Restaurant: Spicy City
Location: 140 W Valley Blvd. Ste 208. San Gabriel, CA 91776. (626) 280-0186
Date: March 31, April 29, & May 18, 2015
Cuisine: Szechuan Chinese
Rating: Awesome and authentic, spicy!
Szechuan is one of my obsessions and fellow Foodie Club founder Erick recommended Spicy City as one of his favorites — he should know too as he’s spent a lot of time in China, including Chengdu.
Spicy City is upstairs in one of those gigantic SGV mall plazas which seem to have been teleported from Asia.
Certainly not filled with tourists. We were the only non-Asians in there.
Stylish SGV decor.
They have the cold Szechuan/Hunan style apps on display.
The menu is enormous and filled with Szechuan classics — and pictures.
Sour and spicy glass noodles (they call it “hot and sour powder”). I love the contrast here of sour and hot numbing flavors. Spicy City uses a good amount of Szechuan peppercorn too. Yum!
Dan Dan noodles. Have to do it. First time at a Szechuan place, I measure them by the classics.
Stirred up, these were good Dan Dan. Not quite as good as Lucky Noodle King, but great anyway. The more you eat them, the more addictive they are.
Ma Po Tofu. Great Ma Po. Not the best I’ve ever had, but very good. Plenty of heat.
Lamb Chop with pepper. What doesn’t have pepper here? This was basically like cumin lamb chops. Really tasty — and really fried.
Cumin lamb. The classic spicy cumin crusted lamb. The cumin flavors were a bit strong here.
Chungking style hot pot. Various meats boiled with Szechuan peppercorns, chili oil, sprouts and whatnot. When they say various, they mean various. There was bee, fish filets, chicken, a delicious spam-like thing, and even pig intestines and tripe. We picked out the gross bits, but this had a nice numbing flavor.
Shredded pork with Beijing brown sauce. Pretty much says it all, but very nice version of this dish. Quite succulent.
Bubble pepper squid. No idea about the name, but this was hot!
Sizzling rabbit with chilies. Despite the annoying bits of bone on the meat, this rabbit was delicious with all sorts of spicy goodness.
Chungking style fish. A lightly breaded, cumin crusted whole fresh fish burried in potatoes, lotus root, and cauliflower. Delicious!
Fish filets and tofu in chili sauce. A classic, and delicious, with plenty of numbing peppercorns.
Spicy chicken. The aromatic variety of super fried Szechuan chicken.
Kung Pao Shrimp. Not that spicy, with that thick fry on the shrimp, but pretty delicious.
Braised Pork with fermented vegetables. A kind of thick bacon that was very tender, a touch dry, with a weird cabbage underneath. Not bad actually, very meaty.
All in all, Spicy City was really good with a lot of heat — particularly a lot of Szechuan Peppercorn, which I love. Feel the burn!