The sheer number of customers that places like Sun Wah and Kumas Corner could effect on any given day is a nightmare waiting to happen..

Not sure everyone has seen this but in the GNR forum there was a post about their GNR removed. I'm glad, the last thing I want to see is the credibility of this group comes under question.

Nothing against Sun Wah - I was there as recently as this past Christmas, but as stated before, I was disappointed by how they're handling this.

ThaiBasil wrote:Not sure everyone has seen this but in the GNR forum there was a post about their GNR removed.

Thanks for pointing this out. I was expecting to see some announcement from the moderators regarding this in this thread, since this thread is where so much discussion about it has taken place.

Hi,

It was announced by the Great Neighborhood Restaurant/Resource committee here.

Regards,

Thanks, Cathy, for bringing the link into this thread, where--IMO--it belongs.

Had a late lunch here today of roast pork and steamed tofu with shrimp. Place was moderately busy and food was as good as always.

Just curious, how many people here have gotten sick or experienced any ill health effects from eating at Sun Wah?

Blown Z wrote:Just curious, how many people here have gotten sick or experienced any ill health effects from eating at Sun Wah?

What point are you trying to make? Even if it were zero people on this forum who got sick, it wouldn't change a thing.

bnl wrote:

Blown Z wrote:Just curious, how many people here have gotten sick or experienced any ill health effects from eating at Sun Wah?

What point are you trying to make? Even if it were zero people on this forum who got sick, it wouldn't change a thing.

Why are you so defensive? My point is that I just wanted to know if anybody here has gotten sick from there it's a simple question that can have simple answers no need to complicate things

If people had been sick, it is against forum policy to report it via the forum. I know I have personally refrained from reporting suspected food poisoning at a couple of LTH favorites due to this policy. Not Sun Wah specifically but one of those places is up for a GNR nomination currently! I'll let you all just wonder which one that may be.

- Some types of posts have legal implications for you and the site. Please refrain from accusations of criminal activity, health code violations, or other wrongdoing. If your complaint is serious and provable, please take it to the proper authorities.

laikom wrote:If people had been sick, it is against forum policy to report it via the forum. I know I have personally refrained from reporting suspected food poisoning at a couple of LTH favorites due to this policy. Not Sun Wah specifically but one of those places is up for a GNR nomination currently! I'll let you all just wonder which one that may be.

- Some types of posts have legal implications for you and the site. Please refrain from accusations of criminal activity, health code violations, or other wrongdoing. If your complaint is serious and provable, please take it to the proper authorities.

Okay how about I rephrase the question, how many people have NOT gotten sick from eating at Sun Wah?

Blown Z wrote:

laikom wrote:If people had been sick, it is against forum policy to report it via the forum. I know I have personally refrained from reporting suspected food poisoning at a couple of LTH favorites due to this policy. Not Sun Wah specifically but one of those places is up for a GNR nomination currently! I'll let you all just wonder which one that may be.

- Some types of posts have legal implications for you and the site. Please refrain from accusations of criminal activity, health code violations, or other wrongdoing. If your complaint is serious and provable, please take it to the proper authorities.

Okay how about I rephrase the question, how many people have NOT gotten sick from eating at Sun Wah?

Read the thread. You'll find people who have not gotten sick.

I've also gotten sick from a restaurant currently up for a GNR.

laikom wrote:If people had been sick, it is against forum policy to report it via the forum. I know I have personally refrained from reporting suspected food poisoning at a couple of LTH favorites due to this policy. Not Sun Wah specifically but one of those places is up for a GNR nomination currently! I'll let you all just wonder which one that may be.

- Some types of posts have legal implications for you and the site. Please refrain from accusations of criminal activity, health code violations, or other wrongdoing. If your complaint is serious and provable, please take it to the proper authorities.

I was very much around when the food poisoning rule was drafted, and these are the points I made back then:

The primary reason for not allowing, "I got sick here" is that people are not very good judges of what made them sick.

Sure, it may be obvious, at times. Mostly it's not. This is so for a couple of reasons. Firstly, many foodborne illnesses take longer to hatch (so to speak) than people realize. In other words, some bad food will make you sick immediately, but often it takes a few days for the symptoms to appear. The other thing, what may get you sick and what did get you sick are often not the same. People tend to focus on what they've heard are likely culprits like raw oysters or under cooked burgers. Sure, again, they may be the culprits, but it is just as so (probably more) that it was the cook who did not wash his hands well that got you.

A whole bunch of things happen because of human action. It can be the most spotless place in the world; the best plumbing, a sanitation manager who scored 100 on the exam, but someone screws up with a cutting board, well you may feel the effects. And no it was not that dingy "ethnic" place you went to next that caused that bad night of sleep.

If you think a place got you sick, use the resources of public health. They can put two and two together to see if your hunch was correct.

One final point: when a place gets shut down, it's not necessarily because people got sick, it is that the health department believes there are too many conditions that could lead to someone getting sick.

Whether or not anyone got sick is not the question to ask.
Certainly a rat being observed in a restaurant and other related happenings are the criteria that a restaurant is judged suitable to serve the public and correctly so.
Attitude starts at the top of management and from the Posted comments, it's easy to determine the problem.
As much as I like Sun Wah, I will not go back.-Dick

I have never gotten sick at Sun Wah. I adore their food. But some of those violations were ridiculously easy to avoid. Everyone makes mistakes, so a shutdown or two over a long period, fine. But I believe it was something like 8 in 10 years...now it's time to move on and find new favorites.

Pie Lady wrote:I have never gotten sick at Sun Wah. I adore their food. But some of those violations were ridiculously easy to avoid. Everyone makes mistakes, so a shutdown or two over a long period, fine. But I believe it was something like 8 in 10 years...now it's time to move on and find new favorites.

Couldn't have said it better!

I love Sun Wah and will be there tonight for the New Year feast. I was disappointed in Kelly's response to being closed a while back. It was a response clearly out of being overwhelmed and frustrated and said, essentially, CDPH came at a bad time and the violations were really not that bad. I'm assuming she has recognized her response didn't help anything and she has chosen to remain mum. I would hope that Kelly would, instead, 1) apologize for the violations, 2) explain them, and 3) let us know systemic changes that have been made to ensure they don't happen again. I realize that this is much more than a PR problem, but I fear if they don't take some control of the narrrative, this could be really bad for them.

PEEDEE wrote:I love Sun Wah and will be there tonight for the New Year feast. I was disappointed in Kelly's response to being closed a while back. It was a response clearly out of being overwhelmed and frustrated and said, essentially, CDPH came at a bad time and the violations were really not that bad. I'm assuming she has recognized her response didn't help anything and she has chosen to remain mum. I would hope that Kelly would, instead, 1) apologize for the violations, 2) explain them, and 3) let us know systemic changes that have been made to ensure they don't happen again. I realize that this is much more than a PR problem, but I fear if they don't take some control of the narrrative, this could be really bad for them.

it already is 'really bad for them'. kelly's attitude, plus serious and repeated code violations have lost sun wah many regular customers, including here on LTH.

Sun Wah certainly hasn't lost me as a customer. My family went to this year's Chinese New Year celebration, and it was perhaps the best it has ever been. We had a chance to chat it up with Kelly, and she and her father worked really hard to bring in some new ideas this year. Food from the North and South of China, dumplings, a nod to American Chinese with a fried sea bass lettuce wrap -- this was a fantastic iteration of a menu that is already known to be both varied and unique.

On all the other stuff above, I am not concerned. I have never had concern eating there, never gotten sick, and truly enjoy their food. Most important to me however is that this is a family restaurant in the most crucial way possible. I am not talking about glad-handing with a celebrity chef. I'm talking about laughing with the owner about how infrequently we visit and trading baby pictures. How they navigate the quagmire of legal code is none of my business. The quality of the food and enjoyment of the experience is what I'm interested in.

mike

Mikelipino wrote:Sun Wah certainly hasn't lost me as a customer. My family went to this year's Chinese New Year celebration, and it was perhaps the best it has ever been. We had a chance to chat it up with Kelly, and she and her father worked really hard to bring in some new ideas this year. Food from the North and South of China, dumplings, a nod to American Chinese with a fried sea bass lettuce wrap -- this was a fantastic iteration of a menu that is already known to be both varied and unique.

On all the other stuff above, I am not concerned. I have never had concern eating there, never gotten sick, and truly enjoy their food. Most important to me however is that this is a family restaurant in the most crucial way possible. I am not talking about glad-handing with a celebrity chef. I'm talking about laughing with the owner about how infrequently we visit and trading baby pictures. How they navigate the quagmire of legal code is none of my business. The quality of the food and enjoyment of the experience is what I'm interested in.

mike

Nope nope nope. It's all about their blatent disregard for things. They clearly don't give a F8ck but it's ok because they're "family owned" or whatever. Sorry, no excuse. I have worked at a lot of "family owned" places 3 star, and they would never ever be so fucking sloppy so many years in a row. Stop making excuses for this awful place already!

LTH,

We want to remind everyone to please, keep things civil.

Also, it's fine to report on recent experiences at Sun Wah but let's please move away from using this thread to simply weigh in on whether or not you will return there -- or whether others are right or wrong for making the decisions they make regarding Sun Wah.

Thanks,

=R=
for the Moderators

We were part of the group that went for Chinese New Year feast, and enjoyed the food and the company very much (Thanks for letting us glom onto your table, Octarine!)

One funny thing was that they have a bunch of pretty (and new?) beer glasses, but were using those for water, and provided wine glasses for beer and wine. They changed their BYO just recently to no longer allow beer, I guess because they are improving their selection, so this was our last hurrah for bringing beer.

I was in a ginger and green onion mood today. Lobster and lo mein both prepared with ginger and green onion were fantastic. One of the better seafood deals in Chicago. A goodly sized lobster sautéed perfectly. The lo mein was a nice clean counterpoint to the rich meat.

Still in my regular rotation and has never failed to please.

After a recent good company mediocre Chinese food experience I needed a classic to boost culinary morale, Sun Wah the perfect recalibration. Crisp chow fun with fish filet and salt baked chicken hit the proverbial spot.

Sun Wah

I need to get back here. Two things going against me (haven't been in years). My wife doesn't care for the duck, which I always get, and the other "not to be discussed" reason a year or so ago they makes me think twice and her definitely never want to set foot in there again. Which sucks. Love their duck.

Introduced a friend to Sun Wah last night, his expectations were exceeded (atypical). We had a "small" dinner for two; Peking duck preparation, a large plate of crispy skin pork roast, and baby bok choy for good measure. The pork came out first and was fantastic, thick crispy pork skin and tender meat. The duck tasted better than I remember from my previous visit; crispy skin followed by the succulent/savory duck fat and flavorful breast meat.

I avoided the buns and rice. My dinning companion indicated that the buns were okay but the fried rice was very much to his liking (3/4 gone). I really enjoyed the cleansing fresh taste of the soup. Only two improvements I can think of for last night. First, the buns were delivered about five minutes after the duck was sliced (time is of the essence for enjoying the warm and crispy duck) and secondly we should have ordered some ribs! We will be back and have that chance.

Do Well,
Mike

Was at Sun Wah last night with 9 others, the 10 of us devoured 2 ducks, as well as the fried rice, noodles, soup that came with. It was the perfect amount of food for our group.

Delicious as always.

Had a wonderful dinner last night at Sun Wah. A couple of ducks and a plethora of sides, mostly greens, with a helping of very tasty Ma Po Tofu for the spice-kick and a new (for us) taste of Octopus Whiskers (actually calamari legs). All of it enjoyable at a big, round table for 13. Great fun, as usual. The staff was great.

TAKEAWAY NOTE: As we were leaving, Kelli pointed out a small sign announcing that they now offer Roast Baby Pig. She held her hands apart by ~18” to indicate the size, much like a fisherman being more honest than usual about the size of his catch.

Hope someone tries this soon and posts the results.

jimd wrote:TAKEAWAY NOTE: As we were leaving, Kelli pointed out a small sign announcing that they now offer Roast Baby Pig. She held her hands apart by ~18” to indicate the size, much like a fisherman being more honest than usual about the size of his catch.

Hope someone tries this soon and posts the results.

It's fantastic: tender, mild, with skin so crisp it shatters. The fat is delicate and melts in your mouth. I saw the little pigs in the window, and they are small, much smaller than the young pig Sun Wah roasted many years ago at the old location, which was Cabbagehead's and my first LTH event. Highly recommended.

EvA -- Do you remember what they charged for the Baby Pig?