Chinese New Year was around the corner, and XP suggested that we should have a lab lunch together. And being the Sichuanese, he proposed a Sichuan restaurant he had tried before. It's near enough to our workplace, and we're all game for Sichuan food. To tell the truth, I'm gamed for most food actually. Haha...
So 8 of us trooped over for a predictably chilli-laden lunch. Ironically, XP is not much of a chilli person, despite his hometown. But he assured the other none chilli eaters that they have non-spicy options. He pretty much decided the menu for us for the day, the only input from me being 担担面, because I really like noodles, and 回锅肉, because I've long heard about this Sichuan dish but never tried it before.
First dish was 夫妻肺片. Beef slices and beef innards braised in a spicy Sichuan pepper sauce. Very appetizing. I liked it. But poor YJ accidentally bit a Sichuan pepper. Her whole face turned red, and her hot chrysanthemum tea did not help at all. I hurriedly gave her my iced lime juice to quench the fire. Second was my 回锅肉, literally translated as 'return to the pot meat'. It really is pork belly that's cooked once, fried maybe? And it is then returned to the pot and stir fried with its accompaniments. Oily, sinful, spicy and delicious. Yum!
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| 夫妻非片 - braised beef slices and innards |
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| 回锅肉 - return to the pot pork |
My 担担面 arrived next. Springy Sichuanese mince meat noodles in a spicy broth. It's not fiery, just a mild spicy. Could taste a little of the numbing sensation from the peppers. Nice. But I will come to regret it, as you will see later. But at this point I was so happy with my decision to get this instead of white rice.
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| 担担面 - Sichuan mince meat noodles |
蟹黄豆花 came next. Translated: crab roe beancurd. It's a soup of supposed crab roe, but I thought it tasted, and felt, like salted egg yolks, with pieces of silky tofu floating throughout. Thick, and powdery - I really think there's a lot of salted egg yolk in it. It was fragrant, not spicy at all, and warms the belly. It's a must order. Here I started to wish I had white rice to go with the soup, but hang on, I'm still happy with my noodles.
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| 蟹黄豆花 - crab roe beancurd |
Then came the first star of the meal. 辣子鸡丁 - chilli chicken. As you can see, there's more chilli than chicken. This. One. Is. Impossibly. Fiery. I ate the first piece without thinking. Crispy, spicy and yummy. Instinctively I took a second piece. And found myself pausing to think about my tongue. It's numbing, and burning. Never felt that before. Hmmm... (I have a pretty high chilli threshold). Then I reached for a third piece, and felt the fire really bursting on my tongue. And my spicy noodles offered me no solace from the heat. I had to turn to my lime juice. Lots of it. Here, I gave in and ordered that white rice. No way I could eat more chicken without it. And I want more of the chicken. It's that good! Love-hate relationship, I called it. Love its yumminess, but almost couldn't stand the heat. E even tried eating the chilli, a stunt that he thoroughly regretted after. After my rice arrived, I was able to enjoy a lot more of the chicken. To show you just how much the chicken is, look at the amount of chilli left after we picked through and cleared all the chicken pieces. It was like treasure hunting, I'm telling you.
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| 辣子鸡丁 - chilli chicken (before digging in) |
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| 辣子鸡丁 - chilli chicken (after we picked out ALL the chicken) |
The next star arrived soon after. 沸腾水煮鱼 - 'water boiled fish'. A seemingly harmless sounding name. Look at the amount of chilli and pepper floating on the surface. And mind you, that's oil, not soup. But no worries, it doesn't feel greasy at all. And the fish is oh-so-fresh. Even J, who's not a fan of fish because she minds the fishiness, loved it. I joked that maybe the spiciness drowned the fishiness. But that's really not true, because despite the alarming amount of chilli and peppers, the fish itself is surprisingly mild. Soft and flaky, the pieces break easily under an over-strong grip with your chopsticks. Good chopsticks skills, or help from the spoon, is required. Oh, and it comes in one size only. Ginormous. Look at how big it is compared to our soup bowl! Definitely needs a group of friends to finish it. There are fresh bamboo shoot slices and beansprouts at the bottom of the oil sea. You need to fish for them. Don't waste them, they are crisp and delicious, albeit spicier than the fish because they absorbed a lot of the heat from the chillies.
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| 沸腾水煮鱼 |
We also ordered 莴笋, translated as lettuce by Google Translate. This was recommended to us by the server when we asked for more unique vegetable. For the world of me I couldn't relate the greens in front of me to the lettuce I know, but upon some googling, it really did appear to be the shoot (or stem if you will) of some form of lettuce. It's tender, but still had a crunch, and I really liked it. I think J and I pretty much polished off the whole plate because the rest didn't seem to care for it.
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| 莴笋 |
Last was our 锅贴 - panfried dumplings. Their rendition are pretty large. I needed two bites to go through each. But it was sooo juicy. When I bit into mine, the juices spitted out onto my plate. Skin was a little on the thick side, but since this restaurant wasn't meant to be a dim sum place, I think it's already pretty good.
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| 锅贴 |
I really liked this restaurant, and definitely want to bring my friends and family back. I heard that my American boss visited from J's recommendation, and he was apparently served a milder version of the chilli chicken after a failed attempt by the waiter to talk him out of ordering it. It was still almost too much for them to handle. XP found it authentic enough, and that's good enough for me. But do come with big groups, or you can't order too much a variety. And order white rice and lime juice. Remember. My colleagues all got plum juice and they liked it. I hate plums so I can't comment on it. Moreover I personally find that lime juice is a great antidote for chilli.
