Sherman's Food Adventures: Red Chilli Szechuan

Red Chilli Szechuan

With Viv being busy with work, it was my duty to take our daughter to her music lessons. Granted, at only 2, her lessons are merely singing songs and randomly hitting musical instruments. Hey, they have to start somewhere! It's good I don't really have any shame left since we had to sing songs and the sort for this class. After it was over, I wasn't going to let an opportunity to eat pass me over. Well, I am on the North Shore and there are some pretty good eats, especially along Lonsdale. One place I have been eying for quite a long time has been the Red Chilli Szechuan restaurant.

If you have kids, then you'll know that eating out with a 2-year old requires moving the entire house with you. With diaper bag, portable booster, cooler bag and my camera on one shoulder/arm, and daughter in the other, I stumbled into the restaurant. I guess it's not often a dad takes his young daughter out for lunch because the staff and patrons were all giving me the smiles. Luckily for me, she was well-behaved and I had enough play items in the diaper bag to keep her occupied.

In addition to the food I was planning to eat, I had to pick up a few items for Viv as well. When I started to list off the items, it began to concern the server. I assure her it was not all for me; but I was gonna try them all! We started off with the Cold Shredded Chicken with Peanut and Garlic Sauce. The chicken was perfectly tender and a bit gelatinous; but the plethora of chicken skin turned me off. Believe me, the chicken skin was good, there was just too much of it. The flavourful dressing gave a nice aromatic sweet and nuttiness to the dish. I got the Meat Tan Tan Noodles for myself and I'm not even sure that would be the right name for the dish. To me, it resembled Ja Jeun Mein (Spicy Meat Sauce Noodles). Whatever the case, I really like it. The noodles were al dente and the meat sauce had depth and was slightly spicy with plenty of meat.

For Viv, I got a Szechuan Beef Noodle to go. I also got the non-spicy Beef Noodle as well since it would probably be too much for my daughter. Again, the noodles were cooked perfectly, although the broth was a bit weak. There was a decent amount of tender beef and spinach. The Szechuan version is essentially the same with a spicy broth. Admittedly, I really didn't order some of the spicier ssignature items which one would associate with a Szechuan restaurant. That's partly due to my eating partner, a 2-year old! Thus, this probably was my mistake in ordering the Xiao Long Bao. Yes, it is a Shanghainese dish, not a Szechuan dish. Predictably, they were not that great. The dumpling skin was too thick and there was not that much in the way of soup within. Despite this, I was quite pleased with my meal here and it definitely deserves a second look on my part. I'll probably come for dinner and get some Orange Peal Beef and Spicy Prawns. Oh, and since I had to add leftovers to the amount of items I needed to take to my car, the manager actually helped me take everything out. What a nice guy.

The Good:
- The food I tried was pretty good
- It's clean

The Bad:
- Prices seem a bit high
- Place is small

Red Chilli Szechuan Cuisine on Urbanspoon

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

We eat here occassionaly as a large work group. The
spicy wontons, spicy green beans, orange peel beef,
Ginger beef, house veg with noodles, spicy squid are all
vary good and favorites of our group. The food
can get very spicy which is good but be warned! I never
turn down the opportunity to go.

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