Having not had Chinese food in a while, we headed down to Sichuan Garden on Friday. IMO Sichuan Garden is one of the best Sichuan places in Boston. The other places of honorable mention are Sichuan Gourmet in Framingham and Billerica (original).
Sichuan province in China is well known for its mouth burning, insanely spicey, what are these people thinking, but wonderfully delicious food. Sichuan Gourmet certainly lives up to its claim of authenticity. A Chinese friend of ours recommended we try the Chung King Chicken, a szechuan specialty. Since Pacman and I grew up eating curries and assorted spicy foods, we were feeling rather gung ho. I mean seriously how spicy can this dish be? Can't be worst than that Devil's Curry Dish we had in Malacca. Pffft.
As soon as we order the dish, the waiter returns with a jugful of water and slams it on our table. He figures we're amateurs. Hrmmp We'll show him! But boy were we wrong. Turns out this innocent looking chicken is deep fried in every chilli and peppercorn known to man. The tiny piece I ate set my whole mouth on fire. My poor tongue was numb for a good 20 minutes. Between the three of us, we barely ate a quarter of the dish. Needless to say, I've never ordered this dish again. In all fairness, the chicken did taste pretty good, IF you can get past the fact that that tiny piece is going to be the first and last thing you taste that night :p
I do have a point to this long story. Dear readers, if you have any friends who think they are invincible when it comes to spicy food. Bring them there, get the chicken, sit back and bust out the popcorn ! ;-)
Anyway, that was several month's back. Anti climatic I know. We played it safe this time.
Tripes in Chilli Oil (Cold Appetizer)
Chinese Melon with Bamboo Thing?- This was on the chinese menu. I have no idea what it's called.
Eel (aka eel bathed in more Chilli) - This was recommended by the waiter and was actually really really tasty! The waiter proudly announced that they had to kill the eel so the dish would take 20 minutes or so to prepare ... can't tell if he was kidding.
Sichuan Garden
295 Washington St
Brookline, MA 02445-6817
Chomp Meter:
A staple on my list of restaurants!
2 comments:
The review and the pictures are making me so hungry! Also, I want to let you know that your blog influenced me to pick up a better camera so the days of crappy pictures from my phone are over.
Yay :) looking forward to seeing more photos on your blog!
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