Yuxin Sichuan

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And we’re back with more back-logged China trip entries! While we were looking for restaurants in Shanghai, Amanda and I came across a lot of positive reviews for Yuxin Sichuan. I know it’s kind of weird to be looking for Sichuan food in Shanghai, but Amanda and I were craving it and going to Sichuan was little bit out of the question . We’ve mentioned Sichuan food in our past entries, so we figured it’d be a good to taste the real McCoy for a point of reference.

The first thing we noticed – when they say spicy, they mean it. No kidding around here, most of the dishes made our eyes tear (manda: tears of happiness!).

This was the spicy sliced beef which is a cold appetizer dish.  The dish is made with lots of crushed spicy peppercorns and like many Sichuan dishes, has a mouth numbing effect rather than a burning heat effect. This is not fu qi fei pian which I love to get at Sichuan places but it’s very similar.

A dish that I had to have is Gong Bao Ji (Kung Pao Chicken). What I liked about this dish is that unlike kung pao chicken we’re served back state side, it’s a lot more savory and spicy than it is sweet. The dish was also predominantly chicken unlike the fair share of kung pao “chicken” that I’ve had that ended up mostly being celery or hot peppers.

Amanda and I ordered the mapo tofu more out of curiosity of how authentic mapo tofu is made and how it tastes. I was surprised to see that the mapo tofu was sitting in a hellishly spicy soup. The tofu that they used was a silken texture which made the dish very delicate despite the intense spicyness.

Of course we can’t go to a Sichuan place and not order the hui guo rou. In terms of taste, this actually wasn’t far off from what I’ve had before. This dish actually uses just regular scallions instead of leeks which I typically use. The main difference is in the spicy sauce that they use which makes this dish a lot more spicy than what I usually make. The pork belly is also sliced incredibly thin and likely cooked over a much higher heat to burn away some of the fat and also to give the pork belly a slightly crispier texture.

All in all, this was an exceptional meal even if it was way too much on the spicy side. If you do get a chance to visit this restaurant, I would definitely suggest coming with more people and ordering enough non spicy dishes as to not completely destroy your taste buds