5 posts tagged “sichuan”

I really enjoy regional Chinese food, and Yunnan and Sichuan food are my favorites.  Here are some samples of what I am talking about:

 

 

 

 

These are two different plates of Chonqing chicken, a dish of fried chicken bits, scallions, Sichuan pepper corns, and lots and lots of chillies.

 

 

 

In Sichuan wonton (or chaushau) are served with a hot chilli oil with lots of scallions and Sichuan peppercorns.  The first picture shows the dish as it arrives on the table; the second shows it after I've spooned the oil over everything.

 

Dan dan noodles: fresh wheat noodles with a savory pork sauce (with a hint of peanut).

 

 

 

Yunnan and Sichuan food is accompanied by various side dishes -- something you wouldn't see in a Cantonese restaurant.  Many of them are vegetarian, but others include cured meats (pork and beef), dried bean curd, and sea weed. 

A few years ago I bought a guide to Chinese food in LA. One of the places listed was Yunnan Garden on Garfield. It was my first introduction to Yunnan and Sichuan food in LA.  I've been back lots of times -- it's now called Yun Chuang Garden (I think it's the third name change that I can remember). 

I went there on Thanksgiving.  Here's what I got:

 

 

There is a nice selection of cold appetizers/sides available. I guess the standard is to order three sides -- so here are mine.  At the top is a pickled cabbage dish. At first glance it doesn't look like much -- but it was very tasty and flavored with chilies and Sichuan peppercorn. The second is a seaweed dish and the third is cucumbers drizzled with sesame oil. 

 

 

I really love wonton (or chao shao as they're called here). These are dipped in a chilli oil that's heavily laced with Sichuan peppercorn. My lips went numb from eating this -- in a good way, I promise.

 

 

Dandan noodles brings together a really random set of ingredients: peanuts, sesame paste, green onions, pork, and preserved vegetables.

 

This is Chonqing chicken. It consists of small pices of chicken that are breaded and deep fried, tossed with lots and lots of chili peppers, Sichuan peppercorns, and green onions.

I didn't order any of the signature Yunnan dishes this time: "crossing the bridge" noodles and Yunnanese stewed chicken with broth. I also didn't order two mysterious dishes on the menu: "mother's chicken" and "mother's frog." Next time I have to get the frog.  

I have really gotten to love Sichuan food. I mean real Sichuan food, not the supposedly Sichuan food served at restaurants that are otherwise entirely dedicated to Cantonese food.

One of the best Sichuan dish is Dan Dan Mian, noodles with spicy sauce. It's basically street food and luckily for me there's a restaurant in Torrance that serves a great version. 

 

Sue's Kitchen

23918 Crenshaw Blvd., Torrance, CA 90505

 

I found Sue's Kitchen totally by accident. When I walked in I noticed that they had a refrigerated case with pickled beef, vegetables, and peanuts. I was in Sichuan heaven!

I've had a number of things here: dumplings, wonton with chili sauce, and vegetable dishes. They also served beef roll (here it's called a Chinese burrito). It was really good and luckily for me there's less cilantro in Sue's version than at the places in San Gabriel.

 

Here's a recipe for Dan Dan Mian from Fuchsia Dunlop's fabulous book, Land of Plenty.

 

Dan Dan Mian

12 oz fresh Chinese noodles (or 8 oz dried)

Sauce
1 Tbs peanut oil
4 Tbs Sichuanese ya cai (preserved vegetables. Look for preserved mustard leaves)
3 scallions, green parts only
1/2 Tbs dark soy sauce
2 - 3 Tbs chili oil or to taste
1.5 Tbs Chinkiang vinegar (or black Chinese vinegar)
1/2 - 1 Tbs Sichuan peppercorns

Pork Topping
a little peanut oil
4 oz ground pork
1 tsp. Shaoxing rice wine (or med. dry sherry)
2 tsp. light soy sauce
salt to taste

Heat 1 Tbs of peanut oil in wok over high flame. Add the ya cai and stir-fry for about 20 seconds, until it is fragrant. Set aside. Add another Tbs of oil to wok and reheat, then add the pork and stir-fry. As the meat separates, splash in the wine. Add the soy sauce and salt to taste, and continue to stir-fry until the meat is well-cooked but not too dry. Remove from the wok and set aside.

Finely slice the scallions.

Put stir-fried ya cai and other sauce ingredients into a serving bowl and mix.

Cook noodles according to the instructions on the package. Then drain and add them to the sauce. Sprinkle with the pork and serve immediately.

If serving from a big bowl, mix sauce and noodles and meat until evenly distributed. Otherwise, assemble each portion in individual serving bowls and allow people to mix their own.

http://szechwanbestrestaurantla.com/index.htm

 

For a while there were a lot of Sichuanese (or Yunnanese) restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley. I think the trend has waned a little bit, but there are still a few around. Szechwan Best Restaurant was on the news recently because the owner donated a week's proceeds to the earthquake relief. We've been to Szechwan Best a few times, but each time it always seems to have different owners. Once we tried to get food in the middle of the day but all employees were sleeping in the booths.

Here's what we had this time:

 

 

Sichuanese restaurants usually have an array of different cold dishes you can choose from, like appetizers or side salads. There are four here: a dry beef with chillies, pickled vegetables, sea weed, and marinated cucumbers. All of them were good with the exception of the beef which was a little tasteless.

 

 

 

 

Wonton in hot chili oil.  The wonton are served in the oil that's infused with Sichuan pepper corns (prickly ash) and green onions. The prickly ash makes your mouth go numb.  It's one of my favorite things to order in a Sichuan restaurant. I don't want to be one of those people who judge restaurants by single dishes, but if I was one of those people this would be the thing that I would use to judge a Sichuan restaurant. This one was pretty good -- wait ... does that make me one of those people?

 

 

 

Fried chicken with chillies. This packs a punch -- it has prickly ash too. That's orange chicken in the background (not my choice).

 

 

This one wasn't so good. It's shrimp in garlic sauce. There wasn't much garlic in it, but it sure had a lot of canned button mushrooms.

 

Szechwan

924 N. Sepulveda Blvd

Manhattan Beach, CA

 

I love Chinese food, but I don't eat it very often. There's one simple reason -- I think most Chinese food in West LA and the South Bay is pretty bad. 

 

Tonight I wasn't sure what to eat and ended up at Szechwan in Manhattan. There are a couple of Chinese places that aren't downtown or in the San Gabriel Valley that I'll eat -- I've been to Szechwan before so I thought it would be fine.  Boy was that a mistake.

I ordered Szechwan wonton -- in most real Sichuan (I am using  the Pinyin spelling) restaurants delicate wonton are submerged in a sauce that combines hot oil, chili peppers, Sichuan peppercorn, and chicken broth. It's divinely mala (numbing and hot 麻 辣). But not this time.  It was in a sauce that appeared to be composed of hosin, peanuts, and chili. The wonton were placed on top of the slurry and the whole thing was topped off with Chinese mustard greens. Patooey.

We also ordered long beans in garlic sauce (☺☺☺), shredded beef with carrots (☺), and sizzling rice with chicken (☺).  They served everything with OLD steamed rice. OK, I suspect that your average patron might not notice old rice, but I sure did.  Come on, people, you can't give dried out rice to the Asian guy.  He's gonna notice. 

 

 

OK, back to the wonton. Here's the right way to do it.