Restaurant: ? in Chengdu

Location: ? in Chengdu

Date: August 5, 2018

Cuisine: Szechuan Chinese

Rating: Solid Szechuan, but not the best we had

After our day baking in the 100deg heat at Leshan it was late enough that we didn’t have time to go back to the hotel before dinner — Chinese restaurants all closing quite early.

So instead we headed to another of Chengdu’s many lovely restored alley streets for more crowds and dinner.

Again, if any of my Chinese reading friends can translate this name so I know where we ate, I’d be grateful.

Cute interior.

More beer to sooth the heat.

Plain noodles for my son.

Plain noodle soup for another kid wary of the red.

A Szechuan pupu platter of sorts — or a selection of (mostly) cold plates.

Spicy vegetable.

Smoked beef or ham, again like pastrami.

Spicy beef. I get this cold dish all the time in LA and love it.

Another (delicious) kind of spicy vegetable.

Mysterious sauce.

Mung bean noodle with spicy sauce. One of two variants. I think this one was hot.

Cold Mung bean noodle with tangy/spicy sauce. I love this one.

Sweet rice cake. One of those weird chewy-sweet Chinese desserts.

A single hot wonton.

Two slightly less lonely non-spicy wontons.

Baby dan dan mein.

A few random dim sum.

Mapo tofu. How could we not order it again? This one was saltier, not as spicy, and with less depth than the one we had our first night in Chengdu. It was fine, but not nearly as good.

Rice for the mapo.

Pork belly with preserved vegetables. I really enjoyed this dish. Rich fatty meat offset by the salty/funky vegetables underneath.

Weird spongy mushrooms and bock choy. Not bad for a vegetable.

Cabbage and lotus seeds in egg yolk sauce. Pretty good actually. This is a combo I’ve only had once, at Duck House in the form of a crab, egg yolk, and cabbage dish.

Crispy beef with crispy rice and a whole lotta-chilies. I loved this dish. The beef was nice and chewy with a delightful hot aromatic quality. Not actually that spicy.

Fresh flounder in chili oil. Lots of oil. Lots of chilies. Lots of bones. But tasty.

Pan fried rice cakes with Szechuan peppercorns. The peppercorns were a surprise to the kids who otherwise wanted the rice cakes. Gave it a bit of a tingle!

Sesame eyeballs. Gooey rice with sesame inside. Actually one of the best Chinese desserts.

Overall, this place was solid. Flavors weren’t as complex as at Chen Mapo Tofu but we had some interesting dishes and they were quite good.

For my catalog of Chinese restaurant reviews in China, click here.

Afterward we took a walk done the large and deserted alley — not, it was the usual Chinese mob scene.

There was all sorts of street snacks, and pretty much only traditional Chinese snacks like these mooncakes and jellies.

Fruit with dry ice.

More ear cleaning.

And even panda dumplings!