Showing posts with label Sichuan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sichuan. Show all posts

Sunday, 11 August 2013

Lucky Sichuan Cuisine @ Kota Damansara, PJ

After my awesome meal at Empress of Sichuan in London, I have been craving for some spicy Sichuan food back here in KL. There are many Sichuan restaurants in Imbi but the area looks dodgy so I have not been there to try any food. My dream is to one day dine at Si Chuan Dou Hua at Park Royal Hotel but as it is quite expensive, I'll have to make do with a cheaper version from Lucky Sichuan Cuisine Restaurant at Kota Damansara.


Shop Front


Stir Fried Rape (RM 12)
No, that's not a typo. No, I'm not illiterate. No, I know what it is its real meaning. That was what was written in the menu and being bananas, we had to wait for Maggot-chan's boyfriend to help us translate. We decided to order it anyway just because of the name =P It was a good thing we did too because it was the only non-spicy dish we had and the vegetable disappeared in mere seconds. But truth be told, it was a pretty average dish and we would not have gobbled it up if not for the spiciness of the other dishes =.=

Ma Po Beancurd - Extra Spicy (RM 12)
Ma Po Tofu is my favourite dish but those in other restaurants can't even touch this by a km-long stick if they tried, spiciness-wise. I didn't expect it to be so spicy and actually it's not. The main problem with this dish was its tongue-numbing effect which renders you unable to eat anything spicy for a while. There was also this weird pungent taste that I dislike which I suspect contributed to the tongue-numbness. I didn't touch it at all after the first bite but Maggot-chan liked it a lot.

Yu Shiang Shredded Pork (RM 15)
This is one of my favourites as its spiciness was bearable and the tender pork is well flavoured with the scallion-chilli combo.

Stir-Fried Chicken with Hot Chilli (RM 28)
The bomb O.O When it arrived at our table, everyone literally stopped eating to stare at this mountain of deep fried chillies. The popcorn chicken were all buried underneath this heap of spicy hell. This dish was the most addictive for everyone although the crispy yet succulent chicken was spicy just through skin contact with the chillies. Can't remember if we ordered spicy or extra spicy but it was such a waste that I didn't eat more as my tongue was still numb from the wretched tofu > . < Not good for those who dislike oily food as you can feel the oil squirting out when you bite into the popcorn chicken...

Spicy and Sour Soup (RM 12)
They were very generous with the soup which had tons of ingredients such as tofu, wood ear fungus, ginger and scallions. The soup was very sour and spicy and definitely opened up our appetites for the other spicy dishes. The portion above was sufficient to feed 6 of us and some had more than a bowl.

Griddle Cooked Chicken with Pepper (RM 38 - Medium)
This chicken dish was quite pungent and spicy with the numerous dried chillies and lots of spicy sauce at the bottom of the heated pan. It was tasty although I felt the high price tag was not really justifiable. Another favourite of Maggot-chan.

Remains of the popcorn chicken
This was the aftermath of the Stir-Fried Chicken with Hot Chilli. We resorted to clearing out the "landfill" in the end and dug out as many bobs of chicken as possible.

Oh well, I found out my spiciness tolerance level was not as high as I thought it is. I guess this is as authentic as you can get since the staff seem to only be able to speak Mandarin with a China accent and judging from the typos in the menu (Stir Fried Rape above, The Potato Burns the Beef and Fine Fried Colon are some notable examples), the team probably came from Sichuan province. Anyhow, I'll definitely return to try the other less spicy dishes such as Stir-Fried Chicken Dices in Hot Chilli, Deep Fried Spicy Prawn, Stir Fried String Beans and Griddle Cooked Bullfrog in Spicy Sauce. And we'll definitely order Stir-Fried Chicken with Hot Chilli again =D


PawPoints: 4 Paws
Pawket: Tomato


Lucky Sichuan Cuisine
19 Jalan PJU 5/12
Kota Damansara
Tel: 03 6140 7755
Daily: 11am - 3pm, 5.30pm - 11pm

Monday, 5 November 2012

Empress of Sichuan @ Chinatown, London

I have been craving Sichuan food of late and searching high and low for it in KL. The only ones I found are hawker-stall like restaurants in Pudu which seems kind of dodgy and some Chinese Muslim restaurant in either Kota Damansara or one of the nearby similarly-named areas. One authentic restaurant I found was Si Chuan Dou Hua at Federal Hotel but that is a pricey option. Anyone has any good recommendations?
   
Anyway London has quite a number of Sichuan restaurants within its Chinatown and after googling a bit, I settled on Empress of Sichuan. It is also quite pricey but I thought of splurging on this =)
     
Shop Front
       
Spicy Fragrant with Dried Chillies and Pepper (GBP 13 )
   
I love this dish! The chicken cubes are so tender and fragrant with the chilli oil and stir-fried peppers. Quite oily, mildly spicy (for Malaysian tastebuds) and extremely addictive when eaten with rice. I would highly recommend this d^_^b
   
Closer shot of the dish in all its fiery colours
   
Beef Slices in Extremely Spicy Soup (GBP 13.50)
   
Wanted to order another vegetable dish but it didn't seem worth it to pay so much for a tofu dish so being the greedy siblings we were, we opted for a beef dish. When it arrived at the table, we were shocked at its size - a huge bowl of sliced beef in what looked more like chilli oil than soup =.= The beef slices were really really tender and thin and they were really generous with the portion - we probably ate more than 10 slices each. If I remember correctly, there was also cabbage in the soup. My brother actually ladled the soup over his rice but I refrained from doing so due to the amount of oil to soup ratio. This is quite spicy and my brother enjoyed it but I think I prefer the chicken dish.
   
Long Green Beans with Minced Pork (GBP 9.20)
     
This is a non-spicy dish and good for counterbalancing all the chilli oil. I love this dish too as there was lots of wok hei in it. It's really addictive and I even finished it till the last bit when my brother could no longer take another bite. Highly recommended, this one.
   
Complimentary dessert
   
They gave us a complimentary dessert of layered red bean jelly. Not too sweet so it was just nice.
   
If you don't mind the slightly exorbitant price, Empress of Sichuan is a really good place to try out Sichuan food.
       
PawPoints: 4 Paws
      
      
Empress of Sichuan
T: Leicester Square
6 Lisle St
Chinatown
London
Tel: +44 0207 734 8128
Mon - Wed: 12pm - 10.45pm
Thu - Sun: 12pm - 11.15pm