I had a Chinese Food craving that had been going on for several days, and we had to go out to Best Buy anyway, so we decided to find a neighborhood Chinese restaurant.

We just went out wandering, choosing a direction we hadn’t explored before. A few blocks away we spied a neon sigh. “Sushi”? “Diner”? It seemed promising, so away we went.

What we found was a Chinese/Japanese restaurant: Dee’s

We started off with Vegetable Spring Rolls (Crispy filled with vegetables). These came served with a sweet sauce (which was vaguely reminiscent of pineapple, but had little merit otherwise) and a truly wonderful hot mustard that reminded me of wasabi. The rolls themselves were good, stuffed with vegies, with a crisp, hot wrapper.

Seeing as it’s winter in Chicago, meaning it was f&*king cold, we opted to have a soup as well. I was thinking of trying the hot & sour soup, but Suzanne noticed the Sizzling Rice Soup that came as a serving for 2. We opted for the seafood version with shrimp and scallops. This was hot and tasty. Perfect for a cold winter evening.

I’m a big fan of Chinese noodle dishes, to the point of being somewhat indifferent to rice. We got some Soft Noodles with beef (Stir-fried with vegetables in a brown sauce). Mmmm .. brown sauce. This was very tasty. The beef was tender. We were both surprised that the noodles were flat, as we had been expecting fat round noodles. In any case, it was good.

The final dish we had was Garlic Sauce (with Shrimp). We were somewhat amused by this section of the menu in that it was organized around the sauce, with various protein sources that could be added. Amused or not, I loved it. It was plenty garlicky, and the shrimp was nicely battered and cooked just right. Our server cautioned us that it was moderately spicy and asked if that was ok. In return we asked if we could have it very spicy. He was happy to oblige. What we got was loaded with chilies and just perfect. I’d order it again without hesitation.

Dee’s is pretty basic and certainly won’t win any stars. It’s Chinese food for midwesterners, but it’s hot, tasty, and well prepared. And it’s nearby. I expect we’ll be back on occasion.