Chinese food is traditionally eaten with chopsticks, a civilized alternative to feeding your dining partner across the table with a long-handled spoon. Today's Groupon treats you to Chinese cuisine to please any mouth. For $20, you get $40 worth of authentic Chinese cuisine, sushi, and drinks at Friendship Restaurant, located just a few blocks north of the Blue Line stop in Logan Square. Friendship also has a downtown location, though it only offers delivery and carryout until its outdoor patio opens in spring. Though you can use today's Groupon on drinks, bringing your own wine (corking fee $6) to the Logan Square location will save money for a starter like the popular creamy crab rangoon ($5.95) or a bowl of Soup Buddha ($4.95).

After a server escorts you past Friendship's wall of bronze Buddha heads, one of which is real, you'll be seated in a burnished dining area accented with blue-shaded overhead lights, where you can peruse a menu of Asian-infused dishes prepared with a French twist. Elfin-sounding ingredients like lily flower buds, wood ear, tofu sheets, and exotic mushrooms dot the delectable Temple's Feast ($11.95). Likewise, the pineapple fried rice ($11.95) is marinated in Alize cognac before it's wok tossed with shrimp and chicken, while the spicy honey-glazed orange chicken ($11.95) comes splashed with a little Grand Marnier and Szechwan red chili. Friendship's downtown location, meanwhile, also serves up signature maki rolls, such as the Lake Front 200 (spicy tuna and cream cheese with avocado, asparagus, and crunchy shrimp tempura wrapped in soy bean and topped with tobiko and citrus mayo, $14.95), and bento boxes like the opulent Gold Wall bento ($19.95). House luncheons ($8.95) are available from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday. 

With its tall red columns, green awnings, and circular windows, Friendship looks like a piece of Chinatown that stubbornly refused to move when Chicago's Chinese community first discovered Chinatown on the near South Side. The restaurant's elegant interior adds a much-needed style injection to a nervous first date and gives dining alone the sensual, lovelorn romanticism of a Wong Kar-Wai movie. Friendship's owner, Alan Yuen, confesses that the popularity of low-grade Chinese buffets makes him weep bitterly, so succor him in his grief by treating a table of friends to today's Groupon.

This Groupon cannot be used for the Tuesday night special.

Reviews

The Chicago Reader, Time Out Chicago, and Centerstage give the décor and dishes high praise. More than 440 Yelpers give Friendship an average rating of 3.5 stars, and over 130 Urbanspooners give 82% approval.

• Its tall red columns, green awnings and circular windows will have you referring to your mental map to confirm you aren't in Chinatown. You'll be pleasantly surprised again to see the fabulous interior. Hardwood floors, soft lighting and lavish table setups give this restaurant a sense of class absent along Logan Square's stretch of Milwaukee. – Keith Ecker, Centerstage
• The lollipop wings, calamari, and pineapple coconut shrimp with candied walnuts are amazing. And the prices are very reasonable. – E, Urbanspoon