We’re back from vacation and I must add, dead tired. So, it’s back to normal programming. I have about a week of dine out blog entries to go and right after that I will be sharing with you all the vacation Suanne and I had the past two weeks.
You might find this hard to believe but we had never been to a purely Szechuan restaurant before. It is because we were unfamiliar with the food and also feared that ordering would be a problem as most of these authentic Chinese restaurants does not have (proper) menus in English.
Anyway, we decided to just go in an try the Golden Szechuan Restaurant which is located along No 3 Road in Richmond. It is about across the road from the Yaohan Mall. You will never miss it because this is perhaps the restaurant with the most imposing facade along the busy No 3 Road.
The restaurant is kind of upscale. Well, not upscale, upscale but at least they have white table cloth and sturdier looking chairs. We kind of always judge how much we would likely pay based on whether they use table cloth or not.
Szechuan food is reputed as being hot and spicy and it’s just not spicy but the numbing type of spiciness.
We ordered three items in all between the four of us. The first one was the Hot Pot Chicken. We thought we order that because it’s on their highly recommended list even though it was $29.95.
It was downright spicy and was quite good. However, I must say that it really does not do justice to price we paid for this. To us, it is just chicken and on top of it, it is really boney and has little meat. I think perhaps that it is expensive is that the chicken used is what they called free-range chicken.
The other dish we had was the Boiled Beef with Chili. To us, this one looks a lot like the Hot Pot Chicken except that it is not served in a hot pot and that this is beef instead of chicken. This dish costs $13.
One thing you need to know is that Szechuan cooking is not healthy. They use a lot of cooking oil, and I mean a heck lot. Me thinks that we’re supposed to just drink it like we do soup or pour it on rice like we do gravy. This will put a lot of people off. However, I enjoy this a lot. It’s OK having this once in a while, I guess.
My favourite is the what they called the Pepper Tofu (also $13). Like the other dishes this is ultra spicy. I think people have this generally as a snack or appetizer. It is crunchy, spicy, and a tad salty. Nice.
Rice is pretty expensive if you ask me. We ordered a bucket for four people and for that we are charged $6 bucks.
Total bill came up to $65. Expensive, would you say so? Really, I think it is quite reasonable if only we did not order the $30 Hot Pot Chicken. As we left, we noticed that there were quite a lot of unique dishes the other tables had. One of them had something like raw pork strips which they serve hanging on a bamboo contraption … not sure what that was but it sure was interesting. We’ll come back again someday to try that.
I wanted to thank you for putting together such an interesting blog! I appreciate the regular updates and I stop by everyday. I lived in Vancouver for 6 years, but never really appreciated the quality, quantity and variety of Chinese food available until I moved away. In this community Chinese food is synonymous with The Smorgasbord: deep fried chicken balls, sweet and sour pork, and all you can eat jello for dessert. We go back to Vancouver for a week every year and eat out at a different Chinese restaurant every day! Your blog is very helpful in deciding where to go. Thanks.
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Hey there. We just checked out your site and it is great! I love the boiled beef with chili at Golden Szechuan. We used to go every weekend for that. 🙂
I thought you might be interested in checking out a new restaurant that was opened by the guy in the picture of the dining room (Danny). Here’s the info:
Szechuan Harvest Moon Cuisine
121 – 4600 No. 3 Rd., Richmond
604-285-3668
They have really good food as well and it’s brand new decor since they have only been open 2 weeks.
Cheers and keep up the good work!
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Ordered chicken, fish, and frog – bill was $200. They charged $5 for tea, $6 for rice for one, $25 for the chicken, $60 for the fish, and $90 for the frog. The fish and frog menu price was “market price”, but didn’t think it would be that much. Only 3 of us eating, the fish and chicken good, but the frog wasn’t fresh it was frozen – told them we didn’t like the frog after one bite before we even knew how much they were charging us, they wouldn’t even cook us something else to replace it, they just re-cooked the frog with tofu and gave it back to us. Any respectable restaurant brings the fresh item out to the table to show us how much it weights and to tell us how much per pound, but they didn’t so we got tricked. Even after complaining they didn’t offer anything – no discount, no free dessert, not even free tea!
Hi Tuesday: Wow … $90 for the frog? Could you tell us more about the frog? How heavy was it or how much was it per pound? I can’t imagine why a (frozen as you say) frog dish would cost $90 or for that matter any dish at all. Doing a bit of math … For three people I don’t think it will be more than 3 lbs and if so, it is $30 per pound … way more than Alaskan King Crab! Anyway, I do find Golden Szechuan prices are higher than elsewhere. I blogged about it twice before and eaten there numerous times and each time the bill came in higher than other similar places. But still we do like the food there. Ben
I think this is Tuesday’s blog post on the frog dinner. Its in Chinese but just let Google translate do its work.
http://www.wretch.cc/blog/blackrumba/16064072
I still can’t believe that the frog dish is so expensive. $90. Crazy. I really want to know what is so special about this that it cost so much. Ben
I like the bamboo white meat and szechaun potato chips here. I agree this place is expensive for what you get. The service is not that much better than though they certainly have more floor staff.
Update, dinner here a few days ago was over $200 for 5 people. It was chicken, pork, noodles, pork ribs, nothing that was pricey. There are better options in Richmond.