Grand Sichuan International

[jogoode]

couldn't stand it any longer, had to go!! 2 people: dan-dan noodles, sour & spicy vegetables, sizzling rice & pork, kung pao (freshly killed menu). all from the recommendations here. our bodies still paying for the amount of food, but excellent!! next time will try to temper our ordering.

thx egullet!!

btw: reminded me of our all-time favorite: "cuisine of szechuan", which used to be on irving place & 15th - the best ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What was the "sour and spicy vegetables" like? How was it served?

[jgould]

couldn't stand it any longer, had to go!! 2 people: dan-dan noodles, sour & spicy vegetables, sizzling rice & pork, kung pao (freshly killed menu). all from the recommendations here. our bodies still paying for the amount of food, but excellent!! next time will try to temper our ordering.

thx egullet!!

btw: reminded me of our all-time favorite: "cuisine of szechuan", which used to be on irving place & 15th - the best ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What was the "sour and spicy vegetables" like? How was it served?

a particularly tasty dish, spicy, yet interesting. julienned celery in a hotish red oil, i believe. type of dish one could take-out & make an entire lunch with, which is probably what i SHOULD have done

[ned]

Wow. Seven pages of rave reviews. At what feels like great risk, I feel I must relate the experience I had tonight as I had it after reading seven pages of rave reviews. It's worth mentioning that in order to have it, I travelled from E 12th street to 50th and 9th.

Wonton soup: Underseasoned fatty broth. Wonton wrapper tough and thick. Filling, forgettable.

Egg drop: Wife had three spoonfuls, asked for something salty to add to it, added it and then gave up anyway.

Salt and pepper squid: Salty but missing requisite peppers. Fried ok but not like xo kitchen.

Ma po tofu: Pretty good but way over salted and bathing in oil.

Lo mein: Went mostly uneaten, accusations of oiliness mixed with blandness.

I didn't get kung pao chicken, raw or otherwise, probably should have. Tried to order pickled cabbage and duck--they didn't have it.

If I lived up there I'd probably return for a second try but with the wilds of chinatown so close well maybe I still will. Seven pages. . .

Edited February 11, 2004 by ned (log)

[SobaAddict70]

Must've been an off night. GS, as do all restaurants, *are* allowed those once in a while.

Might do better if you had ordered dishes that most of the people here recommend -- i.e., the kung pao, the Green Parrot with Red Mouth, double cooked pork; sour spicy vegetables; dan-dan noodles; and kung bao squid to name a few. Sub-par Cantonese specialties aren't what GS is known for, which is why I'm not surprised that you had the experience that you did.

Give them another try. Good luck next time.

Soba

[Pan]

It's also possible their regular chef was off tonight. But I'd never order egg drop soup, wonton soup, or lo mein at Grand Sichuan. I'm figuring those are in either their "American Chinese" or "Cantonese" menus. At Grand Sichuan, only the Sichuan, Hunan (Mao's Cooking or whatever) and special menus (Dishes for the Prodigal Daughter, etc.) should be considered, with a Shanghainese soup OK as part of a larger meal. The American Chinese and Cantonese dishes are put there for the people who want the typical dishes available in every takeout place, not for those who are treating the restaurant as something special to appreciate on its own terms. Anyone who orders Typical Chinese-American Takeout Food at Grand Sichuan will have food that's of average Chinese-American Takeout Food quality.

[BJL]

I just went this past weekend and stuck to the things that have been recommended on this board. Started with the hot and spicy beef tendon (something I never thought I would enjoy) the green parrot with red mouth, fresh killed kung bao chicken and it was all truly incredible.

We also had the spicy soft shell crab and some type of wonton in szechuan oil. The wontons were forgettable, but everything else was tremendous.

Service is a little rough and watching them try and open a bottle of riesling was pathetic, but I can't wait to return.

Thanks for the fabulous recomendations everyone.

[tommy]

Seven pages. . .

what's the implication there?

[Pan]

Seven pages. . .

what's the implication there?

That we're all wrong.

[Felonius]

At Grand Sichuan, only the Sichuan, Hunan (Mao's Cooking or whatever) and special menus (Dishes for the Prodigal Daughter, etc.) should be considered, with a Shanghainese soup OK as part of a larger meal. The American Chinese and Cantonese dishes are put there for the people who want the typical dishes available in every takeout place, not for those who are treating the restaurant as something special to appreciate on its own terms. Anyone who orders Typical Chinese-American Takeout Food at Grand Sichuan will have food that's of average Chinese-American Takeout Food quality.

I second this.

I have eaten at GS probably more than 50 times. While quality has varied somewhat, I've always enjoyed the following:

Sichuan dumplings in chili oil

Sichuan noodles (cold in sesame sauce)

Fresh Kung Pao chicken

I'm surprised the wontons were tough, as I have found the dumplings at GS to be some of the most light and tender in NYC. I'll admit I'm addicted to them.

Having said all this, as much as I love GS, I'm not sure it's worth the trip all the way from the Lower East Side when you have some good options in Chinatown close by.

[ned]

I guess I kind of knew I shouldn't have written that. And I appreciate the comments about lo mein. I just figured everything would be good. Also, there was a post about the wonton soup. I haven't eaten wonton soup since I was eleven and thought maybe I'd learn something. Broth is broth and a wonton is a dumpling and both can be sublime even though "wonton soup" was on Chinese menus in the fifties.

The real story is probably this. I moved here from Seattle in 1998. Love NYC Chinatown but haven't yet found a replacement for my favorite place there where everything is fan-***ing-tastic (including chow and/or lo mein, irregardless of its derivation) I read seven pages of posts and thought I found the new place. Maybe I still did and should go back to GS and order the things with sentence long names. In any case I felt kind of let down.

In the end, this is probably a classic example of why people get frisky about restaurants. It's about fantasy and wish fulfillment and expectations and God knows what. I went to that joint in Seattle once or twice a week for more than five years. I miss it terribly. It can't and won't be replaced. It's shanghainese food. Not Sichuan food. And it's in Seattle where ingredients are a little different. And restaurants are diiferent and even the Chinese immigrants are different. It doesn't happen all that often, but I do occasionally miss home.

[Pan]

As a Lower East Sider myself, I don't make special trips to Grand Sichuan, but I do go there when I have any reason to be in the area.

[slkinsey]

Ned, I'd say that if you went to Grand Sichuan in New York City expecting something like your favorite Shanghainese place in Seattle you were setting yourself up for disapppointment. This is especially true given the fact that you didn't really order any of the specialties of the house. I am not questioning your evaluations of the dishes you had, as I have no trouble believing that the lo mein and egg drop soup at GSIM are not particularly outstanding.

I would suggest that Chinese cooking is too wide ranging and diverse for any one restaurant to excel at every single dish in the Chinese repertoire. As the name of the restaurant implies, Grand Sichuan is a place to go for Sichuan cooking, and I have never been disappointed by any of their Sichuan dishes. Anything else is like ordering bucatini all'amatriciana at La Cote Basque.

To make another example: however good the lo mein and chow mein may have been in your Seattle place, and I am sure it was excellent, I would be willing to bet that I, as someone who is used to the freshly killed kung pao chicken at Grand Sichuan, would be disappointed with their implementation of this dish.

[Pan]

Ned, try Yeah Shanghai Deluxe on Bayard St. in Chinatown and see what you think of it. Here's a thread about the place.

[Eric_Malson]

Ma po tofu: Pretty good but way over salted and bathing in oil.

I'm particularly sorry to hear about this one.

It must have been an off night. I was at that GS this past Monday night and had the ma po tofu, and I must say it was stupendous. I'm increasingly convinced GS has a regular rotation of cooks, and whoever cooks on Mondays is totally kick-ass. This dish does tend to be oily (and salty--hooray for fermented bean paste!), but when that oil is infused with pork product, ginger, garlic and incendiary red pepper, I, for one, am in heaven.

For some reason, New York has never had a lot of restaurants that specialize in Shanghai cooking. (Anyone remember Say Eng Look? I used to go there a lot, and it was practically the only Shanghai-ese restaurant I knew about. Great food--I still remember it vividly, and miss it.) And from my limited contact with Shanghai cooking, I would venture to say that Szechwan cooking is nothing like it. In fact, it seems to me to be about as far away from it as it could be with both cuisines still being recognizable as Chinese food.

[Pan]

I think New York has a fair number of Shanghainese restaurants now. Counting only Manhattan, I'll mention Yeah Shanghai, Moon House, New Green Bo, and Joe's Shanghai off the top of my head, but there are others.

I agree that Shanghainese cuisine is pretty radically different from Sichuan cuisine.

[Eric_Malson]

Counting only Manhattan, I'll mention Yeah Shanghai, Moon House, New Green Bo, and Joe's Shanghai off the top of my head, but there are others.

I was thinking only Manhattan, actually (Flushing is just too damn far for me to go to dinner under normal circumstances).

Perhaps my expectations are a bit skewed, but with all the Chinese restaurants in Chinatown (not to mention the rest of Manhattan), I don't find four to be exactly a superfluity.

Maybe my real complaint is, having been to all the restaurants you mentioned except Moon House, I don't find any of them (and I could be romanticizing its memory, I suppose) to be as wonderfully satisfying as Say Eng Look used to be.

After all, for me the mere existence of GSI makes up completely for the almost utter lack any acceptable alternative for Szechwan food in Manhattan!

[Pan]

Counting only Manhattan, I'll mention Yeah Shanghai, Moon House, New Green Bo, and Joe's Shanghai off the top of my head, but there are others.

I was thinking only Manhattan, actually (Flushing is just too damn far for me to go to dinner under normal circumstances).

Perhaps my expectations are a bit skewed, but with all the Chinese restaurants in Chinatown (not to mention the rest of Manhattan), I don't find four to be exactly a superfluity.

I said there are others. Those four are in my rotation, and I can't testify to the quality of Shanghai Tang, etc., etc.

I don't remember Say Eng Look well enough to have anything to say about it.

[Stone]

Is this the old JWest?

[jogoode]

They've got this section of the menu with dishes inspired by a Chinese TV miniseries, Prodigal Daughter (not full title). All the dishes have super poetic names like "bird with ribbon in mouth flies over the hill" (not actual name but close). The "Green Parrot with Red Mouth" is this cold spinach dish with a sour dressing. To look at it, it doesn't look like much but it's really great. I think it will run you about eight bucks or so.

I finally tried "green parrot with red mouth". I enjoyed it, but it wasn't great. Too much vinegar. Might have worked better if I'd had a different dish with it. Oh, and it only cost $4 or 5.

I also got "cured pork with garlic shoots" from the Mao's home cooking section. Very simple dish. Salty strips of pork belly and "garlic shoots", which looked and tasted like chopped leeks. Their sweetness balance the salty pork. The dish was slick with fat -- in a good way -- but otherwise very light. But far from lite .

Anything else from the Prodigal Daughter menu or the freshly killed that I should try? Green cow with red tripe?

[SobaAddict70]

Anything else from the Prodigal Daughter menu or the freshly killed that I should try? Green cow with red tripe?

Ooooo, tripe.

Yum.

Soba

[Pan]

JJ, try the 2nd dish from the Prodigal Daughter menu. This is from my post in this thread on January 20, 2004:

I started with the 2nd of the dishes for the Prodigal Daughter, which deserves to be on my list of Favorite Chinese Restaurant Dishes in New York. Amazing raw vegetable dish, probably done better than the best examples I've had at the Chelsea branch. Slices of garlic and scallions, shreds of hot green pepper and what I believe to be extremely fresh celery (no carrots, unlike in the Chelsea branch), in a very spicy sauce that includes hot pepper oil, vinegar, and soy sauce (but that might not be the whole thing).

The celery was the top ribs only. Just fabulous! Of course, you may not agree, but I recommend it.

I've enjoyed other things from the Prodigal Daughter menu, but I don't order those enough to remember them offhand. The online menu for Grand Sichuan Midtown doesn't include that special menu. However, it does include the "Chef's Specialties," and from that portion of the menu, I recommend:

Braised Whole Fish W. Hot Bean Sauce (spicy and tasty)

Actually, any whole fish dish I've had there has been good.

Prawn with Garlic Sauce (if you like shrimp, of course). This is nothing like the mediocre stuff most takeout places offer. Prawn with Citrus Sauce is a little sweet and not spicy, but I do like it and order it from time to time.

Crispy Quail. I remember liking this very much, but not recently enough to give a description.

I actually would feel pretty confident in ordering anything from the Specialties menu except the Sea Cucumber. I'm not sure about the Midtown location, but it's made with dried, reconstituted stuff in Chelsea, and it was weird.

On the "Seafood" menu, I've enjoyed both shrimp dishes and Squid W. Kung Bao Sauce.

If you like eggplant, this dish from the "Vegetable" menu is superb:

Eggplant W. Garlic Sauce W. Pork

It's another spicy, really tasty dish.

As I previously mentioned at some point in this thread, my favorite dish from "Mao's Home Cooking" is Spicy and Sour Squid, and it's great!

I hope that was somewhat helpful.

[jogoode]

JJ, try the 2nd dish from the Prodigal Daughter menu. This is from my post in this thread on January 20, 2004:

...As I previously mentioned at some point in this thread, my favorite dish from "Mao's Home Cooking" is Spicy and Sour Squid, and it's great!

I hope that was somewhat helpful. 

Very! Thanks, Pan.

Since I get the food delivered, I won't be able to order the PD vegetable dish you suggested unless I have its name -- and then only if I can successfully pronounce the name . When I don't have any Prodigal Daughter suggestions at hand, I order from "Home Cooking" and this method has worked well so far.

I'm interested in the spicy and sour squid, which at a glance I stayed away from b/c the name sounds like "sweet and sour chicken". You know, the horrible takeout standard with the neon sauce that I haven't had since I was a wee lad. Now that I'm a wee college graduate, I think I deserve better.

[Felonius]

Took some friends to GSI last night and had my usual fix of dumplings in chili oil, sesame noodles and Fresh Kung Pao chicken. I hadn't been in a while, and I was pleased to find the food as good as ever. My guests loved it too!

If there's any slippage in quality, it sure wasn't evident last night.

[jogoode]

I find myself thinking about their dan dan whenever anyone mentions noodles.

[Pan]

JJ, couldn't you just ask for the cold vegetable dish from the Prodigal Daughter menu? It's got some long name that includes "threaded silk," as I recall.

That squid is nothing like sweet and sour! It's oily and very spicy and comes with crunchy pieces of some kind of melon or something.