I'm back! I'm all by my lonesome here. It's 2:30 so it's very slow. The restaurant is located on…read more436G Vernon Tpke in Vernon, CT. This is Sichuan cuisine and American Chinese. The music is very Americanized. Ive always loved this place! For my drink, I'm having a Scorpion Bowl. A Scorpion bowl is a communally shared alcoholic tiki drink served in a large ceramic bowl traditionally decorated with wahine or hula-girl island scenes and meant to be drunk through long straws. Bowl shapes and decorations can vary considerably. Starting off as a single-serve drink known as the Scorpioncocktail, its immense popularity as a bowl drink in tiki culture is attributed to Trader Vic. This is good! I love the cute bowl! It's pretty big too for "just one." For my first item, I'm having a cup of hot and sour soup. Hot and sour soup is a variant of hulatang or "pepper hot soup" (Chinese: 胡辣汤) that originated from Henan cuisine. Also popular in Southeast Asia, India, Pakistan, and the United States, it is a flexible soup which allows ingredients to be substituted or added depending on availability. For example, the American-Chinese version can be thicker as it commonly includes corn starch, while in Japan, sake is often added. This is real good! It goes well with pepper. This one is especially thick. It was served in under a minute. The pepper really adds to the flavor! Next up, I'm having the Chili Pepper and Preserved Egg. Century eggs (also called preserved egg or 100-year egg) also known as alkalized or preserved eggs, is a Chinese dish made by preserving duck, chicken, or quail eggs in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, quicklime, and rice hulls for several weeks to several months, depending on the processing method. Oh my! Nice garnish. These are delicious! It's quite spicy too! Beware. I think the chili peppers are minced into a sauce. For my next item, I'm having the Bean Jelly in a Spicy Vinaigrette. This is really liangfen or "cool rice noodles. It is also spelled liang fen, is a Chinese legume dish consisting of starch jelly that is usually served cold, with a savory sauce, often in the summer. It is most popular in northern China, including Beijing, Gansu,
and Shaanxi, but may also be found in Sichuan and Qinghai. In Tibet and Nepal it is called laping and is a common street vendor food. In Kyrgyzstan it is an ingredient in a noodle dish called ashlan fu. Wherever they call it, like it! Jelly made out of beans is very odd. This bowl is huge! Yes, it's spicy! It's nicely garnished too. I love the numbing peppercorns! For my entree, I'm having the Hot Spicy Bowl (with chicken) - very spicy. Dry pot chicken, also referred as hot pot chicken, is a dish served as a dry hot pot, cooked with chili pepper, garlic and chicken, by fast frying the chicken in oil. Dry pot chicken is but one type of hot pot dish. The seasoning, ingredients and cooking methods are similar to the more common "wet" hot pots, but dry hot pots do not have the soup base. I like the soup base (which is why I order this). This is good! It came out quick, is super hot, tasty and very spicy! For my next drink, I'm having Maker's Mark on the rocks. That's it. No sweet vermouth or bitters here. Oh this is strong! I don't often have straight liquor on the rocks! For dessert, I'm having the Sweet Sesame Paste Filling Rice Balls. balls. Sesame sweet rice balls usually refer to either Tang Yuan (boiled glutinous rice balls with a molten black sesame filling) or Jian Dui (crispy deep-fried sesame balls coated in seeds). That serve the former. It is served in hot rise water. I love these things! What a great meal here!