*** Dedes' has closed
Before there was Ba Ren, we used to go to Dede's fairly regularly for Sichuan Food. Though if we really wanted Sichuan Food we'd still do the 100 plus mile drive to Chung King in Monterey Park. But of course Ba Ren changed all of that. But that's not to say the food at Dede's is bad, it's not. Just perhaps not to our taste.
I believe that "Dede's" inherited their English name from the previous business that occupied the space; a Tea and Boba joint. The Chinese name of Dede's indicates that Chongqing style Sichuan food is served here.
We decided to drop by Dede's, to see what had changed in the last 2 years since our last visit. The colorful interior of Dede's belies it's Teahouse past:
On this afternoon Teresa Teng(the late Deng Li-Jun) videos were playing on the big screen television. We also noticed that, many of the "specials" on the placard had taken a larger turn away from Sichuan Cuisine.
Though all the old favorites are still there:
On this visit we ordered the Spicy Fish Slices with Golden Mushrooms($8.50):
This interesting dish was like a combination of two classic Sichuan offerings, the Water Boiled/Boiled in Hot Sauce and Pickled Pepper type dishes. This was a nice hot, but not numbingly hot dish, though the amount of oil was fairly low. Battered and lightly fried fish lay on a bed of Enoki Mushrooms and was covered with "Hot Sauce", Zhacai and other pickled vegetables were also featured in this dish. Good, but not great.
I also ordered one of my favorite Sichuan snack type dishes Spicy Cold Noodles($4.99).
This was pretty horrible, a failure from all angles. The noodles tasted like they were uncooked store bought noodles, very hard and brittle. The sauce lacked sugar, and almost tasted like just Black Vinegar. Usually there would be at least a mild sesame paste flavor as well, but not this time. Not even a bit spicy to me as well. The peanuts were half peanuts, and not coarsely chopped. This was just bad eats!
Luckily, we ordered my favorite dish from Dede's; Cumin Flavored Lamb($8.50):
As far as I know, this isn't a Sichuan dish, but it's still good eats. Fragrant, slightly nutty cumin dry fried with thin slices of lamb and onion, and topped with cilantro. Delici-yoso!!! You can tell that high heat was used very successfully in the creation of this dish by the lack "oil" that would be created if the lamb was stir fried in a conventional manner using inadequate heat.
Dede's offers an alternative to Ba Ren; most of the dishes do not use quite the same amount of oil, and is not as spicy. We do think that the flavors at Dede's are not as complex as Ba Ren's. There is also a lack of the layering of heat that we appreciate, and Ma-La(numbing hot) is lacking in many of the dishes. All the "usual suspects" of Sichuan food are available, and we've tried most of them; Rice Crust dishes, Dishes Boiled in Hot Sauce, ChongQing Red Pepper dishes, as well as Cold Dishes like Fuqi Feipein. We also noticed that in the last few years Dede's has added Sichuan Hotpot(Malaguo) to their menu, with a Buffet available at $20 per person.
Dede's Teajuice City
4647 Convoy St
San Diego, CA 92111