interior to the friendly waitstaff, some of whom speak English, to the moderate prices and large, flavorful portions of Northern Chinese food, Ed’s Potsticker House is a Chicago favorite.