Recently, FOY “Xiāng Jiāo” messaged me, letting me know that she believed Szechuan Chef had been improving over recent months. I’d pretty much given up on Sichuan cuisine in SD, but heck, it had been almost seven years since my last visit….so, I convinced the Missus that the time was right for a revisit.
Strangely, the parking lot of Convoy Village Shopping Center was basically empty when we arrived for lunch. Thus, in stark contrast to other locations on Convoy, parking was a breeze.
After being seated, we ordered four items. After our meal, we took a look at what we had ordered and noticed something quite “interesting”. We ended up ordering a couple of the recommended dishes and a few more. In terms of price, this seemed much cheaper than our recent meals at Cantonese style restauraurants.
First up, the Pork Intestines with Pickled Vegetable ($19.99). One of my favorite dishes at Eastern Dynasty is a version of this dish. And personally, I prefer that version, which is strangely much more tangy-sour than this version. Also, the intestine here, while being quite strong in the savory-“bungy” category, the intestines were overly rubbery, lacking in that initial resistance, followed by a creamy texture.
The preserved vegetable was very mild in flavor. Not a terrible dish, but perhaps I should have ordered the dry fried version?
The Fish Fragrant (yuxiang) Eggplant (aka Eggplant with Garlic Sauce on the menu – $14.99) was much too sweet.
The eggplant was also quite mushy in texture. Not a favorite of ours.
Next up was a dish that “XJ” recommended that I’ve ordered several times, the Beef Tendon with Pickled Peppers ($21.99).
So, this was better than what we’ve had before, but it still didn’t bring on as much sour-tangy-spicy tones as we like. We enjoyed the good amount of garlic though. And the tendons were so very….well tender! They almost melted in your mouth. I could just imagine this in a bowl of pho! We kept wondering how the chef prepped these to make it so buttery smooth? It did lack the spicy though…so we may look at another tendon dish if we return.
There was one dish that brought the heat and turned out to be our favorite of the meal; the Pork Trotters Hot Pot ($19.99) which was placed over a heating element at the table. The first thing to hit you when this dish arrives is the pungent-earthy-“BO” of cumin. Great when emanating from a dish….not so great when exuding from the person sitting next to you on a flight….can you tell I’m still traumatized by that???
This was spicy stuff….good ma-la going on here. The skin on the trotters was very soft and tender. The potatoes seemed to have easily absorbed the essence of the chilies, especially the one’s on the bottom. The Missus, who grew up eating cauliflower in Northern China loved it in this dish. We did enjoy this; though the leftovers were super spicy the next day.
Overall, including one order of rice, the bill came out to be $78 before tip and taxes, making it cheaper than any of the Chinese dining experiences we’ve had recently. We did notice that every protein based dish we ordered was basically offal. Could that be why? Anyway, we may return in a bit. And I need to thank “XJ” who helped to get us out of our Chinese dining “rut”.
Szechuan Chef
4344 Convoy St
San Diego, CA 92111
Current Hours:
Mon – Thurs 11am – 3pm, 5pm – 9pm
Fri – Sun 11am – 330pm, 5pm – 9pm