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Archive for Chengdu

Malubianbian Spicy Stick Pot

Apr08

Restaurant: MaLu Bian Bian Hot Pot

Location: 18194 Colima Rd Ste A, Rowland Heights, CA 91748. (626) 820-9206

Date: February 23, 2020

Cuisine: Chengdu Szechuan Chinese Hot Pot

Rating: 12/10 for experience

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I’ve been on a bit of a Szechuan style hot pot kick for the last year. For those of you know don’t know, “hot pot” is the classic Chinese homestyle food which is super popular as a restaurant type in recent years. The most “classic” form is “Mongolian” like Hot Pot Hot Pot or Little Sheep. Then there are hybrid more modern joints like Hai Di Lao. And even the cheap student pre-prepped version like Boiling Point or Flaming Pot. But my favorite is the ultra spicy Chengdu or Chongqing style. I’ve had this in Chengdu and last year several opened in the SGV including Chun La Hao and Shancheng Lameizi.7U1A8678

So bringing us to tonight, Malubianbian represents a new style of skewer oriented Chengdu street hot pot. This is one crazy experience so I’ll detail it.
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This is in the “Yes Plaza” in Rowland Heights. It’s like teleporting to China because everyone here is Chinese and at the restaurant everyone is about 23.
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If you can see, there are about 20-30 people waiting outside.

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Inside it’s sort of industrial new Chinese style. Small tables. Uncomfortable chairs. Ineffective hoods. As part of the “experience” a few minutes after we entered I started to cough uncontrollably. Something was just making my throat and eyes itch. I thought something was wrong with me until I noticed everyone else doing it. The server came by to apologize as the chef had just fried up a new batch of chili oil. Lol. I should have known. The place already smelled like chilis, so you couldn’t really smell it, but when you make Szechuan style chili oil (which I do myself) you have to dump 350deg oil over chilies and it releases a ton of pepper compounds into the air which are very “irritating.”
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In any case, we didn’t have to wait too long (only 20 minutes) as we had a “reservation” for the “private room” which was this super cute painted closet with a two burner little table. Supposedly it sat up to 12 — but really 8 max. I mean max.
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Very cute though.

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Wine was a whole saga too. Only Jefferey brought some, but no one, including the restaurant had a corkscrew. He wandered the mall but no restaurant was willing to help him open his bottle (and walk out with it). Eventually we managed.
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Like many new hot pot places Malu has a “sauce bar.” This isn’t as extensive as at  Chun La Hao or Shancheng Lameizi but was sufficient. It was, however, pretty messy.
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This was one of the main sauces I made. They didn’t have the sesame paste or all the fermented stuff I really love at Shancheng Lameizi.
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They do have these traditional dry “powdered” sauces. You grab one and then add some broth from your pot to make up a sauce. It congealed very easily and didn’t really work for me, but the sauce bar version was decent.
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We got all the broths. On top here is the lame tomato broth and below is the series traditional super-spicy ox fat (those big rectangles that haven’t melted yet) and blend of peppers and 18 spices.
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Below is the other lame broth, the “mild” mushroom broth. Above that is the “classic” spicy Szechuan broth that doesn’t use the heavy ox fat.

I exclusively used the fully leaded traditional gut cleansing medicinal purgative spicy ox fat broth — as should anyone who isn’t a wuss.

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But what, you say, does one do with these punishing broths? You cook stuff in them. But the format at Malu is interesting. Out in the dining room are about 10 refrigerators filled with skewers and boxes of food. You just wander over and grab the stuff (which seems a touch “unsanitary” but never mind). The staff count your skewers and containers at the end to calculate your bill.

Malu’s particularly unique bit is the whole skewer thing. These cost about $0.35 each and you just shove them in your pot and easily withdraw them. But for some reason I found this a bit awkward and preferred the plates of stuff.

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There are a lot of skewer types including nearly all the vegetables, tons of marinated meats, the usual meat/fish etc balls and whatnot. Each bit on a skewer is pretty tiny. Often even half a meatball or the like.

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They also have a bunch of plates with more meats and various other “exotic” stuff like duck blood or duck intestine (anyone want a whole bowl of raw duck intestine?  we did!). I mostly ate off these because I found it easier.
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Fried pork. This is a menu order item. It was just okay.
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Spicy beef stomach. This was quite delicious — and chewy.
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Special house spicy beef. This was amazing. Tons of flavor (and heat).
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Spicy glass noodle. Really mung bean jelly. It was actually warm, which is unusual for this type of typical Szechuan street food.
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Crab sticks. Imitation crab. Tasty, but they come apart in the pot.
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Luncheon meat. This is always one of my hotpot favorites. Pure pork and fatty goodness. We went through at least 3 orders of this!
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Beef. A Staple.
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Lamb.
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Weird spongy shrimp rolls. I don’t know what to call these, but they actually cooked up as delicious things.
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Shrimp balls with actual shrimp and row. These also cooked up great.
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Skinned frog. This was just too sad.
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Noodles, lotus root, and strange veggie cake.
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Pig ear on a stick.

Plus tons of things I forgot to photo.
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Odd rice jelly. This was like water jelly. It had a jello texture and was totally clear and absolutely zero flavor. The brown stuff was some kind of syrup and very mildly sweet. You could barely taste it. I suppose it was meant to cool the palette after the inferno.
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Fried rice cakes. Another typical Szechuan dessert.

Overall, this was a great experience and TONS OF FUN. The broth is awesome. The format is weird, but fun and flexible because you can get your own stuff. The problem is that the ingredient quality isn’t quite as good as at Hai Di Lao,  Chun La Hao and Shancheng Lameizi. Also the sauce bar is only adequate.

Service was fabulous though. Usually hot pot service isn’t the greatest, but it was here. They kept checking on us and the owner came over and was super nice, the manager was super nice. Really friendly and helpful.

It’s very inexpensive too. A skewer is only $0.35!

So I highly recommend if you are adventurous and into new things. Mind your bottom.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Spicy City!
  2. Stick It – Feng Mao
  3. Thai Tour – Spicy BBQ
  4. KTown Spicy Challenge
  5. Spicy Noodle is Not
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chengdu, Chinese cuisine, hedonists, hot pot, Rowland Heights, SGV, Sichuan, spicy, Szechuan cuisine

Eating Chengdu – Szechuan

Sep26

Restaurant: ? in Chengdu

Location: ? in Chengdu

Date: August 5, 2018

Cuisine: Szechuan Chinese

Rating: Solid Szechuan, but not the best we had

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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.
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So instead we headed to another of Chengdu’s many lovely restored alley streets for more crowds and dinner.
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Again, if any of my Chinese reading friends can translate this name so I know where we ate, I’d be grateful.
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Cute interior.
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More beer to sooth the heat.
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Plain noodles for my son.
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Plain noodle soup for another kid wary of the red.
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A Szechuan pupu platter of sorts — or a selection of (mostly) cold plates.
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Spicy vegetable.
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Smoked beef or ham, again like pastrami.

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Spicy beef. I get this cold dish all the time in LA and love it.
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Another (delicious) kind of spicy vegetable.

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

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Cold Mung bean noodle with tangy/spicy sauce. I love this one.
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Sweet rice cake. One of those weird chewy-sweet Chinese desserts.
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A single hot wonton.

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Two slightly less lonely non-spicy wontons.
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Baby dan dan mein.

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A few random dim sum.
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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.
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Rice for the mapo.
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Pork belly with preserved vegetables. I really enjoyed this dish. Rich fatty meat offset by the salty/funky vegetables underneath.

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Weird spongy mushrooms and bock choy. Not bad for a vegetable.
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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.
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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.
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Fresh flounder in chili oil. Lots of oil. Lots of chilies. Lots of bones. But tasty.
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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!
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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.

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Afterward we took a walk done the large and deserted alley — not, it was the usual Chinese mob scene.
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There was all sorts of street snacks, and pretty much only traditional Chinese snacks like these mooncakes and jellies.
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Fruit with dry ice.
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More ear cleaning.
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And even panda dumplings!

Related posts:

  1. Eating Chengdu – Chen Mapo Tofu
  2. Eating Chengdu – Fiery Hot Pot
  3. Eating Chengdu – Alley Noodles
  4. Chengdu Taste – Power of the Peppercorn
  5. GuYi — Szechuan in Brentwood?
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chengdu, China Cuisine, Eating Chengdu, Eating China, mapo tofu, Sichuan, spicy, Szechuan cuisine

Eating Chengdu – Fiery Hot Pot

Sep22

Restaurant: ? Hot Pot

Location: ? read the Chinese card below

Date: August 4, 2018

Cuisine: Szechuan Hot Pot

Rating: Stomach of Ox in Chili Oil says it all

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A visit to Chengdu wouldn’t be right without some fiery Chengdu Hot Pot to cleanse the GI.
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Nearby was another of those restored streets that looks like the China you wish was still around.
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Replete with pole toting vendors.
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And giant gates.
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This is our hot pot. It was recommended to us because they have individual pots and actual vegetarian broth — something we needed with our diverse party.
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Now the actual name remains a mystery to me. Maybe one of my Chinese reading friends will translate and tell me.
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Inside.
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And our private room equipped with individual inductive pots.
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Some actual alcoholic beverage — almost a week into the trip!
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Steamed buns with condensed milk — guilty pleasure.
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Scallion pancake.

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Meanwhile we have the hot pot sauces. I think there might have been a sauce bar downstairs which I would have liked, but I made due with the fixed sauces.

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And some condiments to jazz them up like chilies, garlic (my favorite), and green onion.
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Then the spicy hot pot. I forgot to photo the kid’s tomato broth, the non-spicy chicken broth, and the vegan mushroom broth.
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The spicy one is an ass busting mix of rendered ox fat, chili oil, chilies, and Szechuan peppercorns!

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All of the following stuff is intended to go into the pots, cook to your personal taste, then be sauced and eaten.

Homemade meat balls, not frozen like you usually find in the states.
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Tomatoes.
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Wontons.
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Mixed mushrooms.
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Sliced potatoes.
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Fish (mackerel?).
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Glass noodles.
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Green colored wheat noodles.
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Greens.
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Beef slices.
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Lamb slices.
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Stomach of ox. Yep, ox tripe. Only for those with strong stomachs! This stuff was so chewy — with a texture exactly like a really thick water balloon — that I was chewing it for 3-4 minutes straight before I thought it was safe to swallow.
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Fresh bamboo.
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Fish balls stuffed with pork. Yummy!
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Lotus root. I love this stuff for the nice crunch.
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Tofu.
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For those of you who dream of making this kind of Szechuan hot pot at home, I saw the above home starter kit in many Chengdu stores. You take this brick of chillies and ox fat and plop it into the chicken or pork broth of your choice and melt, therefore rendering it all into a fiery pit of stomach hell.

This was a fine hot pot place, and we had to do it — and definitely I prefer the spicy Chengdu style to any other. It’s just that hot pot isn’t my favorite Chinese meal as it’s sort of monotone. You only really have one “sauce” / style of prep for the night. Just lots of ingredients. We do have pretty good hot pot in LA — and it’s very popular.

All I can say is that it’s a good thing that the Chengdu Ritz Carlton bathrooms come equipped with state of the art Toto “auto washing” toilets!

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

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Szechuan face changing at the Chengdu Opera

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Acres of Lotus at a nearby public park

Related posts:

  1. Eating Chengdu – Alley Noodles
  2. Eating Chengdu – Chen Mapo Tofu
  3. Chengdu Taste – Power of the Peppercorn
  4. Eating Xi’an – Jia San Soup Pau
  5. Eating Beijing – 3.3 Noodles
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: beer, Chengdu, China, Eating Chengdu, Eating China, hot pot, Sichuan, spicy, Szechuan cuisine

Eating Chengdu – Chen Mapo Tofu

Sep14

Restaurant: Chen Mapo Tofu

Location: 197 W Yulong St, LuoMaShi, Qingyang Qu, Chengdu Shi, Sichuan Sheng, China, 610000. +86 28 8675 4512

Date: August 3, 2018

Cuisine: Szechuan Chinese

Rating: Most balanced Szechuan I’ve had

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Being an obsessive lover of Szechuan food I’ve been wanting to go to Chengdu for years.
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It’s really quite a neat city with both modern…
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And “antique” buildings — something you don’t see as much of in many Chinese towns. It also has A LOT of crowds having grown in the last 20 years from about 3 million to over 16 million people!
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For our first night we arrived late from the train and rushed around the corner from our hotel to this recommended classic Szechuan place named Chen Mapo Tofu. The downstairs part looked hipped and was MOBBED. The guy at the front barely talked to us but basically told us that there were more people waiting than were going to eat tonight so he sent us upstairs to their less crowded area — we think.
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The upstairs was through this portal.
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And here is the menu.
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I took a picture of the first page of the huge menu. Wish I had the patience to photo 20 pages, but alas I did not.
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Signature mapo tofu. I’ve had a lot of “pocked marked old lady face tofu” and even make it myself. This might have been the best I’ve had, certain was great. Look at all that Szechuan peppercorn on top for the extra numb effect — love it!
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We had to get some rice, of course, for the quintessential combo.
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Mapo over rice.
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Had to try some Kung Pao Chicken at the source. Really nice. Not too spicy, but with a complex savory/sour kind of flavor that was really good and much more lively than the bland American versions.
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Tofu and mushrooms. Very nice mild yellow broth type of tofu. The chewier more fried kind.
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Clams and chicken with chiles. The chicken had all the bones, beak, feet etc. Very tasty sauce though with all the pepper. I really enjoyed this dish.
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Fresh whole fish boiled with chilies. Really nice version of this Szechuan classic soaked in chili oil and oozing with peppercorns and chilies. The only problem was all the bones.
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Greens.

Overall, this was a great meal, best we had in Chengdu. I’ll have to go back because I know the city has so much good stuff to offer. I really enjoyed the complex spicy, numb, tangy, sour flavors.

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

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The face of a (bamboo eating) angel

Related posts:

  1. Pockmarked Old Lady Tofu
  2. Chengdu Taste – Power of the Peppercorn
  3. Quick Eats: Tofu Ya
  4. Tofu with a Seoul
  5. Eating Beijing – Xiao Long Pu
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chen Mapo Tofu, Chengdu, Chinese Food, Eating Chengdu, Eating China, mapo tofu, Sichuan, Szechuan cuisine

Szechuan Everywhere

Oct23

Restaurant: Chuan’s

Location: 5807 Rosemead Blvd. Temple City, CA 91780. (626) 677-6667

Date: October 21, 2014 and January 4 & 12, 2016 and March 6, 2016

Cuisine: Szechuan Chinese

Rating: Great flavors, not ultra hot

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I love me some Szechuan, and surprisingly, so do a lot of others because Szechuan places have become all the rage lately. This is a composite meal built from 2 Hedonists dinners and several casual lunches.


Chuan’s is the latest Chinese chain to open a Southern California output, like Meizhou Dongpo in the Century City Mall.


The interior is actually styled and casual but cute. They have a private room too which we ate in.






The menu is super glitzy with big clear pictures of every dish (oh so helpful!). This is the 2014 edition, as it has changed slightly since then.


Spicy peanuts. With celery. These do have a mild kick.
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Vinegar peanuts. King of like a tangy Kung Pao without the meat!
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Cold appetizer plate. Cured beef, beef tripe, and firm tofu.


Coated Lima Beans. Delicious actually. A kind of sweet and salty vibe.

Chuan’s didn’t offer liquor on our first visit, and we couldn’t bring ours in really either. But they did have this (non-alcoholic) Sour Plum Juice that was quite delicious. It had a smokey rich flavor. Really smokey — the most like bacon of any juice I’ve ever had.

Cold eggplant with preserved green chilies. A bit funny looking, but pretty damn good, and that’s even with this being the style of steamed eggplant I usually don’t like. The chilies were excellent.
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Spicy avocado. Never had this one. Maybe a Cal/Chinese hybrid, but pretty good.


Chopped Chicken with Fresh Peppercorns. The menu version had a lot more peppercorns. This is always a good dish, and this example was no exception. There was the “boney chicken bits” problem, but, hey, this is authentic Chinese food. It wasn’t that hot.


Bean Jelly with Preserved Soybean and Peppers. A fabulous dish (even if the bean jelly noodles were a bit thick) as it had a delicious tangy, salty, hot flavor that was nicely in balance.

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Another Bean jelly. There are two versions of this dish, with slightly different sauces on the menu. Very slippery!


Dan Dan Noodles. The Szechuan classic. Both times we came for dinner the dan dan was a tad bland, although the noodle texture was nice.

Here they are mixed up. On my several lunch visit (pictured) the dan dan was great, with a lovely complex nutty undertone. Small portion though (perfect for 1-2 people).


Chengdu Sour and Spicy Vermicelli. A bit more flavor than the Dan Dan, but still maybe a little bland on the first visit. On the second dinner visit this had been punched up with a lot more sauce (below).

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And this version was great, with that sour/numbing vibe.


Chili slathered Pork Dumplings. These were great. Better than Chengdu Taste, not as good as this mall food (lol).


Sweet and Sour Herba Houttuyniae. Never heard of this herbal green. But it was delicious.

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Sesame lettuce. A really nice salad, with a very strong sesame dressing.


Crispy Duck Drenched in Oil. The name about sums it up. This had a nice pastrami-like tea-smoked flavor.


Ma Po Tofu. A delicious take on the classic. This version had a nice tang, great texture, and a bit of heat. It didn’t really have enough peppercorn numbness for my taste, but it was still probably the dish of the night in October 2014. In March 2016, it was a little salty and the tofu a little soft.

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Combination fried rice. Solid fried rice.


Fish with Pickled Cabbage from Hometown. The “green chili” version of the boiled fish dish typical in Szechuan. This one was moderately mild. Fine, but not exciting.


Cherry Braised Pork. Fatty, but absolutely delicious. Like melt-in-the-mouth bacon cubes.

Fish filets boiled in chili sauce. The classic Chungking dish. Not bad at all. Nice soft/fresh filets of fish.


Boiled Beef with Chilis. This was a hotly debated dish at the table. I thought it was very tasty, although on the mild side. Some others didn’t love it.


The sauce was incredibly delicious over rice. Have a bit of chili oil!

Shredded chicken and glass noodle with chilies. This third boiled chili dish was fabulous with soft strips of boneless chicken and glass noodles buried in all that red.

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Dry cooked string beans with potatoes. The classic Szechuan green beans + french fries in spicy sauce!

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Corn with pork belly. Insanely good. The lardon-like pork served as the fat in place of the butter and made for one tasty corn dish!
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Suicide potatoes. Sliced potatoes with a fabulous spicy Szechuan rub. Fairly spicy for this meal, but not really that hot on an absolute scale.
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Eggplant. A version of the garlic eggplant dishes, this one with soy beans. Quite tasty, if mild.


Special Lobster. This wasn’t on the menu, and it cost a bundle, but it was absolutely scrumptious — although the meat was a bit hard to get at.

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Chili crab. Great Szechuan dry-pot like vegetables below, and fried crab that was cooked until the shell is soft.


Kung Pao Shrimp Balls. AKA Kung Pao Shrimp. Nice pungent ginger/scallion flavor. Not that hot either but tasty.

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Squid with chilies. Nice chew and flavor. Just a touch of fishiness.

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Fried scallops. Spice in the batter, and VERY fried, with a nice tempura crunch. A little like the Nobu tempura popcorn shrimp.

Dry spicy fried chicken with chilies. Also a classic Szechuan dish. The chicken had ALL the bone bits. Almost every piece was filled with bone. Despite this, or perhaps owing to this, the taste was amazing. You just crunch through the bone and it tasted great with chili aromatics, fat, and a bit of numbing Szechuan peppercorn.


Crispy Beef. Basically, chicken fried steak nuggets! Probably really should have been a lamb dish traditionally, but was beef here. Tasty though. The meat was soft and flavorful. So soft, and so pare, that we were joking about it not being beef.


And the pepper/peanut mix fun to pick at.

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Twice cooked pork with buns. Super tender flavorful meat with soft buns. Awesome combination too. Really tasty together.
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Cumin lamb. The classic, but a very good version with tender lamb.

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Chicken with green chilis. A bit of heat here, and a different style of chili heat than most of the dishes with their red chilies.
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Shredded potatoes. Fine, although I’ve had better versions of this dish.


Special Seafood Dry Hot Pot. Like a Wuhan dish, a mix of dry hot shrimp, potatoes, veggies, fish balls, and the like.
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Fried pumpkin and bean cakes. Greasy, but pretty good for fried Chinese desserts. These had that mochi like consistency with the bean paste inside. VERY fried and greasy.
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Overall, Chuan’s was extremely tasty. The service was great, and they seemed to use fairly high quality ingredients, on par with Szechuan Impression and better than at Chengdu Taste. The flavors were good too and there is a lot of variety on the menu. But it isn’t that spicy. Really, afterward I was thinking it was about right because the through the night burn was fairly mild, but during, I missed that searing/numbing heat that is found at the hottest examples of Szechuan cuisine. Most dishes were well executed. Almost no bombs. Weakest probably was the fish filets, dan dan (both evening visits — although they have been great at lunch), and maybe the duck (a lot of others liked the duck), but there were a lot of very strong dishes too: Ma Po Tofu, dumplings, the meats, Lobster, dan dan (second visit), shredded chicken with noodles.

On our second dinner the young lady above helped us out and she did a great job. We ordered in flights and she kept everything straight and changed out the plates fast.

Chuan’s is one of my favorite Szechuan places for a combination of atmosphere, service, and dish execution. It’s not as “home style” as one like Cui Hau Lou, but they use very good ingredients and I never get the MSG headache.

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The Ladies Room included this amusing public service notice!

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During our March 2016 visit it was close to Chinese New Year and there was a show given by this character in costume — actually pretty cool and certainly mysteriously Chinese.
Afterward (on our October 2014 visit) we went around the corner in the minimall to Guppy’s a strange kitchy Taiwanese place for some shave ice.


Taro/Red Been Shave Ice. This, by the way, is the “to go” a size smaller than the small!


Strawberry shave ice with mango ice cream. This is a small! Notice the cup of sweetened condensed milk on the table, in case it isn’t sweet enough!


Taro, Red Bean, Strawberry, Banana, Shave Ice with Mango ice cream. This gives a better sense of the scale of these monsters!

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here,

or more crazy Hedonist dinners here!

 

For our March 6, 2016 dinner at Chuan’s we brought wine (they had no liquor license when we first came). They did charge $15 corkage. Here is the lineup of mostly sweet stuff.

NV Paul Bara Coteaux Champenois Grand Cru Bouzy Rouge. 92 points. Nice rose.

NV Jean Josselin Champagne Brut Cordon Royal. 92 points.

From my cellar: 2008 Pierre Morey Meursault Les Terres Blanches. 92 points. Bright yellow. A musky quality blew off to reveal strong nutty notes of macadamia and almond, plus a whiff of iodiney oyster shell. Densely packed, tactile and serious but with a light touch. More rocks and flowers than primary fruit here. A precise, persistent, rather grown-up style of Meursault, and serious for village wine.

2013 Desparada Sauvignon Blanc Borealis.1.E4 McGinley Vineyard. VM 88. The 2013 Sauvignon Blanc Borealis.1.E.4 is an intriguing wine made in amphora. Lemon, grapefruit and white flowers meld together in a bright, nicely balanced wine. The 2013 was made from McGinley Vineyard. As so often happens wines made in amphora, the vessel and elevage dominate the wine’s personality. It will be interesting to see where future vintages go.

2012 Herman Story Tomboy. VM 89. Lemon oil, white flowers, mint and jasmine meld together in the 2012 Viognier Tomboy. Floral notes add lift in an oily, textured Viognier built on raciness and persistence. The 100% new French oak is evident, but nicely balanced at the same time. The 2011 spent 12 months in 100% new French oak.

agavin: too heavy for my taste.

F.X. Pichler Riesling Smaragd Dürnsteiner Hollerin (don’t remember vintage). VM 93. Medium green-yellow. Dark wet slate dominates the nose initially, with mandarin orange, vineyard peach and anise coming up with aeration. The fruit is sweeter and more opulent in the mouth than the nose suggests, but limey acidity gives shape and lift. Salty minerals linger on the very long finish. This already offers outstanding drinking pleasure, but will continue to improve and should hold well until 2014.

2002 Dönnhoff Oberhäuser Brücke Riesling Spätlese. VM 92. A bouquet of lily and narcissus is both sweet and musky. A coulis of red raspberry and molten minerals flows over the palate, but the sheer intensity here is matched by an elegance and lightness of touch. You might say this has the concentration of other recent vintages of Brucke Spatlese but not the weight, a perfect illustration of Donnhoff’s characterization of 2002 as “playful and light even though dense. ” The balance of acid and sugar is perfect, so that the sweetness drops away completely in the back. Red fruit, citrus and devilishly diverse expressions of salt and stones hang around for a lot longer than you can wait before taking the next sip. 2 stars.

agavin: I thought this might have been 5% corked, very light.

2005 Weingut Keller Westhofener Morstein Riesling Auslese. 91 points. A light, almost Spatlese style, but very nice.

2005 Dönnhoff Schloßböckelheimer Felsenberg Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel. VM 92. Pale golden yellow. Musky peach, a floral nuance and a hint of licorice on the nose.Smoke and honey give way to a spicy acidity on the palate. Well-balanced, vivid auslese, showing an almost salty minerality on the finish.

agavin: 94 points. We thought this was awesome.

From my cellar: 2000 Trimbach Pinot Gris Sélection de Grains Nobles. VM 93. Bright medium gold. Superripe aromas of apricot jam, exotic spices, honey and tobacco; just misses the clarity of the best SGN bottlings from this producer. Very dense but not hugely unctuous thanks to firm, perfectly integrated acidity. Sappy, vibrant and very long on the aftertaste.

1999 Domaine Philippe Delesvaux Coteaux du Layon Sélection de Grains Nobles. 94 points. Served lightly chilled as a mid afternoon refresher. Medium amber color, delicate botrytis aromas and flavor notes of apricot, honey, pineapple, brown sugar, and a hint of oranges. This seemed a little less intense than I remember the prior bottles being but it had a delicate, crisp feel that I found delightful on this occasion. Perfectly balanced with a lingering finish, really a delicious drink.. Served lightly chilled as a mid afternoon refresher. Medium amber color, delicate botrytis aromas and flavor notes of apricot, honey, pineapple, brown sugar, and a hint of oranges. This seemed a little less intense than I remember the prior bottles being but it had a delicate, crisp feel that I found delightful on this occasion. Perfectly balanced with a lingering finish, really a delicious drink.

1988 Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey. VM 91. Good pale color. Fresh, flinty aromas of apple, fresh herbs and dried fruits. Very rich and pliant in the mouth, with a strong resiny/spicy flavor. Strong for the vintage, and very well balanced. Quite powerful and long on the finish, with complex flavors of honey, earth and tobacco.

2011 Herman Story Syrah Nuts and Bolts. VM 93. A vivid, multi-dimensional wine the 2011 Syrah Nuts & Bolts bursts from the glass with the essence of blackberry jam, melted road tar, graphite, incense and licorice, all in a rich, broad-shouldered style that is immensely appealing. Vibrant mineral notes underpin an exciting, full-throttle Syrah loaded with personality. This may be one of the very finest Herman Story wines I have ever tasted. Readers will want to give the 2011 at least a few hours of air, as the wine really needs time to open up.

2007 Alban Vineyards Syrah Reva Alban Estate Vineyard. VM 94. Inky purple. Black and blue fruits on the nose and in the mouth, with smoke and Indian spice nuances adding complexity. Densely packed and forceful, with building notes of candied licorice and mocha. This very rich, seamless wine shows very good energy in the mid-palate. A candied violet quality comes up on the finish, which clings with impressive tenacity.

Related posts:

  1. Serious Szechuan
  2. Spice Up Your Life Szechuan Style
  3. Chengdu Taste – Power of the Peppercorn
  4. Posh Spice
  5. Century City Heat
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chengdu, Chinese cuisine, hedonists, hot pot, Pork Dumplings, shave ice, Sichuan, Szechuan

Chengdu Taste – Power of the Peppercorn

Oct07

Restaurant: Chengdu Taste

Location: 828 W Valley Blvd. Alhambra, CA 91803. (626) 588-2284

Date: October 2, 2013 and October 17, 2016, April 21, 2017 and August 31, 2018

Cuisine: Szechuan Chinese

Rating: Face Numbing!

_

Chengdu Taste, is a Chengdu style Szechuan restaurant, it’s the first to feature this regional cuisine that Jonathan Gold recently raved about and still one of the best.


Obviously, i’m not the only one that feels this way…


Because even on a Wednesday night there are about 20-30 people waiting for tables. Our big party even had a reservation, but they still made us wait for 45 minutes. Plus — the horrors — they wouldn’t allow us to open our wines. They don’t have a liquor license and they succumbed to the common misconception that us opening our own could get them in trouble — which it won’t.

Anyway, after much debate about the ordering the food began to pour out (in rapid succession unfortunately, often multiple dishes at once):


Mung bean jelly noodle. Very interesting. An unusual sweet and sour taste with a little bit of heat. Refreshing and spicy at the same time.


Cold garlic noodle. You mix it up yourself, to give:


These were delicious. A nice vinegar tang and a considerable amount of heat, but a lot of flavor.


Look at all that chili oil!


Diced Rabbit with younger sister’s secret recipe. The tangy spicy flavor on this was nice, but the rabbit has been diced (as promised) into tiny morsels bone and all. Each bit is sharp and requires nibbling at to get fragments of meat out of the spiky little bones.


Fish and tofu pudding in spicy sauce. There are mild boiled filets of fish and generous cubes of soft tofu under all that pepper. The “sauce” is nearly liquid, almost solid chili oil with a sea of peanuts, heavy facing pepper, and tons of little Szechwan peppercorns. They included the real deal Szechwan Peppercorn which has only been allowed in the US for about 7-8 years (for strange political or environmental reasons). Wow did it have an “impressive” breath and depth of hotness. I mean serious existential hotness of a new type. Not an inedible heat (which I’ve had in China), but this weird numbing effect that is a feature of the genuine Szechwan peppercorn (the little brown black pepper-like balls floating in the dish). Woah!


Every table had several bowls like this. Look at all that chili oil. There must be 57 gallon drums of it in the back.
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The contents in a bowl.


Vegetable hot pot. This was a similar dish, but without all the peppercorns it was hot, but not as numbing. It also had a surprisingly nice array of vegetables in there, particularly the potato and lotus root. It was many people’s favorite dish.

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Fish boiled in chili oil (8/31/18). Pretty much the same as the one with “tofu pudding” but without the tofu. Feel the garlic!

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Boiled beef in chili sauce. Sauce red sauce, different protein.


Toothpick lamb. These little bits of lamb are covered in cumin and skewered. It was a nice break  from the heat, but the lamb bordered on mutton. It could have been far more tender.

NOTE: In October 2016 I had this dish again and it was fabulous with very tender and flavorful lamb bits.


Boiled Fish with green peppers. This is the house signature dish, and it was on nearly every table. It’s similar filets of white fish boiled in a “broth” of oil and peppercorns. This has an interesting vegetable herbaceous heat. In some ways a mild and pleasant flavor, but with a broad numbing quality.


Numb taste wontons. Tasty little pork wontons in a searing chili oil. My first one, looking as it did like above was very tasty. But after they soaked up the chili oil they lost their flavor behind all that spice.


Chicken in mother’s preserved chilies. By far the worst dish of the night. The chicken was mostly chicken necks and the sauce was hot and not so tasty.


Ma Po Tofu (aka Pocked Faced Old Lady Tofu). This was a wonderful dish, probably my favorite. The soft tofu was embraced with really serious heat, a nice vinegary flavor, and a bit of porky goodness.


Pork shank. This huge hunk of pig leg was braised and covered with chilies. Comparatively, it was actually a very mild dish. The meat was juicy and tender. There was a lot of fat around it too. Yum.


Duck tongues. This still fry with onions and peppers consists entirely of duck tongues. Yes, every one of those little meaty things is an individual bird tongue. Pretty tasty actually, although the texture was very rubbery (as I’m sure duck tongue always is).

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Eggplant in garlic sauce. An excellent, and very garlicky, version of this dish. The intense sauce was amazing.
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Kung Pao shrimp. Classic.
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Griddle (dry hot pot) chicken (8/31/18). Really nice flavor and spice. Had the bones, but of course.
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Grandmother’s beef with preserved chilies (8/31/18). This was the first time I’ve had this style of dish. It had a tangy/spicy thing, quite sour actually. Very soft generous slices of beef and crunchy cucumber. Really interesting and delicious, although the sour quality might be weird to some westerners.


Tan Tan Noodles. This classic of Szechwan cuisine features noodles, pork, sesame, peanuts, green onion.
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You mix it up. And while it doesn’t look lovely, it tasted great, with a really wonderful sesame nut flavor, some noodles, and a bit of sweetness (some spice too — of course). One of our favorites.

Overall, Chengu Taste offered up great authentic fare. The above feast was a mere $30 per person with tax and tip. The service was nice, but there were several practical issues: 1) long wait 2) no wine allowed 3) they brought everything out too fast. This significantly marred the experience (particularly the wine and rapid delivery). We had brought some great sweet wines and they would have calmed the inferno. Plus, by delivering 4-5 dishes at once, the enormous heat of some of them (fish and tofu hot pot!) swamped out the flavors of others (the peppercorn fish). So I’d like to go back if we can arrange for them to deal with those problems.

Still, a delicious and unusual meal, and it was interesting and fantastic to get such a bracing introduction to real Szechwan pepper (I’ve had it before, but not in this quantity). The face numbing effect was dramatic and the flavor complex. The only problem is that the spice kept me up half the night!

October 2016 recap. 3 years and a LOT of Szechuan later I still think Chengdu is a great place. If anything the ingredients seemed to improve. It didn’t feel nearly as hot — I mean it was still hot — but not mind warping. I think that’s just me having “acclimated” to Szechuan food. I have it a lot. I cook it at home! But the flavors were great. Maybe not quite as complex as Szechuan Impressions, but I didn’t get CRS afterward (with SI gives me). The menu is improved and has pictures. There was no wait at lunch although it was reasonably crowded. If you want serious Szechuan classically and well executed you could do far far worse that Chengdu Taste. In fact, it’s pretty darn great.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

or more crazy Hedonist dinners here!

Related posts:

  1. Spice Up Your Life Szechuan Style
  2. A Taste of Taos
  3. Hunan Chili Madness
  4. Revenge of the Han Dynasty
  5. Shanghai #1 Seafood Village
By: agavin
Comments (5)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chengdu, Chengdu Taste, China, Chinese cuisine, hedonists, Ma Po Tofu, Sichuan, Szechuan Chinese, Szechuan Pepper
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