Spiced
There’s only one bland thing about this Szechuan specialist across from Crossroads Mall—and who needs decor anyhow? Here the incinerating cuisine is prepared with laboratory precision, according to a complex two-part metric of “hot spicy” and “numbing spicy”—yes, they’re different—that the wise approach with respect.
Who’s here Lots of young families, inexplicably, whose children must have asbestos teeth.
Don’t miss Szechuan specialties one doesn’t find everywhere: Chong Qing hot pots with tripe and pig intestine brought to table over a flame; the chili-lavished stir-fries called dry pots—one made with frog’s legs—which rates “extra” on both the hot and numbing scales; the scorched-rice dishes that are a staple of Szechuan cuisine.
Pssst Do miss the lackluster non-Szechuan items—come for the fire or don’t come at all.
Spicy Talk Bistro
Chef Cheng Biao Yang, who learned from cooking in Beijing and Shanghai exactly what it takes to put the hot in hotshot, is a famously peripatetic restaurateur—he’s left his sizzling mark from Seven Stars Pepper in Greenwood to the second Seven Stars Pepper on Jackson to Szechuan Chef in Bellevue. Now he’s popped up in a colorful Redmond strip mall storefront where spices are so deftly and liberally deployed, heads regularly explode. In a good way.
Who’s here Chinese Microsofties, lunch and dinner.
Don’t miss Dan Dan hand-shaved noodles, flaky green-onion pancakes, mouth-searing Chong Qing hot chicken.
Pssst Order $30 worth and they’ll deliver, gratis, within three miles.
Best Hand-Shaved Noodles
Seattle turns out to be a particular bastion of the hand-shaved noodle, the ancient Chinese delectable that comes from knifing long strips of dough off the mother ball to create fresh, chewy, irregularly shaped noodles that cling to sauce with particular ferocity. Everyone has their favorite place for these; ours is hidden in plain sight amid the glut of average ethnic joints on University Way. Mandarin Chef is the enterprise of a couple who came from the Szechuan province with just the skill sets—Sang Lam is a masterful chef, his wife Lang a deeply adorable hostess—to open a restaurant. And though he did noodle time at Judy Fu’s Snappy Dragon, the ones he’s making in his own kitchen are even better: curly, slightly wrinkled, slimmer than many but every bit as toothsome in a fine shrimp chow mein.
Mandarin Chef, 5022 University Way NE, University District, 206-528-7596; mandarinchef.com
NEXT: Best Taiwanese
Published in the Best Asian Restaurants issue of Seattle Met.
|
|
|