Reviews

 
 
 

New York Magazine 05/11/2008

 

Grand Ambition

On the brink of opening the grandest Grand Sichuan yet, the chainlet's indefatigable founder explains what's wrong with Chinese food in New York, and how he intends to fix it.

By Robin Raisfeld & Rob Patronite

  • Published May 11, 2008

Xiaotu Zhang  

(Photo: Kim Badawi)

You might not know it, but this is a precarious time in the Chinese-restaurant world—at least according to Xiaotu (John) Zhang, the force behind the proliferating Grand Sichuan empire (he owns or co-owns five out of eight branches, including a new one in Jersey City and a snazzy Greenwich Village outpost opening later this month). Part businessman, part culinary scholar, Zhang expounds on his plans to yank one of the world's great cuisines into this century—beginning with the beef with broccoli.

You're from Shanghai. How did you become a Sichuan expert?
When Wu Liang Ye came to New York in 1993, they offered me a job, so I started learning Sichuan and Hunan food. Personally, I don't eat too much spicy.

How dire is the Chinese-food "crisis"?
Since 2002, Restaurant magazine has put out a list of the best 50 restaurants in the world, but not many Chinese restaurants are included. Chinese cooking is lagging behind.

What's wrong with it?
The "three steps of cooking" applied by most Chinese restaurants in America, and even in mainland China, are wrong: marinating and "beating water" into meats, frying meats through oil, and "wrapping" sauces over meats in a wok. In this way, chefs can cook very fast, but the cooking is the same, which is why there are so many dishes.

Why is there no such thing as a Chinese celebrity chef?
Chinese menus are more or less the same; the chefs can be replaced easily and the owners control restaurants. In Western countries, the best restaurants are always small, but in China, the best restaurants are huge (usually more than 1,000 seats). The best chefs have no chance to cook, just manage, and the chef's function and role have been distorted and delimited.

How do you find chefs who meet your standards?
I don't cook, but I watch chefs cook a lot, and read cookbooks to understand Eastern and Western cooking. I think a lot to find new ideas and methods, and then ask chefs to test them. In China, using MSG has been written into textbooks; now I ask them to abandon MSG and use broth.

Why can't there be a great, multi-star Chinese restaurant in New York?
As Obama said, we do need a change. Since Chinese cooking originated from the agricultural society, it is "undeveloped." We need a "reform and opening" policy, like the Chinese economy, to introduce new techniques and ingredients.

But if it's not traditional, can it be authentic?
Authentic does not mean good. Some authentic is bad. Too salty, too oily, too spicy. Healthy—that's good.

What are some examples of the "new Sichuan cuisine?"
Beef with broccoli is an old dish, but we prepare it differently—first boiling the beef, then cutting and cooking it. We will have a pumpkin-seed-and-goji soup; both ingredients are on the top-ten list of health foods in America.

Which Chinatown has the best food?
Flushing, where people from northern China and Taiwan are dominant. Cantonese are dominant in Manhattan, which is declining due to limited space. Fujianese are dominant in Brooklyn Chinatown, but their food is simple.

What do you think of New York's "fancy" Chinese restaurants?
I really loved 66, and I love Buddakan. They pointed out the future development of Chinese cooking.

What's your favorite kind of food?
French and Italian. In China, I really love Kentucky Fried Chicken, which is almost totally different from those in America.

Do you ever order delivery?
Almost never.

Grand Sichuan is scheduled to open by the end of May at 15 Seventh Ave. S., nr. Leroy St.; 212-645-0222.

 
 

The New York Times 06/13/2007

 

DINING & WINE

A Place to Go if You Like It Hot

By Peter MeehanMA la, the uppercut combo of chili heat and the peculiar numbing effect of the Sichuan peppercorn, is the flavor profile most associated with Sichuan eating.But while ma la is definitely the marquee attraction, Sichuan cuisine is no one-trick pony.In fact, it's a 23-trick pony: according to Fuchsia Dunlop's count in her excellent Sichuan cookbook "Land of Plenty" (W. W. Norton, 2003), that is the number of flavor profiles in the Sichuan canon.Grand Sichuan St. Marks in the East Village, one of four related Grand Sichuan restaurants in Manhattan, is a good place to deepen your understanding of several of them.For ma la, there are few pleasures as reliable as Sichuan dan dan noodles, room-temperature noodles tossed with minced pork, a few stalks of pickled greens and a villainously oily and spicy sauce that renders each slurp more punishing.Grand Sichuan's sliced pork with "home special sauce" is a great way to try some jia chang, which "Land of Plenty" translates as "homestyle flavor." It gets sweetness from a miso-like bean paste and its depth and complexity are magnified by a few fermented black beans that dot the thin slices of pork, almost floral-tasting Chinese celery and big pieces of spicy green pepper (which taste positively timid after a bit of one of those little red Sichuan peppers in the dry and spicy chicken).One caveat: eat it hot. Like most dishes forged in the intense heat of a wok, its allure fades as it cools.Score some yan xiang, or smoked flavor, from tea-smoked duck, a staple of all the Grand Sichuan restaurants.And the Chong Qing dry and spicy chicken definitely has some hu la, or "scorched chili pepper flavor," going on. I gave up counting the peppers on the plate after my 60th (I doubt I was even halfway done). I plunged my chopsticks into the red and black mountain of wok-toasted dried chilies, searching for the nuggets of fried chicken skin, meaty slices of barely cooked ginger or a bit of well-charred scallion hidden inside.Even though the order I overheard most often from neighboring tables was sesame chicken with brown rice (one of 30 mostly ho-hum lunch specials at $6.50 or less), the kitchen doesn't go gringo on dishes that should be truly, terrifyingly spicy. Egg the cooks on at your tongue's peril.Of the dishes that will get you sweating like you're in a sauna, the best is sliced fish with spicy sauce soup, nearly the most expensive thing on the menu at $16.95. It comes in a broad bowl capped with few handfuls of those little red Sichuan peppers atop a layer of spice-infused oil two fingers deep. (Fat is not a four-letter word in Sichuan.)Below, there are gently cooked slices of some anonymous white fish; sturdy ribs and wilted leaves of Napa cabbage; bean sprouts; Sichuan peppercorns; and scads of minced garlic, all coated in a red cloak of oily, spicy goodness. For a few dollars more you can add noodles and have a dish that would feed three people.But one dish alone would never do. Anyway, for a reprieve from the spicy onslaught, it's good to have a few vegetables on hand.Cold chopped cucumber with scallion sauce isn't a revelation, but it offers reliable relief. (As do the waiters and waitresses: water glasses are refilled with remarkable frequency, and beers are brought to the table seconds after they're ordered.)If you're fine with everything blazing like a wildfire, though, one of the best vegetable dishes is the sautéed spicy Chinese broccoli. A jumble of woody, just-cooked stems is punctuated with — yeah, yeah, I know you saw it coming — chili after chili.At the end of the meal, as we crushed through our fortune cookies, we winced at empty truism after empty aphorism until we got to the last cookie, which held this note: "Ignore previous cookie."Wry humor and good Chinese food in the East Village.We headed out into the harsh summer sun, beads of perspiration already dotting our faces.Grand Sichuan St. Marks19-23 St. Marks Place (Third Avenue), East Village; (212) 529-4800.BEST DISHES Sliced pork with home special sauce; Chong Qing dry and spicy chicken; sliced fish with spicy sauce soup; Sichuan dan dan noodle; sautéed spicy Chinese broccoli.PRICE RANGE Small dishes, $1.60 to $6.95; larger dishes and main courses, $5.95 to $17.50.CREDIT CARDS All major cards.HOURS 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily.WHEELCHAIR ACCESS Up a flight of stairs.Published: 06 - 13 - 2007

The New York Times 05/14/2003

 

DINING IN, DINING OUT/STYLE DESK $25 AND UNDER;

In Midtown, Something New Under the Sichuan Sun

By Eric Asimov

I HAVE never met John Zhang, but I feel as if I know him. Mr. Zhang, an owner of four of the five Grand Sichuan restaurants in Manhattan, has made it his personal mission to bring to New York the best that the Chinese province of Sichuan can offer.Over the last six years he has written several letters to me — long, self-critical works in scrambled English that nonetheless eloquently transmit his honest, open fascination with Sichuan cuisine. Mr. Zhang cares what Americans think, but they are not his primary concern. Mostly, he writes, he wants "to comfort those who are far away from their homeland."In his last letter — more of a bound volume, really, with laminated snapshots — he spoke of his first trip back to China after 12 years in the United States, and of his awe at the significant changes he found in Sichuan cooking. Most exciting, he said he has now added 96 dishes under the heading "New Sichuan Food" to the menu of his newest restaurant, Grand Sichuan Eastern, a bright, boxy storefront on Second Avenue that conforms largely to the Chinatown school of interior design.Mr. Zhang's desire to inform is not limited to letter-writing. His menus include passages detailing the background of each dish. You won't need coaching, though, for a dish like "crispy toothpick chicken skin" ($10.85), which is just that: little squares of rendered chicken skin on toothpicks, cooked until crisp, yet still slightly gelatinous, a texture beloved in Sichuan. Nor will you need an explanation for Chengdu spicy dumplings ($3.25), familiar, flattened half moons of pork and ginger in hot red oil. They seem more classic than new.On the other hand, I've never had anything like Chong Qing spicy and aromatic chicken ($9.95), a daunting dish that looks like a mountain of slender red chili peppers embedded with cubes of chicken. The chilies impart a hauntingly smoky aroma to the chicken, which is also seasoned with plenty of salt and Sichuan peppercorns. The result is a true Sichuan blend of spicy, salty and even sweet flavors. On my first try of this dish, I nibbled on one of the chilies. It was mildly spicy, with a wonderful roasted chili flavor. Emboldened, I popped a whole one in my mouth, and the top of my head exploded.Mr. Zhang says Chong Qing sour cabbage fish ($15.95) is one of the most popular new Sichuan dishes. It's easy to see why. It is a lightly fried whole fish served in a spicy cabbage broth, but the rich flavor of the broth goes beautifully with the mild fish. It is especially helpful if a waitress fillets the fish for you.While Mr. Zhang indicates on the menu that the heat has been tamed in some of the new dishes, I found no indication of this. Second Sister's diced rabbit ($6.25) has more bones than meat and more heat than bones, while bean curd with spicy sauce ($3.55) is scorching. Weaving milder dishes into the meal is imperative, like dry sauteed shrimp ($10.95), which has a dry and salty consistency, or slender Asian eggplants in "wonder sauce" ($4.95), a sour, salty brown liquid that contrasts with the sweet vegetable chunks.The new dishes include some truly unexpected combinations, like saut?d corn with spicy pepper ($7.55), an exceptional contrast to the meat dishes, which looks like nothing so much as Mexican roasted corn with jalapanos. Some dishes don't work, like braised diced fish with fresh garlic ($12.95), which had the consistency and flavor of baby food, and spicy squid with green tea ($10.50), which features a clear globe of green tea in the middle of the platter.While I was intrigued by the new dishes, I could not let a trip to Grand Sichuan pass without checking in on old favorites. I can't imagine anything better than paper-thin slices of cured pork with tender garlic shoots ($8.95), except possibly the tea-smoked duck ($14.95) — my nominee for best barbecue in New York.Someday, I would enjoy dining with Mr. Zhang. I love to eat with a man who loves to eat. Meanwhile, I will treasure his letters.Grand Sichuan Eastern
1049 Second Avenue, near 56th Street, Midtown; (212) 355-5855.BEST DISHES — Crispy toothpick chicken skin, Chengdu spicy dumplings, Chong Qing spicy and aromatic chicken, Chong Qing sour cabbage fish, dry saut?d shrimp, eggplant in wonder sauce, sauteed corn with spicy pepper, cured pork with garlic shoots, tea-smoked duck.
PRICE RANGE — Appetizers, $1.50 to $10.95; main courses, $7.25 to $16.95.
CREDIT CARDS — All major cards.
HOURS — Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, noon  to 11 p.m., Sunday, noon to 10 p.m.
WHEELCHAIR ACCESS — Step at entrance; restroom is very narrow.Published: 05 - 14 - 2003 , Late Edition - Final , Section F , Column 3 , Page 8

 

The New York Times 09/13/2000

 

DINING IN, DINING OUT/STYLE DESK $25 AND UNDER;

Dishes for an Emperor at Every Meal

By Eric Asimov

GRAND SICHUAN INTERNATIONAL in Chelsea not only prepares excellent and authentic Sichuan food but also goes to extraordinary lengths to explain the cuisine's finer points to Americans. Now, it has opened a branch uptown in Clinton, which is great news for lovers of Chinese food. The owners, John Zhang and Quan Jun Lee, who is also the chef, have recreated the extensive menu of the Chelsea branch while adding dishes based on a popular Chinese television series. They have also brought with them a fascinating 26-page guide to Chinese regional cuisines. While the menu includes Cantonese and Shanghai sections, the specialties are the Sichuan and Hunan dishes, and the new TV dishes, which are described in a supplement. If you have time to scan the booklet before you order — not easy, given the attentive, eager-to-please waiters — you are likely to find inspiration. I did. The new dishes, all with poetic names and created for an emperor, include Growing Grass in Spring Must Be Like Green and Threaded Silk ($5.95), a mixture of fresh sliced vegetables served cold in a fiery yet flavorful sauce, which sets the mouth aglow and demands well-timed mouthfuls of rice and water. Another dish, Green Parrot With a Red Mouth ($4.95), cooked spinach served cool with a sauce of ginger and hot oil, is more refreshing than spicy with a gingery kick. Chili heat is often present in Sichuan dishes, but not always. Sliced conch with wild pepper sauce ($6.95), made with Sichuan peppercorns, offers a thoroughly different sensation in which the pepper sets the mouth atingle, as if the food were dancing across the tongue. It is a perfect foil for the chewy conch. More familiar dishes include excellent renditions of Sichuan cold noodles ($3.95), with a slight sweetness, which offsets the growing heat; delicate wontons stuffed with pork and served in a spicy red oil ($3.95); and fiery dan dan noodles ($3.95).Pork is a preferred meat of Sichuan and Hunan, and Grand Sichuan states authoritatively that the Chinese prefer fatty cuts to lean. Braised pork with chestnuts ($9.55), a marvelous combination of savory pork and crunchy chestnuts, may test a Westerner's tolerance for such cuts. Lard-phobes will find it easier to accept the less fatty double-cooked pork ($8.95) and cured pork with garlic shoots ($9.55), made with pungent garlic greens that taste far milder than they smell. I loved sour string beans with minced pork ($8.95), a Hunan dish in which sweet diced beans are pickled rather than sour. Ma po tofu, bean curd with spicy minced pork and chili peppers ($8.25), is a classic Sichuan dish, invented, the guide explains, by an old woman with a face pockmarked by measles. Nonpork highlights include crisp, tender quail ($12.95), subtly flavored with five-spice powder, and simple but flavorful sauteed greens ($7.95). With glittery chandeliers, walls of marble and wood, and at least four sources of light, the dining room has the aesthetic appeal of a generic hotel lobby. But in all the ways that count, Grand Sichuan stands out.Grand Sichuan International Midtown745 Ninth Avenue, near 50th Street; (212) 582-2288.BEST DISHES: Cold sliced vegetables in spicy sauce, spinach in ginger sauce, conch with pepper sauce, Sichuan cold noodles, wontons with red oil, dan dan noodles, braised pork with chestnuts, double-cooked pork, pork with garlic shoots, sour string beans with minced pork, bean curd with minced pork, quail, sauteed greens.
PRICE RANGE: Appetizers, $1.50 to $9.95; main courses, $7.95 to $18.95.
CREDIT CARDS: All major cards.
HOURS: Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, noon to 11 p.m.
WHEELCHAIR ACCESS: Restrooms are downstairs.Published: 09 - 13 - 2000 , Late Edition - Final , Section F , Column 1 , Page 9

The New York Times 12/06/2000

 

DINING IN, DINING OUT/STYLE DESK

The New Chinese: It's Hotter; Sichuan Cooks Relight The Fire

By Florence Fabricant

THE small slices of meat and Napa cabbage in a dark sauce flecked with red chili looked humbler than many a Chinese restaurant dish. But they tasted almost searing, with a tingling effect and flavors and aromas suggesting pepper, anise, cinnamon and allspice. This was Sichuan beef as I had never tasted it.My first bite of that dish, with the puzzling name water-cooked beef, was one of many revelations in the four days I spent in Sichuan Province on a recent trip to China. I had come to think of Sichuan as a sometimes hot and spicy variation of generic Chinese cooking, done in countless restaurants in New York, but meal after meal in China brought home what a distinctive cuisine it is.Sichuan food is bold but has complexity and finesse; it offers nuance and variety. Smoky flavors, intriguing textures and often piquant salty and sour tastes are hallmarks of the cuisine. The most common seasoning mixtures are tart, tempered at times with sweetness. Many dishes are served with no sauce. Others come slicked with oil, but their sauces are rarely dependent on cornstarch for thickening and viscous richness.In Sichuan, whole dried red chili pods and blistering fresh green ones heat many a dish, but the characteristic seasoning is a spice known as Sichuan peppercorns. Its almost cooling hint of anise, combined with its slightly numbing effect on the palate, actually balances and tempers most dishes. It delivers flavor as much as heat.But until recently, this essential seasoning has shown up in all too few "Sichuan" dishes in New York. Now, interest in serious Sichuan food is growing, and it's possible to get credible renditions of dishes I had in China at Manhattan places like Wu Liang Ye, Grand Sichuan and Grand Sichuan International. Wu Liang Ye started to develop a cult following shortly after it opened in Midtown five years ago. (It was started by a Chinese company from Sichuan to promote its pungent liquor of the same name.) On the heels of its success, others followed suit.In the 1970's, when the first wave of Sichuan restaurants opened here, the food was hot enough to leave my throat raw, but it was often one-dimensional. Most ingredients then came from Hong Kong, and Sichuan peppercorns were hard to come by. Chefs relied primarily on chilies for impact."Sichuan made a wave in the 1970's," said Michael Ngai, the manager of Wu Liang Ye. "It started off being very popular. It was so different from anything else at the time. But soon everybody began making orange beef, hot-and-sour soup and twice-cooked pork, and there were not enough authentic Sichuanese chefs. As everyone started copying, the recipes got watered down."At its most extravagant, Sichuan cooking is like the feast I had at Xaio Bing Lou restaurant in Chongqing (pronounced chung-ching), formerly Chungking, a sprawling city on the Yangtze River.An array of cold dishes was designed to whet the appetite: pickled chicken feet; green beans with marinated young ginger; shreds of spiced dry-cooked beef, almost like jerky; pickled carrots and daikon radish; and cuttlefish with ginger, scallions, chilies and Sichuan peppercorns.Next came little bowls of noodles to be mixed at will with the fiery peanut sauce pooled at the bottom, a popular dish known as dan-dan noodles; fried chive cakes, similar to scallion pancakes but more delicate; spring rolls and doughy pot-stickers, followed in quick succession by succulent camphor-smoked duck and the best kung pao chicken with peanuts I have ever had, seasoned with chilies and Sichuan peppercorns.The variety of foods on the table was typical of Sichuan itself. A hilly, landlocked province in western China, it has a fairly warm, moist climate and a rich agricultural heritage. Rice and wheat are abundant. Freshwater fish are both raised in ponds and caught in the Yangtze River and its tributaries.Pork, beef and tofu are widely used. Many dishes are served cold, as befits a region that turns sweltering in summer. Pickled vegetables, on their own and used as ingredients, are traditional in a country that has not long relied on refrigeration.The region, a crossroads of Chinese culture and history, is also known for Mongolian hot pot and dim sum.Local markets are filled with peanuts, sesame seeds, water chestnuts, chives, garlic, lotus roots and gorgeous fresh mushrooms like oyster mushrooms and black tree ears.Vegetables on display are both commonplace, like bok choy and Chinese broccoli, and exotic, including purplish carrots and stem lettuce, or asparagus lettuce, which has a delicious, fleshy jade stem and is usually braised.Potatoes, both white and sweet, are also surprisingly plentiful, but then, China is the leading potato producer in the world. White potatoes are often stir-fried with chives, and even the leaves of sweet potatoes are used, quickly wilted in a warm soy-sauce mixture.Sichuan peppercorns, which make the food of the province so distinctive and different from the similarly spicy cooking of Hunan, has been an essential ingredient in the region since ancient times.These are not true peppercorns, in the Piper nigrum family, but the dried berries of the prickly ash tree. Also known as fagara, they are a component of Chinese five-spice powder and are often prescribed as a cure for dysentery.The small berries, which are reddish when ripe and turn brown after drying, are crinkled and prickly, sometimes split open or with bits of stem attached. They are usually toasted and crushed or ground. A mixture of salt and Sichuan peppercorns is often used as a dip for fried food.In New York, the spice is sometimes labeled wild pepper. A four-ounce bag is less than $2 in Chinatown, about twice that at Kalustyan's on Lexington Avenue and at Adriana's Caravan in Grand Central Market. But only a few dedicated Sichuan restaurants here are using it.Among them are Wu Liang Ye, which has branches in Murray Hill and on the Upper East Side, and Grand Sichuan in Chinatown, which opened four years ago and is going strong. The original owners and chefs from Grand Sichuan left and went on to open Grand Sichuan International in Chelsea about three years ago. The same group recently opened Grand Sichuan International Midtown on Ninth Avenue near 50th Street.At each of them, an adventuresome palate is an advantage. The better-known New York  Sichuan dishes, like kung pao chicken, orange beef, eggplant with spicy garlic sauce and anything involving lobster, seem less authoritative and finely tuned than the typical and perhaps more exotic-sounding specialties of the region.Beef tendon, the toothsome ribbons of gelatinous meat, infused with Sichuan peppercorns, was as delicious at Wu Liang Ye, Grand Sichuan International and Grand Sichuan as it was in Sichuan. Silky slivers of conch in a spicy marinade and cold beef with hot and wild pepper sauce were also as good as in China. At Grand Sichuan International Midtown, cold spicy and sour vegetables were also worth sampling.Dan-dan noodles are generally reliable in the better Sichuan restaurants, though not quite the measure of those I ate in China. But the famous ma po dofu — diced tofu and pork with chilies — is another consistent winner, as are string beans with minced pork.At Grand Sichuan International Midtown, the piquant dish of shredded potatoes in vinegar sauce and the dry-sauteed potatoes give some idea of what cooks in Sichuan do with potatoes.For those who would like to prepare Sichuan dishes at home, a trip to Chinatown will yield the best-quality and freshest ingredients, along with seasonings like chili paste, dried chili pods, black vinegar, thin soy sauce and, of course, Sichuan peppercorns. Fresh bacon, or unsmoked pork belly, another commonplace ingredient, is also more available in Chinatown than uptown.As for recipes, the cookbook shelf is relatively bare. "There's no serious authentic Sichuan cookbook," said Nach Waxman, the owner of Kitchen Arts & Letters, a bookstore on the Upper East Side. "We get requests for Sichuan cookbooks all the time, but there's nothing to recommend. I don't get it. Maybe the publishers are afraid of spices." Chinese cookbooks can be counted on for a few Sichuan recipes at most.The water-cooked beef I so enjoyed in Sichuan is equally elusive in New York. Mr. Ngai explained the term could also be translated as braising. Chao Chen, the chef at Wu Liang Ye in Midtown, prepared something similar: a dish called braised fish and Napa cabbage with roasted chilies.Even with fish instead of beef, I could taste the Sichuan peppercorns. And I was back in Sichuan.BRAISED FISH AND NAPA CABBAGE WITH CHILIES
Adapted from Wu Liang Ye
Time: 45 minutes1 egg white, beaten2 tablespoons cornstarch1 teaspoon sugarSalt1 pound skinless tilapia or gray sole fillets, cut in 2-inch squares1 tablespoon Sichuan peppercorns (sold in Chinese groceries)2 cups peanut oil2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger2 cloves garlic, minced6 cups Napa cabbage in 2-inch pieces1 leek, white part only, coarsely chopped1/2 cup chicken stock2 tablespoons soy sauce2 teaspoons chili paste with soybeans (sold in Chinese groceries), or to taste1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes1 scallion, white part only, trimmed and cut in thin slivers.1. Mix egg white, cornstarch, sugar and pinch salt in small bowl. Place fish pieces in shallow bowl, pour egg white mixture over them and turn to coat. Set aside 15 minutes.
2. Heat wok. Add Sichuan peppercorns, and toast until fragrant. Remove, cool briefly, grind in mortar and pass through fine sieve.
3. Add oil to wok. When beginning to smoke, add fish, reduce heat and cook about 30 seconds, turning with tongs. Remove fish with slotted spoon, drain well on paper towels and set aside. Pour off all but 1 1/2 tablespoons oil, reserving 2 tablespoons for Step 5.
4. Turn heat to high. Add ginger and garlic to wok, stir-frying until they start to brown, and add cabbage and leek. Stir-fry until wilted. Mix together chicken stock, soy sauce and chili paste, and add. Bring to simmer. Season to taste with salt. With slotted spoon, transfer cabbage and leek to deep serving platter. Top with fish, and spoon on cooking liquid.
5. Heat reserved oil, add pepper flakes and ground Sichuan pepper and cook 10 seconds, until spices sizzle. Pour over fish, scatter scallion slivers on top and serve.
Yield: 4 to 6 servings.TWICE-COOKED PORK
Adapted from "The Taste of China" by Ken Hom (Simon & Schuster, 1990)
Time: 3 hours2 pounds pork belly (fresh unsmoked bacon), in one piece12 scallions, trimmed6 slices fresh ginger 1/4 inch thick1 tablespoon salt3 tablespoons peanut oil2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh ginger1 1/2 tablespoons chili paste with soybeans (sold in Chinese groceries)1 tablespoon rice wine or dry sherry1 tablespoon soy sauce (preferably thin)2 teaspoons sugar1 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns (sold in Chinese groceries), ground in a mortar1 tablespoon cilantro leaves.
1. Place pork, 6 scallions, ginger and salt in large pot. Add water to cover. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until tender. Remove meat, and discard liquid. When pork has cooled, remove skin and any bones. Cut meat in half crosswise, then slice it thinly lengthwise.
2. Slice remaining scallions lengthwise, then in 3-inch pieces.
3. Heat oil in wok or skillet. When very hot, add pork and stir-fry until lightly browned, 6 to 8 minutes. Pour off excess oil and fat. Add garlic and ginger, and stir-fry 10 seconds. Add scallions, and stir-fry 2 minutes. Add chili paste, rice wine, soy sauce, sugar and Sichuan pepper, and stir-fry another minute. Scatter with cilantro and serve.
Yield: 4 servings.　

The New York Times 04/07/1999

 

DINING IN, DINING OUT/STYLE DESK $25 AND UNDER;

Sichuan and Hunan, Grand in Name and in Fact

By Eric Asimov

EVERY once in a while, I come across a restaurant that fascinates me. Grand Sichuan International is such a place, notable not only for its terrific Sichuan and Hunan food, but also for its remarkable approach to its clientele. Most Chinese restaurants practice a time-honored deception, offering one menu to their Chinese customers and another to everybody else. Grand Sichuan takes a different tack: it labels dishes that it thinks will please American tastes as "American Chinese," and also hands out a 27-page pamphlet that explains five Chinese regional cuisines and describes dozens of dishes the restaurant serves. The pamphlet, written by John Zhang, one of the owners, is fascinating, particularly the section on "Mao's Home Cooking." Around Beijing, Mr. Zhang writes, many new restaurants have named themselves after Mao Zedong and specialize in his favorite Hunan dishes. Mr. Zhang says he hesitated about using the term in New York. "We were afraid some people didn't like to hear the name Mao Zedong," he writes, acknowledging that "many Chinese, including the owners of this restaurant, suffered a lot under Mao's leadership." They decided to go ahead, he said, because "we just talk about the food, not politics or leadership." Mr. Zhang began handing out his pamphlet to American customers at his original restaurant, also called Grand Sichuan, at 125 Canal Street  in Chinatown. After a dispute with his partners there, he opened his plain but comfortable Chelsea restaurant without them last fall. Americans' image of Sichuan food, drawn from Chinese takeout restaurants, is of a cuisine overloaded with chili peppers. While Sichuan food is indeed spicy, that is only part of the story, as you see when you taste a fabulous cold dish like sliced conch with wild pepper sauce ($5.95). The chewy conch is coated with ground Sichuan peppercorns, which are not hot but bright, effervescent and almost refreshing, as if the food were dancing across your tongue. A Hunan dish, sour string beans with minced pork ($7.55), offers a similarly unusual sensation. The beans are pickled in sweet-and-sour vinegar, then diced and served with peppery minced pork, offering sweet, sour, hot and salty flavors in one dish. Mr. Zhang's pamphlet says, "It will stimulate you to swallow a lot of white rice." I don't know about that, but it did stimulate me to swallow second and third helpings. I particularly liked Sichuan won tons with red oil ($3.50), lacy pork dumplings in a spicy, gingery sauce, and Sichuan cold noodles in a sweet, peppery sauce ($3.50), a delicious version of that familiar dish. Broad beans, as green fava beans are called on the menu, are served in a brown scallion sauce ($4.95) that tastes as if hundreds of scallions had been cooked down to their essence. Tea-smoked duck ($13.95) is like fine barbecue, heavily smoked yet moist, with a layer of glistening fat, and served with a terrific hoisin sauce. Prawns with garlic sauce ($13.95) are very good, the prawns fresh-tasting and the sauce pungent and powerful. Mr. Zhang writes that garlic sauce is not intended to taste like garlic, but like fish; it was invented by the landlocked Sichuanese for times when fish were not plentiful. Red-cooked pork with chestnuts ($8.95) is a mild Hunan dish of braised pork in a brown sauce, which harmonizes beautifully with the richness of the chestnuts. The waitress will ask you whether you prefer lean or fatty pork, and you can consult Mr. Zhang's guide on why he believes Americans tend to prefer lean and Chinese fatty, as well as on why the excellent bean curd with spicy sauce ($7.25) is named after a woman with "a spotty, pockmarked face." The only dish I did not like at Grand Sichuan was the doughy and dull vegetable dumplings ($3.95), which I ordered against my better judgment. Afterward, I got this fortune: "The greatest danger could be your stupidity."Grand Sichuan International

229 Ninth Avenue, at 24th Street; (212) 620-5200.

BEST DISHES: Sliced conch with wild pepper sauce, sour string beans with minced pork, Sichuan won tons with red oil, cold Sichuan noodles, broad beans in scallion sauce, tea-smoked duck, prawns with garlic sauce, red-cooked pork with chestnuts, bean curd with spicy sauce.
PRICE RANGE: Appetizers, $1 to $3.95; main courses, $5.95 to $16.95.
CREDIT CARDS: All major cards.
HOURS: Daily 11:30 A.M. to 11 P.M.
WHEELCHAIR ACCESS: Aisle to restrooms is very narrow.Published: 04 - 07 - 1999 , Late Edition - Final , Section F , Column 3 , Page 10

The New York Times 10/15/1997

 

DINING IN, DINING OUT/STYLE DESK

Restaurants; Spicy Notes From a Sichuan Kitchen

By Ruth Reichl

THE news arrived in a six-page, single-spaced letter that began, "I am a Sichuan food lover." It was a passionate epistle, in which the writer suggested that genuine Sichuan food could improve the quality of Chinese food in America, instructed me in the finer points of his favorite cooking and urged me to visit a new restaurant called Grand Sichuan. "Thank you so much for reading my letter," concluded my correspondent, who had clearly struggled in his writing. "I think in Chinese and learn to speak out in English. I definitely give you some hard time." Hard time? Hardly. Information about Sichuan restaurants is always welcome. Circled by mountains and blessed with rich soil and a temperate climate, Sichuan Province is one of China's most prosperous and isolated areas. Although the cuisine is celebrated throughout China, very few Sichuanese have left the country. "Szechuan," as it is written in American restaurants, usually means little more than the addition of a few chili peppers; we rarely have a chance to experience the real thing. I tore through the letter and headed for Chinatown. Grand Sichuan may be one of a handful of real Sichuan restaurants in New York, but it is an extremely modest storefront establishment near the entrance to the Manhattan Bridge. The waiter seemed startled to see non-Chinese customers, and he did not even offer the standard warnings; not once did he suggest that the food would be too spicy, and he took our order for beef tendon with hot and special pepper sauce without flinching. The cooking of Canton, at its best, depends on clear, clean notes. It is utterly simple, allowing each ingredient to speak for itself. Sichuan food, on the other hand, is dependent on sauces, for the cooking is about adding layers of flavors. The tendon, thinly sliced so that it looked like lace, was more texture than taste. It was sprinkled with ginger and flooded with a startlingly hot, clear oily sauce that exemplified the ma la esthetic of Sichuan. Ma is a peppery, sesame note, la the true heat of peppers. The dish was breathtaking. We cooled down with tea-smoked duck, another Sichuan specialty, which was crisp, chewy and deeply imbued with a smoky camphorlike aroma. We continued with bean curd with chili sauce, a classic tofu dish. This dish was invented in the 1860's by a Chengdu restaurant; today, inferior versions are found in every Chinese restaurant in New York. Made correctly, it is a marvelous dish that uses the soft character of the bean curd as a vehicle for a generous range of flavors. This version, made with hot bean sauce, small bits of chopped pork and finely ground Sichuan peppers, was utterly seductive. Sauteed loofah provided a perfect contrast. The color of pale jade, loofah is a tender vegetable similar to cucumber. Gently cooked in chicken stock, it exemplifies tian, the sweet note that is another hallmark of Sichuan cooking. We ended the meal with a triumphant braised whole fish in a fragrant hot bean sauce that seemed to blend all the flavors of Sichuan. Savoring the fish, a phrase from the book "Chinese Gastronomy" flashed through my mind. Writing of Sichuan cooks, the authors noted that they broke all the rules, adding, "Their use of relishes and seasonings is another language." It is a language I want to learn, so I found myself eating again and again at Grand Sichuan. I won't tell you that everything was wonderful. The restaurant is so humble that the ingredients are not always the finest; I have had watery scallops, dull fish and really dreary lobster. On the other hand, I have had spectacular dishes unavailable in other restaurants. One night, I asked if the kitchen could make some special dishes. The result was an amazing array of cold appetizers that covered the entire table and presented the multicolored palette of Sichuan food. Squid was cut to look like strings of entwined pearls and so carefully cooked that each was perfectly soft rather than chewy. They looked naked, but with each bite my mouth was filled with the sharpness of hot mustard. Lotus root, sliced into crunchy disks, also looked as if it had no sauce, but was decidedly sweet and sour. Conch, in contrast, was sliced paper thin and covered with a stinging peppered ma la sauce. Cucumbers were pared into delicate chevrons and mixed with another one of those invisible sauces, this one shouting the taste of scallions. There was more: soft mushrooms that slipped delicately into the mouth, and beef in a searing spicy sauce. Cold poached chicken, as soft as velvet, came in something called "wonder sauce," which tasted like a mixture of garlic, sesame, soy, red oil, vinegar, sugar and Sichuan peppers so cleverly combined that no single flavor was predominant. As I sat there, taking a bite of first one dish and then another, I was very happy. The passionate spice lover who wrote to me called Grand Sichuan "a small and ordinary restaurant," but I am very glad that he took the time to tell me about it.Grand Sichuan
* [rating: one star]
125 Canal Street, east of the Bowery; (212) 334-3323.ATMOSPHERE: Small and modest, it looks like a standard Chinatown storefront restaurant. SERVICE: English is minimal, but everyone is very pleasant. SOUND LEVEL: Tolerable. RECOMMENDED DISHES: Tea-smoked duck; chicken with wonder sauce; tendon with hot and special pepper sauce; dan dan noodles with chili sauce; prawns with garlic sauce; double-cooked fresh bacon with chili sauce; bean curd with chili sauce; braised whole fish with hot bean sauce; sauteed loofah; Sichuan double-cooked pork.WINE LIST: None. Beer only. HOURS: Open daily, 11 A.M. to 10 P.M. PRICE RANGE: Appetizers, $1.25 to $5.25; main courses, $6.95 to $15.95; special lunch dishes, $2.95. CREDIT CARDS: Cash only. WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBILITY: One step up to dining room; restrooms downstairs.What the stars mean:(None) Poor to Satisfactory
* Good
** Very Good
*** Excellent
**** Extraordinary Ratings reflect the reviewer's reaction primarily to food, with ambiance and service taken into consideration. Menu listings and prices are subject to change.
——————–
Past reviews. Hundreds of Times restaurant reviews are available on line from @times, an arts and entertainment guide on America Online. Software and information: 1-800-548-5201.
Published: 10 - 15 - 1997 , Late Edition - Final , Section F , Column 3 , Page 10