Last week, I noticed that Spicy City had a new identity…..as per the new sign.
Yep, the sign still says Spicy City, but in Chinese it says "Across the Bridge Garden"…which made us think it’s referencing the famous Yunnan dish Across the Bridge Rice Noodles(check out the link – it has the story behind the dish). This was great news to the Missus and I, not that the old Spicy City was bad…..we used to be regulars at Spicy City when we first moved to San Diego. In fact we used to eat there 2-3 times a week. However, after a very, very, bad, insulting, and just plain nasty experience, we stopped visiting. For 6 years……
Now under new ownership, the Missus and I couldn’t wait to check things out, even though they
have only been open for less than a week. Things have been rearranged a bit from what I can recall, and though the Spicy City menu is still in use, there is a laminated sheet with mostly Sichuan, and a few Yunnan dishes on it. This menu is pretty large……menu overload quickly kicked in.
The Missus was quickly attracted to something in the cold dishes section, and quickly ordered a plate of various appetizers:
Yep, it was those chicken feet, they didn’t look like much, but were terrific, mixed with Pao Jiao(pickled peppers), seasoned with some sesame oil, five spice, et al…this was very, very good….I called it Kwai Fei Chicken Feet.
The Bean Curd Skin noodles were on the bland side, and the Fuqi Feipian was very tough, and also on the bland side.
The Across the Bridge Rice Noodle(Guo Qiao Mi Xian – $6.99):
Rare chicken, bean curd skin, and other items are put into a hot chicken based broth, followed by rice noodles. The broth had a nice layer of oil, a requirement for this dish. Overall, it is very mild……sort of like Pho Ga(Chicken Pho).
The Chicken with Chilies Airpot($8.95), was brought to the table kept hot by the lit "sterno".
This was a very good dish, the chicken was cooked perfectly, it was moist and tender. The heat was just mildly-spicy(by our standards), and a combination of peppers were used for heat. It was very clear that the dishes used a much "lighter hand" when it came to spices and oil in comparison to Ba Ren and Dede’s. We took the leftovers home, where it went well with rice.
Spicy Cold Noodles($5.28):
This was a very strange dish…..it was very tasty with a good amount of vinegar, Sichuan pickled vegetable, minced pork, et al….but the noodles were terrible; hard and brittle, like they hadn’t been cooked. The Missus inquired, and the very friendly Server told her, that perhaps the noodles were a bit "undercooked"…and in the very practical Chinese way, told Her, that "by the time you get home, the noodles will soak up the flavor, and be better!" Which cracked us up…..the same Lady gave us some of her beauty tips. When the Missus commented on how nice her complexio
n was, she replied; "of course, because I eat chili peppers everyday…."
Now for the interesting part. We know that this is an extension of a Los Angeles Restaurant, we weren’t quite sure which restaurant is the one in question, is it Yun Gui Garden (formerly Hua’s Garden and Yunnan Garden), or Hua’s in Arcadia…this would become clear in a future visit.
Spicy City Chinese Restaurant
4690 Convoy St
San Diego, CA 92111
Part 2 can be found here.
I’d like to dedicate this one to FOY JeffreyC, whose Pao Jiao search remained fixed in my mind as I ate!