andrewhwest

Laksa, The chef at China Chalet is from Chengdu, so it doesn't take much more than knowledge of the menu to get the "Chengdu treatment". However, I recommend that any non-Chinese person emphasize that they want their food just as if they were in Chengdu. (Assuming that you really do want your food spicy).

China Chalet, Florham Park, about 10 minutes from the Short Hills Mall. The chef is from Chengdu, Sichuan Province, my wife's hometown. Ask for a meal prepared as if you are in Chengdu. I recommend their fu chi fei pien (appetizer), sichuan dumplings, water cooked beef (a very spicy dish), 3-pepper chicken. I forget their official names on the menu, but the menu is mostly good as long as you don't order the clearly American stuff. I've posted on the place before with some pictures. We typically let the chef pick most of our dishes for us these days.

Looks very good, very authentic. We order very similar looking dishes at a restuarant closer to us, China Chalet in Florham Park. Good to see another authentic Sichuan Restaurant in NJ.

I tried this place last week. I called for a faxed menu so I could order in advance. The pork ribs were nice and spicy, smoky and meaty, and a bit chewy and charred, not super tender. The fried chicken was good too. Coleslaw tasty, chopped pretty fine. Potato salad was all right, I sensed some mustard in the mayo base. Collards seemed a bit flat, I was expecting a porkier, saltier flavor. Same for the black eyed peas. My grandmother made better black eyed peas, and I liked her turnip greens better than these collards, I couldn't do it so easily myself, but they could be improved upon. Next time I'll try the fried catfish. I think this place is worth a try if you're looking for some southern cooking, the chicken and ribs were very tasty.

King's Village serves Tianjin style food if I recall correctly, it's a bit north of Beijing. We've had dumplings there, and a variety of small cold dishes of varying quality. It's an interesting place to get some real Chinese food, and fairly inexpensive, so its best to order lots of things, experiment, and eat what you like.

If you like Sichuan style dumplings, (boiled smaller dumplings in a spicy/sweet/garlicky sauce)you can try China Chalet in Florham Park. Very different from Northern or Cantonese dumplings, however. I think they have "normal" dumplings too but I've never tried them, and have no idea if they're worth ordering. Pretty much everyone that I've seen orders the sichuan style ones.

1 - 9 Seafood Restaurant has been discussed repeatedly.

I don't think so, but we practically never drink alcohol at restaurants anyway. I have noticed a small wine cooler with 100% New Jersey vintages. Does that count? I think Cathay 22, which we used to love when China Chalet's current chef ran things, has a liquor license and full bar.

Last week I had some in-laws from China come visit, both from Chengdu, and seriously into Sichuanese cuisine. By accident, we had something of a cook-off. We took a circle line cruise around NYC one afternoon and dined at Wu Liang Ye (48th St.) that day (Wu Liang Ye is claimed by some restaurant critics to be the best Sichuan restaurant in the area.) Another evening, we went to China Chalet, ordering, as usual, the authentic Chengdu-style dishes on the menu. The result of the contest. Both of our Sichuanese guests found China Chalet to be the clear winner. In my view, China Chalet's leadership came from its use of spices in the sauces, which seemed to have more zip in them. Perhaps the chili oil was better prepared - a key ingredient for a number of dishes. The three pepper chicken was tasty and tender as usual, the spicy beef with those little shoots was fiery and numbing as always and we had a dish that I think is not yet on the menu but is really good - sea bass steaks with spicy sauce and bean jelly cubes Nevertheless, China Chalet was considered good but only "average" by our guests, when compared to the various top restaurants in Chengdu where they frequently enjoy banquets. (And I agree as I do still miss my 6 days of dining in Chengdu last year.) Still, there are only a handful of restaurants in all of the U.S. that are even comparable to Chengdu's restaurants, so I think this one remains a mostly overlooked treasure. http://www.gochineserestaurant.com/ChinaChalet/

Just had dinner at Thai Thai, the food remains above-average as usual, but not especially great. We go here 3 or 4 times a year; the service was just fine.

I like to make the flavors more complex by also including some ginger, dried shrimp, hot bean paste, and a little sugar and vinegar. Salty, spicy, sweet, sour. With sichuan peppercorns it's a little numbing too.

Daniel, When you go to China Chalet, mention that you've been to Sichuan and want the real thing. You can also mention that you heard their place was good from the American with the family from Chengdu. I did teach myself to cook Sichuan dishes using my wife as food critic. I haven't been cooking lately as my in-laws from China have been staying with us and doing the cooking. I found the Wei-Chuan book series to be very good beginning books, if not as authentic as Land of Plenty. I think that Wei-Chuan's "Chinese Cuisine" and "Chinese Cuisine: Szechwan Style" are both worth buying. That's how I learned how to cook easy stuff like mapo tofu, fishy eggplant, fish-flavor pork, twice-cooked pork. The best thing about these two books is that every recipe has illustrations, which really helps when you are learning a new dish. Then you experiment with the flavors to suit your taste - I always added more sichuan peppercorn, hot bean paste, garlic, ginger, green onions than Wei-Chuan indicated. Shopping for ingredients for the first time in an asian grocery store is challenging, but these books make that process easier too. I have "Land of Plenty", and it looks good, especially for those already familiar with Chinese cooking, but a lot of the recipes look to be a bit more complicated, less practical than the sort of everyday dishes I typically make. I haven't cooked from it yet, except for a failed pickle experiment. BTW - I cook hot pot at home sometimes too, wasn't crazy about Dunlop's recommended selection. I suggest making chicken broth yourself and trying some of the pre-packaged hot pot bases fromt the Asian stores. Then get some thin sliced frozen meats - lamb, beef, good Chinese groceries have them ready for hot pot. Sliced Chinese canned spam. I like some thawed frozen fish balls, soaked dried mushrooms, slices of potato. Napa cabbage, mung bean noodles. We just use tons of chopped garlic with pure sesame oil (not an oil blend) as the dipping sauce - the broth tends to drip off your food into the dipping sauce, salting it for you as you go along. Good luck!

Daniel, I share your enthusiasm for Sichuan food and the ma la flavors. My wife and her family are from Chengdu, and we spent a week in Chengdu just last summer. Of the pictures you showed, the sichuan dumplings looked pretty good, the cold noodles looked pathetic, the squash/okra also looked decent. We've been to Grand Sichuan Intl. and Wu Liang Ye in NYC. Both have been above average for Sichuan food. Fortunately for my family, we found an even better and really authentic Sichuan restaurant just 20 minutes away in New Jersey, China Chalet in Florham Park. The chef is from Chengdu. I put some pictures from one of our many trips there in the China Chalet thread. http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=66295&hl= I'm surprised that people haven't picked up on how good and authentic this restaurant's Sichuan dishes are - I think fans of this cuisine should be driving from NYC to try it - we think the Sichuan dishes are generally even better than Grand Sichuan or Wu Liang Ye. Ask the hostess or waiter to have the chef recreate an authentic Chengdu dining experience, emphasizing "ma la" numbing and hot flavors. Sichuan crab or lobster specials have been really good when available, loaded and infused with sichuan peppercorns and their numbing flavor.

To me the classic "ma la" dish is fu chi fei pien (literally husband wife heart lung) which has tongue and tripe in a ma la chili oil sauce. But many Sichuan dishes should be ma la, e.g. mapo tofu, water cooked beef. Whenever someone in our family returns from a trip from Chengdu, they will bring back some of the best peppercorns in their luggage to share with the extended family in the U.S.

When I ask a variety of people if they would be interested in eating hot and spicy duck's tongue, tongue and tripe, or sea cucumber, or stews with intestine and pig's blood, few respond favorably. Not only that, but many would look unfavorably upon eating anything in such an establishment. And if they accidentally ordered such an item, described less clearly, they might get upset and grossed out, and their kids would start crying, and they would ask for it to be removed from the check. I think this is the reason why some restaurants keep two menus - tastes still typically are in two distinct camps. Note that I've seen people whine about two menus or different treatment, even when the restaurant actually only has one menu! Discussing my current favorite Chinese restaurant (Sichuanese), China Chalet in Florham Park, I saw posters asking why the items on Chinese people's tables looked better than theirs. It's because the Chinese people weren't ordering the typical "American-Chinese" dishes on the menu. Since posting my review here, I've seen a number of Americans dining adventurously at China Chalet, asking the waiters for authentic sichuan recommendations. My hope is that Americans will stop asking for fake Chinese food and start asking for authentic Chinese food. Then, an increasing number of Chinese restaurants will surely react to the changing market by emphasizing what people want.