Sichuan Province

La Vie en Szechuan's $7.95 Lunch Special

La Vie en Szechuan's exemplary ma po tofu Midtown now boasts the city's largest concentrations of Sichuan restaurants. Most of these are timid compared to the ones in Flushing, offering little in the way of Sichuan peppercorns or offal, but an agreeable - and often spicy - experience nonetheless. ... More >>

A Trek Into the Supermarket Freezer Case

Now you don't have to go to a fancy restaurant to get gourmet sliders. It started innocently enough. I was in an odd food mood, and came to the conclusion that what I craved most was something vividly remembered from childhood - Swanson chicken and turkey pot pies, one of each. In my memory, they' ... More >>

Sweet Yummy House Serves Up Sichuan, Taiwanese-Style

Under the overpass, Elmhurst burns its tongue

Cellophane Noodles From Spicy Bampa, Dish #56

Welcome to 100 Dishes to Eat Now, the tasty countdown leading up to our "Best of 2012" issue. Tune in every day (weekends, too!) for a new dish from the Fork in the Road team. [See More 100 Dishes: Natu Kodi Biryani at Deccan Spice, Dish #57 | Leberkäse from Der Kommissar, Dish #58 |

How To Avoid 'Cool' Restaurants

[See More Year of the Takeout: Day 209: Village 38 | Day 208: Szechuan Garden] Quite unfortunately, we made the mistake of eating at a highly hyped, highly recommended Asian "street food" restaurant yesterday and found that it was a lot like many highly hyped, highly recommended restaurants -- meh ... More >>

Mission Chinese Food: Red Hot in a Pink Glow

A San Francisco transplant wows the city's gastro-cognoscenti

Super Noodle Debuts Super-Hot Noodles in the West Village

This is what the dan dan noodles at Super Noodle look like before you stir them up. Younger sibling of the East Village's Hot Kitchen, Old Town Hot Pot opened on Seventh Avenue South just as winter approached last year, hoping to capitalize on the comfort-food aspects and do-it-yourself thrill of ... More >>

The Story Behind Ma Po Tofu

Ma po tofu as rendered by Danny Bowien at Mission Chinese Andrew D. asks: What is ma po tofu and where can I try some? Dear Andrew D: Ma po tofu is one of the signature dishes of Sichuan cuisine. It used to be that you had to go to a Sichuan restaurant to get it, but now it seems to be appearing ... More >>

Little Pepper: Eat Heat

A favorite Sichuan place brings its fire to a new nabe

Little Pepper: 5 Dishes You Probably Won't Find at Your Neighborhood Chinese

1. Crust of Cooked Rice With Pork -- This dish hails from Zhejiang, the maritime province just south of Shanghai. The flavors are rich and mellow, and the crunchiness of the rice an added bonus. This week Counter Culture settles into Little Pepper, a relocated Sichuan classic now found in College ... More >>

Our 10 Best Sichuan Restaurants in NYC

Braised whole fish with hot bean sauce at Grand Sichuan House When Sichuan sailed into town in the '70s, it was spelled Szechuan and the food was a pale evocation of one of China's foremost regional cuisines. If chili oil was used, it was just a drop, and the sole vector of a timid spiciness was ... More >>

Tomorrow: Our 10 Best Sichuan Restaurants

Tree Mushroom With Chinese Spices arrives heaped with pickled red chilis at Little Pepper. Will this recently relocated spot still make our top 10? The rise of good Sichuan in nearly every borough over the last decade has been a restaurateering miracle, as much due to the public's general apprecia ... More >>

Taste Test: Best Dan Dan Noodles in NYC

I decided to go on a quest to find the best dan dan noodles in New York City. After scouring food forums and tweeting back and forth with a couple of Chinese food veterans, my choices were narrowed down to four contestants: Hot Kitchen (2nd Avenue near 6th Street), Grand Sichuan (St. Marks near 3rd ... More >>

Land of Plenty: Old Money Burns Its Tongue

In a good way. Some Sichuan spice for 58th Street.

Robert Sietsema at Land of Plenty; Lauren Shockey at Parm

​ This week in the Voice, Robert Sietsema samples Sichuan in his review of Land of Plenty: "At the end of the last century, who could have predicted Manhattan would someday be speckled with Sichuan restaurants? But as old-school takeaways vanished, pricier Sichuan places appeared in Chelsea an ... More >>

Year of the Takeout: Day 17

"Mistakes Were Made" ​ Shredded Pork, Szechuan Style from ??? ???

Hot Kitchen's Mei Shan Beef Is Nice 'N' Spicy

Lauren ShockeyLots of chiles in Hot Kitchen's mei shan beef​Although New York City now boasts a wealth of Sichuan restaurants, the East Village hasn't seen too many of them -- until now. Hot Kitchen (104 Second Avenue, 212-228-3090) opened quietly several weeks ago, offering a vast menu of Si ... More >>

Dish No. 73, Ma Po Tofu at Ennju

​What happens when a Japanese cook reinterprets a Sichuan standard? Go to Ennju to find out. Spicy food has lately become more popular in Japan, where not too long ago, chili heat was limited to green shisito peppers or the red flakes in togarashi. But gradually, spiciness has been worming i ... More >>

Dish No. 80: Phing Khatsa at Phayul

​Phing khatsa is a blistering soup featuring some elemental flavors. One of the most notoriously interesting dishes in Tibetan cuisine is laphing (sometimes written, "la phing," perhaps to seem more French). It's an amazing damp salad of french-fry-shaped masses of mung-bean jelly, lying all ... More >>

Phayul: Up You Go!

A new Tibetan place scales the Heights of Jackson

Mung Bean Laphing at Phayul in Jackson Heights

​Square noodles of wiggly, translucent mung bean jelly wobble like worms from another planet, in a sauce of dried chiles, chile oil, and tingly Sichuan peppercorns, with a light aftertaste of soy and vinegar, and a major presence of spring onions and garlic.

Flushing's Hunan Kitchen Wants to Give You a Hot Time

The city's best—and damn spicy—Hunan restaurant

NYC Tofu Guide: A Springy Food for Spring

Isn’t bean curd the blandest substance on earth? Not on your life!

Toss Before Eating: Dan Dan Noodles at Sichuan Fave Spicy Bampa in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn

​#26 of our 100 Days/100 Dishes is this innocent-looking bowl of noodles -- the chile oil alone will set your lips on fire. The restaurant formerly known as Bamboo Pavilion and now known as Spicy Bampa is evidence of the diaspora of great Sichuan restaurant into Brooklyn neighborhoods where ... More >>

Szechuan Chalet Does Uptown Chinese Darn Well

We slalom the menu with Dr. John

Where Can I Find the Spiciest Food in NYC?

Feel the burn​No one wants food so hot that you can't taste the rest of the meal, but some of us really love the flavor of chile peppers--fruity, vegetal, sweet, toasty, soapy, and/or hot--and the little endorphin high you get after a particularly incendiary dish. So I'm often asked where to ... More >>

Where Am I Eating? Chinese Mirch

​Not too many takers for this week's Where Am I Eating, but it wouldn't have mattered much anyway, as Danny guessed the restaurant, Chinese Mirch, right off the bat. The dish above is cauliflower Manchurian. The dish shown after the jump is crispy Sichuan lamb. I hadn't been to the Indian-Ch ... More >>

Tomorrow: Our 10 Best Fin Fish Dishes

​Tomorrow is the fourth day of Passover as well as Good Friday, when some Catholics eschew meat. So in the spirit of togetherness, we'll bring you a top ten list that both groups can enjoy--fin fish. That's fish with scales and fins--no shellfish or cephalopods. Check back here tomorrow for ... More >>

Our 10 Best Sunset Park Restaurants

Yissel's chimichurris draw a crowd​The neighborhood of Sunset Park is so-called for the park of the same name, a green, hilly spot offering a community pool built in the 1930s and spectacular views of the harbor and the Statue of Liberty. Until World War II, the area was mainly home to Easte ... More >>

Spring Guide: A Tongue-Torching Tour of Town

Pics From Lan Sheng: New Sichuan in Midtown

​ While I was working on the review of Lan Sheng, a new Sichuan spot on 39th Street, the restaurant become unexpectedly embroiled in a labor dispute, which may or may not actually concern it. Read the whole story in my column this week. But about the food, there is no debate--it's good, and oc ... More >>

Vegetarian Delights of NYC: Spicy Mung Bean Noodles at Bay Ridge's Grand Sichuan House

"Jiggle, jiggle," say the noodles​Revisiting our favorites at Grand Sichuan House in Bay Ridge yesterday (which was favorably reviewed by Our Man Sietsema last year), we punctuated our chile-pepper-laden Chongqing chicken and cumin lamb with an estimable vegetarian dish from the "cold dishes" ... More >>

The Early Word: New Shine, Offering Sichuan and Buffalo Wings in Sunset Park

New Shine has been open for about two months ​ New Shine is, in fact, a shiny sort of place--brand new and staffed by young people with cool haircuts.

Revisit: Wu Liang Ye Near Times Square

​Sichuan has taken the city by storm, or maybe I mean by hot peppercorn. While Manhattan is generally deficient in the regional cooking of China, it has long enjoyed a pair of excellent chains that purvey Sichuan on the self-important island, including Grand Sichuan and Wu Liang Ye, both with ... More >>

Revisiting the Original Grand Sichuan

   A dozen years back, the original Grand Sichuan on Canal Street opened just across from the triumphal entrance to the Manhattan Bridge. It was first out of the gate, gainsaying the Szechuan Empires, Szechwan Gardens, and all the other pallid evocations of Sichuan cuis ... More >>

Flash in the Pan--Kung Pao Shrimp

Flash in the pan: bringing you simple, quick, but not dumbed-down recipes. This Kung Pao shrimp recipe is adapted from a Kung Pao chicken recipe by Fuchsia Dunlop in her book Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking. I tweaked it by subbing shrimp for chicken, and adding mild, lo ... More >>

Chong Qing Chicken Obsession, Part Two

In my last dispatch from Chong Qing chicken obsession, I told you about eating the dish--composed mainly of chiles, augmented with some fried chicken--at Grand Sichuan House in Bay Ridge and Grand Sichuan St. Marks, in the East Village. The dish is named after its native home, Chong Qing, a city ... More >>

Pix from Bamboo Pavilion

Glistening with red chile oil, dan dan noodles need to be vigorously stirred before devouring (click to exaggerate). Located smack dab in the middle of a Sicilian neighborhood in Bensonhurst, Bamboo Pavilion (see our review here) is on the sharp cutting edge of Sichuan cuisine in New York. Whil ... More >>

The City's Finest Sichuan Is At Bensonhurst's Bamboo Pavilion

No kidding!

Scenes From the Roosevelt Food Court

New Flushing malls offer regional Chinese specialties

Pix from the Roosevelt Food Court

Sichuan Sears Smith Street

Floundering

Sunset Park's most remarkable Cantonese justifies its reputation

Shooting Up

The city's best huajiao fix found—where else?—in Flushing

Chop Suey Christmas

From lo mein to lobster in the city's five chinatowns

Mongols on Main Street

Chinese restaurant in Flushing fetishizes a woolly creature

Hot Chile Love

A card game turns into the restaurant it always wanted to be

Lung Heat

Excavating Peppercorns in Flushing

Listings

Not Your Average Corner Chinese