andrewhwest

My wife and I discovered China Chalet in June. My wife and her family are from Chengdu, the food capital of China's Sichuan Province. We had just returned from a two week, 300 dish, vacation in Beijing, Chengdu, and Shanghai. We were delighted to discover that China Chalet's chef is the chef from Cathay 22 circa 1998, when it was at its best. Before that, China Chalet's chef was the chef at a well known restaurant in Chengdu. China Chalet's best dishes are the real deal. This means appetizer items like tripe and tongue in chili oil (fu chi fei pien). The long clams in green onion pesto was new to us, and quite good (it's the one with a daikon carved into a crane's head). The sichuan pickles appetizer are simple but deliver that authentic taste of sichuan flavorings including tongue-numbing sichuan peppercorns. We thought the sichuan dumplings with chili oil were pretty good too. Haven't tried dan - dan mien yet, but intend to. For main dishes, three-pepper chicken is good, as is the spicy water cooked beef (called something else on the menu). Also quite good is the spicy pork with pickles and the spicy fish with pickles (both use pickled chopped up "long beans" in the sauce.) We haven't tried mapo tofu yet, but I'd expect it to be good. Overall, the food is not as good as the top restaurants we dined at in Chengdu. Though we think the long clams are pretty inspired, and fairly original. But China Chalet's best dishes would not be out of place in some of Chengdu's better restaurants. I suspect China Chalet's staff are having a difficult time with Americans who can't eat the real stuff. Actually, China Chalet only has one menu, which can hurt them, if people randomly pick something they can't handle. I sadly read a newspaper review on their wall with 2 1/2 stars, and it seemed to me that whoever wrote that review did not like eating real Sichuan food, complaining that some dishes were too spicy. Perhaps that review, and the occasional diner who thinks they're being poisoned by numbing sichuan peppercorns, has scared the proprietors into toning down dishes to non-Chinese. My wife and I met some other Chinese friends at China Chalet, who have dined widely at Chinese restaurants in NJ and NY, and they agreed with us that as far as they could tell, this was the best place available for Sichuan food in the area (and we had all been to Grand Sichuan International and Wu Liang Ye). I don't know how consistent their menu is - we have occasionally tried to order some dishes that are Sichuanese in origin, like twice-cooked pork, and the chef or his wife have asked us not to, saying they are not up to our standards. So this is what I recommend to anyone going to China Chalet, which is what we have done. Tell them the American man with the wife from Chengdu and the pretty little girl said you could find real Sichuanese food here. Tell them that you can handle and really want the authentic Chengdu flavors and heat (when they first saw me, an American, they used to always check with my wife that I really could eat the dishes she was ordering.) Ask them to recommend some dishes that they would proudly serve to Chinese people from Chengdu. Of course, if you can't eat spicy and numbing food, then you probably shouldn't eat at this or other Sichuanese restaurants. Ditto for not liking oil in your food, or not liking fatty pork, that's just part of the cuisine. It's seems to me that China Chalet is building strength now, and have noticed that on weekends the clientele is about 75% Chinese, and they're mostly ordering the same top Sichuan dishes. We've been there just about every weekend since we've returned from China. Saturday is probably the best day to go, as the ingredients are most likely to be in top form and prepared to peak on that high-volume day.

My wife and I went to Thai Kitchen Sunday night. We ordered dishes that all Thai restaurants should perform well. The Larb was good, a generous portion, though perhaps too sweet, and the ground roasted rice was a bit too hard. The pad thai was above average, but not exceptional, emphasizing salty over sweet. I was surprised to get a lemon wedge rather than lime wedge with it. Ordered a dish with pork, long beans, bell peppers, basil, with chili sauce. It was pretty good, but not exceptional, pork could have been more tender, and the chili sauce was sweetened more than I'd expect. We ordered a whole fried fish with chili and tamarind sauce. As soon as my wife broke the skin with the spoon, we knew there was a problem. Distinct ammonia smell. We both tasted a bite. The fish smelled of ammonia coming in, though in the mouth, I didn't really taste it as much. If the fish had been ok, the sauce and presentation would have again been good but not great. I've had that kind of fish better at other places, worse at others. We asked the waitress to take it away, and we ordered chicken with green curry. I don't give restaurants a second chances on bad fish. The green curry was adequate, pretty much like any green curry one orders at an average Thai restaurant. I can make better at home with a can of paste and coconut milk, etc. The service was friendly, to us and everyone else, but what the waitress did bothered me. She came back to report that the chef had tasted our fish, and declared that whatever we found distasteful about the fish was a characteristic "muddy" flavor of the fish, and reported that it was bought today. Well, we didn't argue, but I'm not aware of any fish that has a natural ammonia odor, and if so, they should never buy and serve it. But taking that sort of attitude tells me that they might serve me such a fish again. They did not charge us for the returned fish. My conclusion - it seems to be a decent Thai place for people in the area, assuming our bad fish was an anomaly. But the restaurant doesn't seem to be unusually good in key Thai dishes. We won't be going back, because it didn't appear to offer anything outstanding. Thai-Thai in Sterling serves dishes of similar quality, and it's closer for us. Is Mie Thai in Woodbridge in a higher league than these two?

Beijing, obviously. Though it's also taken very seriously in Hong Kong. Once, in a restaurant there, I saw a lady eating peking duck, and it seemed to inspire an orgasm of delight, a la "When Harry Met Sally". Don't know about NJ.

Except that good Peking duck doesn't include any of the things you mention. The duck is not fried, it is roasted, and you should have primarily if not exclusively the crispy skin. There is no "plum" sauce, it should be served with hoisin sauce, which includes no plums. And it should be augmented with threads of pungent green onion, not bland cucumber.

Going South instead of North, Cathay 22 in Springfield may be within range if you are close to Hwy 24. Some of their dishes are first-rate, worth a 20-30 minute trip in my opinion.

Well, Rosie, I'll restrict my answer to places we dine that we (our family) are competent to judge. Because my wife and her family are from Chengdu, China, often considered the food capital of China (which is saying something because all of China has a food-oriented culture), they are quite picky about good Chinese food. We're also biased in favor of hot and spicy food. In general, we don't go to restaurants to eat Chinese food, because most Chinese restaurants don't orient their output to Chinese eaters. I've learned to cook authentic Chinese food over the years, and family members on trips smuggle decent sichuan peppercorns out of China in their luggage for us. There are a few places we think are ok. There are a few semi-authentic Chinese restaurants in Edison. Cathay 22 is our first choice if we want a fancier meal out, per previous instructions. There is a Tianjin restaurant that serves ok, everyday food, that opened this year located on Lincoln highway, can't remember its name, because the Chinese name is different from its English. They make pretty good dumplings normally, and a few Tianjin dishes are good simple food. There's a sichuan restaurant in the plaza on the corner of Wood and Oak Tree Rd. that serves Ok food like twice-cooked pork assuming you ask for the fatty pork, and the hot pot is OK. No ambiance, which is good if we're taking the baby and don't want to feel guilty. That 1-9 Seafood Restaurant on Route 1 has pretty good dim sim when we're in the mood for that. Joe's Shanghai has ok soup-dumplings in NYC but the rest of the menu is below-average, and the soup dumplings are no longer worth the trip either, and the restaurant in NYC now just takes advantage of its old reputation to treat guests like cattle, thus the place is now pretty devoid of Chinese patrons. Soup dumplings aren't that big of a deal anyway. Cantonese and Shanghainese food isn't that big of a deal to us, so we haven't extensively searched for those kinds of places to eat regular meals. It's easy to steam a fish at home, you know. My wife would almost rather eat spicy food from other cuisines (that she doesn't know as well) than eat botched or average Chinese restaurant food, so for spicy food we like Keum Ho Jeung Korean on Old Post Rd. in Edison, like Thai Thai in Sterling (good not exceptional), and Moghul (Indian) in Edison. We've never been to Raagni, curious, considering we're only 10 minutes away, but I tend to avoid restaurants that look empty.

I live is Scotch Plains, and have ordered there twice. Totally unremarkable food. Not bad, but bland, and the "chips" are relatively soggy fries. The fish is good, but the batter fairly tasteless. My memories of Arthur Treachers is better.

Hello, Earlier someone referred to the Cathay 22 restaurant and it's best items being on the Chinese menu. This is essentially correct. My wife and her family are from Chengdu, the center of Sichuan province cuisine, and she is a very picky eater. For their few best dishes, Cathay 22 is as good or better than any restaurant in the area, including Grand Sichuan Intl. or Wu Liang Ye. You must be willing to eat the food authentically spicy. Here are the key dishes to order: they are all spicy, and this is the english approximation of the dishes: appetizers: essential orders are: fu chi fei pien = "husband wife heart lung" this is sliced tripe and beef with a hot and numbing chili oil based sauce. "dragon's beard beef" = some sort of cooked beef such that it becomes like thick chewy hairs, soaking in a chili oil sauce. main dishes: essential "water cooked beef" they call "crazy beef" I think. Tender sliced beef cooked with celery, covered with chili oil, pepper flakes, and sichuan peppercorn. Should be very hot and numbing. "Three pepper chicken" is chunks of chicken fried with dried red peppers, green peppers, and sichuan peppercorns. Should also be quite hot and numbing. Other than these dishes, we've found nothing at Cathay 22 that are mandatory. One should probably order the dry-cooked string beans as a side-vegetable, as it's consistently decent. We've never been excited by the seafood dishes there. The mapo tofu is ok, but redundant when ordering the essential dishes above. By the way, the idea that Grand Sichuan Intl. has a monopoly on good sichuan peppercorns is not true at present. May have been true 2-3 yrs ago, but we recently visited both locations, and while ok, neither was particularly impressive. My wife thinks Wu Liang Ye has improved this year over the past, in terms of authenticity and potency. If you want a good reasonably authentic sichuan dinner or lunch in NJ, Cathay 22 will provide it, if you order th items I mentioned above. Let me know if any of you try my prescription, and how you liked it.