Vegetable spring rolls with three sauces at Chef's Special Cocktail Bar on North Western Avenue in Chicago's Bucktown neighborhood. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

When I first presented my mother with an egg roll by Chef’s Special, the American Chinese restaurant and cocktail bar in Chicago by award-winning chef Jason Vincent and his partners at Giant, she scrutinized the golden offering by turning it around slowly with chopsticks.

Long before she became Mom Chu, Yuen Ming was born in the year of the rooster, in a 14-house village, in the Taishan region on the southern coast of China, famous for its cuisine. She survived wartime starvation, labor camps and university, then mastered the crisp Shanghai-style spring rolls from my father’s side of the family while exiled in Hong Kong. Eventually she rolled countless Chicago-style peanut butter egg rolls on days off from her own job to help her brother at his chop suey restaurant on the Northwest Side of the city.

After finally biting into the blistered fried skin, she examined a whole plump shrimp with the care of the doctor she always wished to become, a calling the Communist Party denied, with the skill of the chef she did become.

“You can tell they put a lot of kung fu into this,” she said in Cantonese, just one of the dialects she speaks. She doesn’t mean the martial arts, but the kind of work that also requires study and practice, resulting in a power that’s spiritual above all.

That is perhaps the highest compliment a Chinese mother can give.

Chef’s Special Cocktail Bar has put kung fu into its creative food and drinks, celebrating the complicated culture of American Chinese cuisine.

As a Chinese American food critic and a chef whose first cooking job was deep-frying those egg rolls we helped make in my uncle’s restaurant, I try to evangelize what should be evident. A place like my favorite strip mall takeout joint, with lunch specials including free egg rolls and a can of soda pop, is not the same as Chef’s Special, where what’s long been derided as fake food gets the respect it deserves.

Even if its excellent egg rolls do not have peanut butter.

“We were pretty divided about that,” Aaron Kabot, chef and partner, said about peanut butter. He and managing partner Chase Bracamontes run the restaurant in the Bucktown neighborhood, where she’s also the beverage director. “When I was in high school I actually worked at a family operated Chinese restaurant. And their egg rolls were peanut-butter egg rolls.”

Chef Aaron Kabot, left, and beverage director Chase Bracamontes are seen at their restaurant, Chef's Special Cocktail Bar, in Bucktown. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

While Kabot had fond memories of the peanut butter, they conceded to the majority who were against it. When the chef does snack on egg rolls, he dips them in housemade sesame paste and hot mustard instead.

“For the egg rolls, we use a fatty Berkshire pork shoulder and gulf rock shrimp. Those have a texture similar to lobster, a little bit snappier,” Kabot said. They also add cabbage, shredded carrot, a housemade five-spice powder, with more than five spices, and cellophane mung-bean noodles.

The egg rolls, with bubbly crunchy wrappers, hold tight around a beautiful, bountiful filling. The ends were a bit browned, which can happen when they spend a few seconds too long in the hot oil. Even without the peanut butter, they rival some of my favorites around Chicago, approaching the altar of luxury stuffing that my mother makes only for family and the closest of friends.

And the family meal inspired the opening of this American Chinese restaurant.

When Kabot cooked at related-restaurant Giant, he made staff meals that foreshadowed Chef’s Special, said Jason Vincent, partner at both restaurants, who asked for a cashew chicken dish.

“I have a very specific thought of cashew chicken from Hunan on Coventry,” said Vincent of a Chinese American restaurant in Cleveland. “And Aaron would get into these really cerebral discussions about the cultural anthropology behind it.”

That was the big dish for Vincent, which did in fact make it to the final menu.

“Cashew chicken is what got me through high school,” he said. “I remember that angst during my adolescence. Eating that bowl of cashew chicken with really nicely steamed rice is comfort food.”

He knew why he liked it, but said you normally don’t open a restaurant or put dishes on a menu for yourself.

“But in this case we kind of did,” said Vincent, nominated for the James Beard award for Outstanding Chef this year for Giant.

The Chef’s Special cashew chicken focuses on the essential elements of crisp roasted nuts and silky, stir-fried bird baptized in a garlic-infused oyster sauce.

The origin story behind another dish has eluded culinary historians, even though it’s relatively new. Some believe honey walnut shrimp originated in Hong Kong. At Chef’s Special, it’s a modernization of a modern dish, and one of Kabot’s favorites that had to be on the menu.

“I love how it’s crispy, but in a mayo based sauce, and has candied walnuts on it,” Kabot said.

The walnut shrimp at Chef's Special Cocktail Bar. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

What’s most unusual about his walnut shrimp is the crushing of the candied nuts.

“Before we opened, we put candied walnut halves on there, because they’re so glossy and crunchy,” Kabot said. “But you don’t get them in every bite. So we made the decision to crush them. It’s a little sad, but every bite needs to be delicious.”

If you’re in search of more greens, get the seemingly simple sesame pea tips. It’s a prized vegetable, priced as high as seafood on a menu. Here, the delicate leaves, wilted in a wok, are served refreshingly chilled as a small side, finished with a hint of sesame dressing, reminiscent of Japanese goma-ae.

The pot stickers, about the size of a baby’s fist, retain that nice, distinctive chew to the wrappers.

The mapo tofu with ground pork, a suspension of trembling bean curd in a fiery red sauce, impressed my mother so much with its nuanced mala (which means numbing and spicy) flavor that she still suspects there’s a Chinese cook in the kitchen.

“No, we just did a lot of research before we opened,” said Kabot, laughing. “I have massive reverence for the tradition, techniques and diversity of cuisines from different regions. I’m always reading recipes and trying new things.”

The lovely mapo tofu, however, is more spiced than spicy. As is the dry chile chicken, with crispy chicken nuggets buried in a minefield of dried chile peppers, and the most popular dish, dandan noodles.

“We use a fair amount of Sichuan peppercorn so it’s more of that mala profile,” Kabot said. “Subtle numbing tones down some of that chile heat so they kind of work in harmony.”

Dandan noodles, the most popular dish at Chef's Special Cocktail Bar. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

The dandan mein is made with noodles thicker than the traditional dish, also satisfying in the lo mein. They’re sourced from Y.H. Foods, one of the few wholesalers still standing in the Fulton Market warehouse district, where they make their noodles and wrappers in-house.

The crab Rangoon uses those wrappers, stuffed with cream cheese and real crab meat. Eggplant with lamb sausage melds slippery batons of the softened orb into saucy minced-lamb sausage. That’s another Sichuan-inspired dish more spiced than spicy, as are the dry-fried green beans.

The most surprising dish for me was one I nearly overlooked, given a lifetime of disappointment at restaurants, because Mom Chu set the bar so high: vegetable spring rolls.

The ones at Chef’s Special are finished with what I call “magic dust.” They call their spice blends “shakies,” Kabot said.

“This particular one is made of mushroom powder, a little Korean red chile flake, which we use because it’s a little sweet, but mild and has a kick to it,” said the chef. “Then we put a bit of citric acid in there.”

The magic dust adds umami and acidity.

“I kind of liken it to a Doritos flavor,” he said. “Our spice blends kind of set us apart and give us our own identity.”

The fantastical farm-to-fryer spring rolls are filled with shiitake mushrooms, sweet purplish red Tropea onions (similar to shallots), cabbage and more cellophane noodles. Eat them as hot and crisp and fast as you can, paired with a drink. Try the radiant Neutral Expectations, a stunning nonalcoholic cocktail.

“When we came back after the first lockdown, and were finally able to do takeout drinks, I knew more people who had decided to cut drinking alcohol out of their lives,” Bracamontes said. “It became important that we had that option for people to enjoy something tasty and special, which they’re not going to make at home, with a complementary contrast of flavors.”

The Neutral Expectations nonalcoholic cocktail. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

The ChiChi Colada cocktail. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

The tall, pale green drink, mixed with a housemade lemon grass syrup, pineapple and lime juices, plus soda water provides a dramatic and thoughtful moment.

“My favorite is the ChiChi colada,” she said. “The piña colada is an iconic drink that really represents a good time, but not everyone has one ready to go, because of the ingredients you have to prepare.”

The drink contrasts wisps of smoky mezcal with singani, a floral spirit. The tropical flavor, perfumed with orange blossom water, can almost serve as a drinkable dessert.

Almond cookies, baked in-house and still soft, are bite-sized treats and you might want those more than the restaurant’s sesame semifreddo frozen mousse. An ambitious milk tea custard begged for tannin, but the housemade mango jellies on top recalled fine French pâte de fruits confections.

Chef’s Special opened Jan. 22, 2020, two days before Lunar New Year’s Eve, on the same day the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Illinois. The dining room that once hosted a somber emergency chefs’ summit now spills its relaxed, after-hours vibe onto a sheltered side-street patio.

Mom and pop places were an inspiration for the restaurant.

“Nostalgia and novelty are not interchangeable,” Vincent said. “We had a lot of very, very, very serious and introspective conversations about appropriation and trust.

People drink and dine on the patio at Chef's Special Cocktail Bar on Aug. 10, 2022. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

The family-owned restaurants are an endangered species, he said.

“If there’s one overarching theme, it’s that people should absolutely go to those places,” Vincent said. “Do not sleep on them, because if you do, they’re going to be gone.”

Sometimes even if you do go, they’re gone. I just learned that my favorite Chinese American strip mall takeout just changed owners and the new family members, who happen to be Taishanese, don’t quite seem to know what they’re cooking yet.

I can’t help thinking they could use a lesson in kung fu from a special American Chinese restaurant.

Open: Daily from 5 p.m.; Monday to Saturday, food to 11 p.m. and drinks to midnight; Sunday to 10 p.m.

Prices: $7 (Neutral Expectations), $8.50 (egg rolls), $8.50 (spring rolls), $14 (ChiChi colada), $16.50 (cashew chicken), $16.50 (walnut shrimp)

Noise: Conversation-challenged inside, conversation-friendly outside

Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible with restrooms on single level

Tribune rating: Between very good and excellent, 2½ stars

Ratings key: Four stars, outstanding; three stars, excellent; two stars, very good; one star, good; no stars, unsatisfactory. Meals are paid for by the Tribune.