When deprived of flavorful sustenance, the mouth will often retaliate by shouting your bank-account number at sporting events or turning every sentence into a high-pitched jingle. Tame an unruly tongue with today’s Groupon to Tian Chu Restaurant. Choose between the following options:
- For $10, you get $20 worth of transcontinental Asian fare.
- For $20, you get $45 worth of transcontinental Asian fare.
Tian Chu's Chef Cui boasts 30 years of experience stir-frying Korean, Sichuan, and Cantonese dishes, and artfully assembles menu selections ranging from barbecued short ribs to sesame chicken. Three pillowy domes of steamed dough house savory pork appetizers ($3.95) like babies holding quarters in their cheeks, or envelop red-bean paste in a subtly sweet message delivered as a dim-sum option ($3.95). Diners can chow down on Korean bibimbap, which mixes beef and vegetables in a hotpot topped with a fried egg ($9.95), or bite into barbecued beef short ribs known as Gal Bi ($11.95). Sichuan dishes such as sesame chicken ($10.95) or tender double-cooked pork belly ($11.95) inundate bored stomachs with flavor, and thirsty mouths retrieve tapioca pearls from Taiwanese bubble milk tea ($2.50–$3.50) with the same straws divers use to pull pearls from mollusks' miserly grasp.
Tian Chu
Tian Chu's eclectic menu of pan-Asian cuisine represents its founders’ rich past. The Korean Cui family originally opened the restaurant in the Jilin province of China in 1983 before relocating to Budapest, Hungary, and rapidly expanding to five locations. Their beloved recipes followed them to Ann Arbor, where they opened a restaurant in 2010.
The family embraces their roots by filling the menu with a spread of familiar Korean, Sichuan, and Cantonese dishes. Marinated short ribs, lo mein, and bibimbap served in traditional hot stone pots all help to lend a storied, multiregional appeal to the expansive selection while giving bodies the nourishment they need for unpremeditated participation in Ironman triathlons.