What is it with great Sichuan restaurants opening in unlikely Manhattan neighborhoods recently? In November, we headed to Chelsea, where a run-of-the-mill Vietnamese restaurant had turned into the excellent
Legend, at which we loved the Chongqing chicken and tofu-like "Tears in Eyes" and the liberal use of chili and Sichuan peppercorn on a number of dishes. And now in Midtown, we've found plenty to love about
Cafe China.
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The Chelsea Vietnamese fusion restaurant Safran has recently undergone a transformation into a bona fide, full-fledge Sichuanese joint,
Legend. We decided to take a full-staff field trip to see how it stacks up to its other Manhattan competitors. Long story short: It beats 'em all, hands down.
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Apparently I hadn't been paying attention back in 2008 when first
Ed Levine and then
Frank Bruni extolled the virtues of
Szechuan Gourmet. So when I discovered that there was authentic Sichuan Chinese food in Midtown, sitting in the middle of corporate-office-ville and just a hop-skip away from Times-Square-tourist-land, I was quite surprised, and quite excited.
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When I first moved to the Upper West Side in the 1970's, the neighborhood Chinese restaurants were everywhere. Today, they're harder to find—which is why I was thrilled when Grand Sichuan International opened a spot uptown. Here are five of my favorite dishes.
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When Sichuan food is at its best, the fiery heat of the chili pepper should hit your mouth first in an all-out frontal attack. Only after you feel you can take no more does the numbing effect of the Sichuan pepper start kicking in, calming your nerves, and getting you ready for the next bite. It's this constant up and down, the mini-adrenaline rush that comes with each bite that makes Sichuan food so intensely exciting.
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Here's the question I'm asked at cocktail parties just about as much as "what's your favorite restaurant?":
Where can we eat in (Manhattan's) Chinatown without waiting in line? Well, serious eaters, I have an answer for you:
Famous Sichuan. It's a place that
Robyn Lee's been going to since last November, and every time she goes she says there's never anybody in the place.
I worry about good, moderately priced restaurants going out of business (we need every last one of them), so I went for the
ridiculously cheap $5.50 lunch special both days I was wandering around Chinatown during my two-day tour of jury duty.
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Some rely on ice cream, but in the lingering dog days of summer I often regulate my core temperature with spicy food. So the other day a friend and I headed over to Flushing’s Zhu Da Zi Chengdu Xiao...
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"It was fiendishly hot. So much that Hell Chicken might be a better moniker." It’s been far too long since I partook in the fiery fare at stall No. 31 in Flushing's Golden Shopping Mall. The last time I visited...
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Flushing’s Chinatown teems with so much deliciousness that I often suffer from culinary tunnel vision. Street vendors hawk everything from freshly roasted Chinese chestnuts and Xinjiang meat on a stick to strings of candied haw fruit. And there’s the...
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Yes, I know it’s the Year of the Ox and I should probably be eating long noodles and other auspicious fare, but as far as I’m concerned it’s rabbit season in Flushing’s Chinatown. In the past I’ve had little...
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