I’ve often wondered: Who is the king of Hunanese-style dry hot pot in Chicago? Until last March there was no answer to the question.
Chen was born in Jiangxi, the province next to Hunan, but he attended university in Beijing before earning his PhD at Ohio State. He currently has locations in San Diego, San Francisco, and Sunnyvale, California; Dallas; and Bellevue, Washington, across Lake Washington from Seattle (he’s opening another in the latter city next month). That map says a lot about the dispersal of postgraduate Chinese immigrants across the country—in each of these cities Chen has teamed up with former schoolmates, many of whom are hanging on to their day jobs. He met his Chicago partner (who prefers to remain silent in deference to his engineering gig) in school in Beijing. Chen’s partners may all hail from different parts of China, but all of his chefs are from Hunan.
SPK’s seemingly sudden appearance in Greektown—around the corner from some of the most touristy restaurants in town and next door to a Philly’s Best cheesesteak joint—seems like an anomaly. One evening a server jokingly asked my party if we’d meant to go there instead. A no-frills interior with a commanding view of the skyline seems to do it no favors either. Chen tells me that he suspects the lack of parking is part of the reason the Chicago location, selected for its proximity to UIC and the residential towers popular with expats, has so far underperformed relative to the other branches. This is unacceptable. That’s no way to treat the singular representative of Hunanese food in the city, much less the king. Please pay your respects. v
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