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Review: Best Szechuan Chili & Seafood

Man, this review of the LA restaurant Best Szechuan Chili & Seafood
makes me wish I lived on the other side of the continent!

from
http://www.calendarlive.com/dining/c...y?track=widget

COUNTER INTELLIGENCE: CHINA
Real Sichuan's worldly side
After decades of wannabe fare, L.A. has Best Szechuan Chili & Seafood,
offering the real deal in modern urban Sichuan cuisine.
By Linda Burum
Special to The Times

September 7, 2005

In Sichuan province, where the Yangtze River penetrates deep into
China's western region, the cuisine has two faces. In the mist-shrouded
mountainous rural villages, cooking was traditionally rough-edged and
earthy. Of necessity, the daily fare was assembled from preserved
ingredients — pickled greens and salty fermented bean paste added
complex flavors to vegetables and meats. And, as chiliheads know, the
dishes were (and are) often packed with potent hot peppers.

Meanwhile, in cities such as Chengdu and Chongqing, even before the
recent modernization, the cooking had already developed a genteel,
worldly side, incorporating refined banquet dishes from other regions
such as steamed sal****er fish into everyday menus and adapting
favorites such as Shanghai meatballs to Sichuan tastes.

The recent mini-trend of Monterey Park cafes specializing in Sichuan
food has finally brought authentic Sichuan flavors to the Southland
after decades of mock-Sichuan fare that is really Cantonese dishes with
a few chile peppers and peanuts thrown in. And while the cooking at
these true Sichuan places has been a revelation, the focus has been on
traditional rustic dishes.

None has represented the modern urban side of the cuisine until Best
Szechuan Chili & Seafood opened in the former Rong Hawa space. Here,
although the fish tanks and availability of lobster trick some passersby
into thinking it's a Cantonese place, there's a menu that's solidly
contemporary Sichuan.

You'll find duck hot pot, chopped chicken with chiles, eel with pickled
peppers and pork innards stewed with chiles and bean paste at every
Monterey Park Sichuan restaurant. But at Best Szechuan, you'll also find
golden lobster, tea-smoked duck and a delicately seasoned chicken and
bamboo-pith soup. Here a dish may have an initial flash of heat, but the
heat opens your palate to the clear, bright tastes that follow: the
fresh tang of ginger or vinegar, the sweetness of garlic and the
nut-like roastiness of sesame oil. Many dishes are beautifully seasoned
without the use of chile at all.

Best Szechuan, situated unobtrusively at the back of a minimall, is
spacious but simple, its two dining rooms lined with dark cherrywood
wainscoting. White cloths drape the tables. Next to tanks holding
lobsters, crabs and freshwater fish sits a typical Sichuan-style
mini-buffet generously stocked with appetizers: silky paper-thin slices
of braised tongue, lightly dressed young soy beans or cucumbers and
ragingly hot dry-fried beef slivers, cooked to an almost jerky-like
texture. A selection before tackling the menu takes the edge off
everyone's hunger as they ponder the meal's possibilities.

Listed on a separate photocopied page that accompanies the colorful
bound menu are what our waiter described as "popular dishes cooked by
the sous chefs." The dishes on the main menu are said to be prepared by
a chef schooled in Sichuan; items from either always seem to be of equal
quality.

Lamb dishes here are simply stunning. Sautéed lamb with chile pepper
comes tossed with a frightening quantity of roughly cut green jalapeños.
But while the meat, accented with fermented black beans, thickly sliced
garlic cloves and western-style leeks, picks up the fruity perfume of
the chiles, it isn't incendiary itself. The interplay of these elements
is powerful, yet subtle.

A sautéed dish called Ze Zen lamb with its light veil of dry cumin and
pepper-laden sauce clinging to slices of meat tastes almost like a
curry. One evening's special of lamb riblets came in the typical rustic
style, fried with an equal quantity of lethally hot, tiny red dried
chiles and hua-jiao, or Sichuan pepper. Sichuan devotees will recognize
its similarity to a dish (also served here) made with tiny nuggets of
marinated, fried chicken. Hua-jiao, actually a flower bud of the prickly
ash, imparts a slight tingling and numbing sensation on the lips. The
Chinese call this effect ma; it adds a secondary wave of flavor and a
sensory dimension found nowhere else but Western Chinese cooking.

Crowd-pleasing

As with many Chinese restaurants, it takes at least a party of four or
even six to put together a diverse meal. With its live fish, abundant
vegetable dishes and long list of pepper-free dishes, Best Szechuan
makes it easy to balance Sichuan's hair-raising heat with soothing,
delicately seasoned choices. Try the crisp-skinned, lean tea-smoked duck
(called herbal duck on this menu). Chiliheads may be disappointed, but
connoisseurs of complex flavoring will detect the subtle smokiness and
light herbal scent of the meat. Both the rich, ultra-chickeny soup with
bamboo pith and the crispy rice-cake seafood soup that sputters like a
volcano as the waiter pours the saucy stock over toasted grains, are
terrifically palate-calming.

Live seafood is what sets Best Szechuan apart and the preparation can
run from the sweet-fleshed, barely seasoned steamed white fish to the
tonsil-jolting chile-doused "full-house red lobster."

One evening, we had polished off an order of golden lobster, a dish of
luscious, white lobster meat coated in egg yolk, deep fried and served
with crunchy roe strewn over. It was so good that when we'd finished the
meat but before the platter was removed, one guest jumped up and added a
bowl of rice to the remaining juices and roe. We blended the rice into
the sauce to give ourselves a second round of its incredible
buttery-salty sweetness. Inspired, we repeated the act with the peppery
peanut-y sauce of a dish called dan dan noodles; no one wanted to waste
even a drop.

*

Best Szechuan Chili & Seafood

Location: 230 N. Garfield Ave., No. 12D Monterey Park; (626) 572-4629.

Price: Appetizers, $3; entrées, $5 to $36 (family-size portions).

Best dishes: Ze Zen lamb, golden lobster, herbal duck (tea-smoked duck),
dan dan noodle, crispy rice seafood soup.

Details: Open for lunch and dinner 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through
Saturday; 11a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Sunday. Lot parking. Cash only. Beer and
soft drinks.

real
"ian" > wrote in message
news:BCnYe.16464$nq.13258@lakeread05...
> Man, this review of the LA restaurant Best Szechuan Chili & Seafood makes
> me wish I lived on the other side of the continent!
>
> from
> http://www.calendarlive.com/dining/c...y?track=widget
>
> COUNTER INTELLIGENCE: CHINA
> Real Sichuan's worldly side
> After decades of wannabe fare, L.A. has Best Szechuan Chili & Seafood,
> offering the real deal in modern urban Sichuan cuisine.
> By Linda Burum
> Special to The Times
>
> September 7, 2005
>
> In Sichuan province, where the Yangtze River penetrates deep into China's
> western region, the cuisine has two faces. In the mist-shrouded
> mountainous rural villages, cooking was traditionally rough-edged and
> earthy. Of necessity, the daily fare was assembled from preserved
> ingredients — pickled greens and salty fermented bean paste added complex
> flavors to vegetables and meats. And, as chiliheads know, the dishes were
> (and are) often packed with potent hot peppers.
>
> Meanwhile, in cities such as Chengdu and Chongqing, even before the recent
> modernization, the cooking had already developed a genteel, worldly side,
> incorporating refined banquet dishes from other regions such as steamed
> sal****er fish into everyday menus and adapting favorites such as Shanghai
> meatballs to Sichuan tastes.
>
> The recent mini-trend of Monterey Park cafes specializing in Sichuan food
> has finally brought authentic Sichuan flavors to the Southland after
> decades of mock-Sichuan fare that is really Cantonese dishes with a few
> chile peppers and peanuts thrown in. And while the cooking at these true
> Sichuan places has been a revelation, the focus has been on traditional
> rustic dishes.
>
> None has represented the modern urban side of the cuisine until Best
> Szechuan Chili & Seafood opened in the former Rong Hawa space. Here,
> although the fish tanks and availability of lobster trick some passersby
> into thinking it's a Cantonese place, there's a menu that's solidly
> contemporary Sichuan.
>
> You'll find duck hot pot, chopped chicken with chiles, eel with pickled
> peppers and pork innards stewed with chiles and bean paste at every
> Monterey Park Sichuan restaurant. But at Best Szechuan, you'll also find
> golden lobster, tea-smoked duck and a delicately seasoned chicken and
> bamboo-pith soup. Here a dish may have an initial flash of heat, but the
> heat opens your palate to the clear, bright tastes that follow: the fresh
> tang of ginger or vinegar, the sweetness of garlic and the nut-like
> roastiness of sesame oil. Many dishes are beautifully seasoned without the
> use of chile at all.
>
> Best Szechuan, situated unobtrusively at the back of a minimall, is
> spacious but simple, its two dining rooms lined with dark cherrywood
> wainscoting. White cloths drape the tables. Next to tanks holding
> lobsters, crabs and freshwater fish sits a typical Sichuan-style
> mini-buffet generously stocked with appetizers: silky paper-thin slices of
> braised tongue, lightly dressed young soy beans or cucumbers and ragingly
> hot dry-fried beef slivers, cooked to an almost jerky-like texture. A
> selection before tackling the menu takes the edge off everyone's hunger as
> they ponder the meal's possibilities.
>
> Listed on a separate photocopied page that accompanies the colorful bound
> menu are what our waiter described as "popular dishes cooked by the sous
> chefs." The dishes on the main menu are said to be prepared by a chef
> schooled in Sichuan; items from either always seem to be of equal quality.
>
> Lamb dishes here are simply stunning. Sautéed lamb with chile pepper comes
> tossed with a frightening quantity of roughly cut green jalapeños. But
> while the meat, accented with fermented black beans, thickly sliced garlic
> cloves and western-style leeks, picks up the fruity perfume of the chiles,
> it isn't incendiary itself. The interplay of these elements is powerful,
> yet subtle.
>
> A sautéed dish called Ze Zen lamb with its light veil of dry cumin and
> pepper-laden sauce clinging to slices of meat tastes almost like a curry.
> One evening's special of lamb riblets came in the typical rustic style,
> fried with an equal quantity of lethally hot, tiny red dried chiles and
> hua-jiao, or Sichuan pepper. Sichuan devotees will recognize its
> similarity to a dish (also served here) made with tiny nuggets of
> marinated, fried chicken. Hua-jiao, actually a flower bud of the prickly
> ash, imparts a slight tingling and numbing sensation on the lips. The
> Chinese call this effect ma; it adds a secondary wave of flavor and a
> sensory dimension found nowhere else but Western Chinese cooking.
>
> Crowd-pleasing
>
> As with many Chinese restaurants, it takes at least a party of four or
> even six to put together a diverse meal. With its live fish, abundant
> vegetable dishes and long list of pepper-free dishes, Best Szechuan makes
> it easy to balance Sichuan's hair-raising heat with soothing, delicately
> seasoned choices. Try the crisp-skinned, lean tea-smoked duck (called
> herbal duck on this menu). Chiliheads may be disappointed, but
> connoisseurs of complex flavoring will detect the subtle smokiness and
> light herbal scent of the meat. Both the rich, ultra-chickeny soup with
> bamboo pith and the crispy rice-cake seafood soup that sputters like a
> volcano as the waiter pours the saucy stock over toasted grains, are
> terrifically palate-calming.
>
> Live seafood is what sets Best Szechuan apart and the preparation can run
> from the sweet-fleshed, barely seasoned steamed white fish to the
> tonsil-jolting chile-doused "full-house red lobster."
>
> One evening, we had polished off an order of golden lobster, a dish of
> luscious, white lobster meat coated in egg yolk, deep fried and served
> with crunchy roe strewn over. It was so good that when we'd finished the
> meat but before the platter was removed, one guest jumped up and added a
> bowl of rice to the remaining juices and roe. We blended the rice into the
> sauce to give ourselves a second round of its incredible buttery-salty
> sweetness. Inspired, we repeated the act with the peppery peanut-y sauce
> of a dish called dan dan noodles; no one wanted to waste even a drop.
>
> *
>
> Best Szechuan Chili & Seafood
>
> Location: 230 N. Garfield Ave., No. 12D Monterey Park; (626) 572-4629.
>
> Price: Appetizers, $3; entrées, $5 to $36 (family-size portions).
>
> Best dishes: Ze Zen lamb, golden lobster, herbal duck (tea-smoked duck),
> dan dan noodle, crispy rice seafood soup.
>
> Details: Open for lunch and dinner 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through
> Saturday; 11a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Sunday. Lot parking. Cash only. Beer and
> soft drinks.

me too!

Here's another article:

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Procuring peppers in Sichuan is a painful, pungent pursuit

TED ANTHONY of Associated Press in Chengdu

I summon the waiter with a wave and he rushes over, grinning, jabbering
in Mandarin about getting me whatever I need. It takes several seconds
before doubt begins to cross his face, and this is why: I am trying to
talk, but no words are coming out.

I am in a raucous room that opens onto a narrow, bustling alley. The
place is called Yulin Chuanchuan Xiang - "Jade Forest Fragrant
Skewers." Its speciality is "firepot" - a brand of hotpot bubbling like
the cauldron of one of Macbeth's witches, filled with some of the
hottest peppers in the world. They float in the metal bowl in front of
me, gastronomy's answer to open canker sores.

Jade Forest is in an old neighbourhood called Huaxing Jie, which in
turn is in a city called Chengdu, which in turn is the capital of a
western Chinese province that you may have heard of when you've ordered
your takeout from the corner Chinese place. The province is called
Sichuan, though you may know it as Szechuan.

This is the epicenter of spicy Chinese food, and home of the "flower
pepper," a dried berry that, combined with chili peppers, creates a
tingly-spicy flavouring found in no other cuisines. I have come here
looking for the hottest dish I can find.

I have been addicted to high levels of capsicum since I was a young boy
living in Singapore. I had an amah - a nanny - named Amiah who made me
Malay curry at age six. The peppers, she told me, came from a crop that
was also used to make muscle ointments like BenGay. When it comes to
spicy, I think I can take anything.

Which does not explain why, at this moment, I cannot speak.

Language isn't the problem; my Chinese is just fine, thank you. It's
just that my throat and my lungs and my vocal cords are not
cooperating. Beads of sweat are forming behind my eyebrows. I am the
only foreigner within view. Everywhere, people are looking at me,
pointing and shouting, "Laowai!" - "Foreigner!"

To my friends, the people I have told about this pepper-procuring
vacation, I have dubbed my trip "Chasing Pain."

It seems I have found it.

---

To Chinese, hot peppers are a defining topic. In all corners of the
land, they say to each other, "Ni chi la ma?" - "Do you eat spicy?"
There's no shame in saying you can't - the Cantonese are proud that
they don't "chi la" - but there's a certain hardy, roll-up-your-sleeves
manliness to answering the question in the affirmative.

That is not why I'm here. I have come to Chengdu on a personal mission.

I have craved spicy food for most of my life. I collect hot sauces from
all over. I have yet to meet a "Suicide Wing" that can scare me. In
college, my fraternity brothers paid me US$10 a head to do shots of
Tabasco. They thought I was a carnival attraction; I walked away with a
weekend's worth of beer money.

Because I add hot sauce to everything, I figure I should visit a place
where I don't have to.

Sichuan food is nothing like Szechuan food, its American counterpart.
Once I was in a Chinese restaurant in a large northeastern city when a
woman at the next table bleated to her companion, "Szechuan means SPICY
in Chinese." Well, no, actually Sichuan means four lakes. And anyway,
her food wasn't spicy; the manager of that particular American-Chinese
restaurant was Taiwanese, which is as if a North Carolina barbecue
master opened a New England clam shack in Minsk.

Even back in Beijing, where the greasy Sichuan eateries are plentiful,
I kept hearing whispers of a better place, where the tongue-tingling
peppercorns were even more plentiful and the red peppers were utterly
relentless. I realised that if I truly wanted to burn my face off, I
couldn't do it remotely. So I set out for Chengdu.

The city is famous for its "little eats" - more than snacks, less than
meals. As China undergoes a restaurant renaissance, the country is
dotted with "Chengdu Little Eats" - places where you can get a bowl of
spicy pork, tingly dandan noodles or the town speciality,
scarlet-sauced spicy "pockmarked" tofu with minced beef. Firepot, with
its endless skewers of sundry vegetables and meats, is part of this
category.

I spend my first few days making stomach sorties from my hotel, first
within a two-block radius, then 2 kilometres, before I cast a wider
net. Each place is more delicious than the last. At one ratty snack
place, the red-oil dumplings send me into fits of orgiastic moaning.
People stare, and, like many of the times when they see my white face
and hulking frame, there comes the inevitable shout: "Laowai!" At 10pm
each night, I waddle back to the hotel and sleep fitfully, dreaming of
my next meal.

It's an odd experience doing all of this solo, because eating is such a
communal event to the Chinese. Until fast food arrived, it was unusual
to have two-person tables in any restaurant. Perhaps the best-case
scenario would have been for me to bring my posse along (presuming that
I had a posse) so that many dishes could be sampled.

Yet this particular search seems better conducted by myself. It's a bit
obsessive, and obsession is better parsed in private. Plus, the
dramaturge in me enjoys the notion that This Is A Quest I Must Complete
Alone. And on a more practical level, between the peppercorns and
ginger and pore-infiltrating garlic, I'm not the most fragrant person
to be near.

One morning, I visit a wholesale market and buy a pound of flower
peppers to take back to Beijing. I ask at one of the stalls where I can
find the hottest hot sauce around. The woman points me upstairs; as I
walk away, I hear her laughing amiably with her stall mate.

"Laowai - always interesting," they say, giggling as I turn around to
give them a good-natured glare.

---

The waiter is still waiting for me to say something. But I can't.

I am huffing. I am Lou Costello desperately trying to tell Bud Abbott
that some rampaging creature who looks a great deal like Lon Chaney Jr
is approaching. I try again; nothing but air. He grins. He thinks I am
in pain when I have merely succumbed to pepper-induced laryngitis. I
look into the firepot, and peppers specially selected because of their
personal dislike for me glare back up.

Around me, in every direction, Chinese are dipping pieces of
vegetables, meat and things I don't begin to recognise into bubbling
cauldrons. Gomez Addams would have enjoyed pouring this concoction from
his roof onto Christmas carolers.

Imagine the possibilities for medieval castle defence: A moat filled
with boiling, blinding Sichuan red oil would have made the ideal
holiday accessory for that hard-to-please viscount. And what about
Sichuan Pepper Spray for warding off assailants? Its time hasn't yet
come, but you can bet Williams-Sonoma or The Sharper Image is keen to
get it into R&D.

I gulp and remind myself that Deng Xiaoping, the leader who started
China's economic reform, was Sichuanese. He was a tiny man - sometimes
called "little bottle" - and if he can take it, I can.

Finally, after about 30 seconds, speech returns.

"Bottle of beer," I wheeze in Chinese. The waiter runs and returns with
the first of two malt-liquor-sized bottles of Golden Blue Sword, a
thin, tepid brew that quickly becomes the most refreshing thing I have
ever sampled.

Half an hour and 30 skewers later, the phlegm in my respiratory tract
is looser than Paris Hilton's reputation. I ask for the cheque, and the
busboy stares at the empty plates. "Most foreigners who come here, they
can't take this or don't like it," he says. Not a compliment, but I
think he vaguely approves.

My oesophagus aches. I wander out into the narrow street and inhale
deeply, hungry for non-peppery air. From behind me, I hear someone
shout. "Laowai zoule!"

The foreigner has left the building.

---

If You Go...

GETTING THE Flights from Beijing to Chengdu take about three hours
and cost about 1,200 yuan each way. Clean hotels range from 600 yuan to
1,600 yuan for the top-end choices. Taxis in the city are extremely
inexpensive, though most cabbies will not know English.

TRAVEL CHINA GUIDE: www.travelchinaguide.com/cityguides/sichuan/.

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"Ken Blake" > wrote in message
...
<snip>
> > You were right. It is written Four Rivers.
>
>
> Thanks. I was pretty sure I was right, but wanted confirmation.

http://zhongwen.com & type in sichuan in the English search. It is as
literal as it gets - four streams/river.

DC.

In ,
DC. > typed:

> "Ken Blake" > wrote in message
> ...
> <snip>
>>> You were right. It is written Four Rivers.
>>
>>
>> Thanks. I was pretty sure I was right, but wanted
>> confirmation.
>
> http://zhongwen.com & type in sichuan in the English search.
> It is as
> literal as it gets - four streams/river.

Thanks.

--
Ken Blake
Please reply to the newsgroup

Thanks for that - it was so funny, and so good humoured. I really want
to go to Chengdu one day myself, though I am very sure I couldn't take
hot pot of that degree of hotness.

Ian