I don't understand the magic of Sichuan peppercorns. How the hell is it able to transform flavours…read moreinto a completely new explosive experience? How am I picking up on these flavours when I can't even feel my tongue? How am I suddenly able to not just tolerate...but ENJOY spicy food? There's only one word for it: magic. And all of this can be YOURS for a shockingly low price of HKD $110! That's what a 4 person set + one lunch set cost for each of the 5 of us. The 4-person set itself was more than enough food for 5 of us, and I had leftovers to take home for dinner. See, the Dan Dan Noodles included in the set doesn't mean one noodle dish to share, it's 1 bowl for every person in the set! 4 bowls of spicy, flavourful, chewy noodles! On top of that, there was: Jellyfish and Cucumber: To cool down your palette. 3 Layer Pork: Some weird chilled pork roll with a spicy/sour sauce and a mound of garlic...something in the middle (puree?) Don't let the notion of spicy/sour/garlicky/cold pork rolls turn you off. This was pretty good. Spicy Boiled Fish: The visual representation of Sichuan cuisine: a giant pot of chilies, oils, and spices. Submerged in all that red are pieces of flaky white fish, flat rice noodles, and veggies. Good, but damn, this left my tongue swollen and made me a mouth breather. Wontons: This was loaded in the peppercorns and their oils, which means one bite renders your tongue numb. The second bite makes you appreciate pork in a whole new way. The flavours were so intense. This was definitely one of my favourites. Kung Pao Chicken: I'm not sure what this was, but it wasn't Kung Pao Chicken. It had chickens, cashews, and was way too saucy to be a traditional Kung Pao. The sauce was sweet, spicy, and sour. The cashews had a hint of a spice I can't really put my finger on...cinnamon? Still, very delicious, and something unique. Fried Pork Cutlet Noodle/Century Egg and Tofu: This is the additional solo lunch set we ordered. The pork was marinated in Chinese rice wine, and it was a fantastically strong flavour. Century Egg and tofu made another great palette cleanser. They've got the AC jacked up high but the weird thing with this kinda spicy food is that it doesn't really warm you up. You just feel your mouth burning while your arms are cold. At least when you're in a state of conflicting temperatures, you can relax on their super comfy pillows. All I know is that after the meal, my mouth was on fire, my nose was running, and I was sweating profusely. Never felt better. (55/100) - 2017

Get the set menu at lunch, its an excellent deal. Note - the portions are somewhat large :-)…read moreOh, get here early - or prepare to wait for a *while*

Every dish was literally exploding with flavor - in the best way! The highlights included the…read morefried chicken with whole chilis (seriously not to be missed), the mapo tofu, and the seasonal pea shoots. We tried the fried noodles with beef, which was tasty but almost too rich. We definitely needed steamed rice to balance out the intense flavors and extreme spice! In addition to the great food, the service was excellent (though the proprietress is much friendlier than the proprietor, they are both very nice and attentive), and the atmosphere was cozy (if a bit smashed in the tiny restaurant!). Highly recommend this place if you can handle the heat!

The Chongqing Szechuan Restaurant on Elgin street is a real gem amongst restaurants in the Soho…read morearea. To be fair, I'm not a big fan of Szechuan food, as I do find is all overly spicy, and just trashes my taste buds for about four days. However, if I'm feeling adventurous, or more to the point, want to give a visiting friend an experience of crazy hot food, then I will always come to Chongqing Szechuan Restaurant. The menu is very similar to all the other Szechuan restaurants in the area, serving a variety of dishes like; deep fried chicken with whole dried chilies, and ma po tofu. However, what makes this restaurant great, especially in Mrs L's opinion, is that I have an identical menu but entirely vegetarian and mock meat. They are essentially exactly the same dishes, but using vegetables or meet supplements. The preparation is exactly the same. Beyond the food, we also come for the great service. The manager/owner Barbara (or Ba-ba-la!) is an absolute hoot. She always refers to me by name, and if she doesn't know your name she will just call you "Lady", even if you are a guy. There are a lots of reviews that criticise the service, and whilst Barbara is delightful, she can be a bit scatty. Just give her a break, she is running the front of house pretty much single-handedly. As a special treat, she often finishes our meal off with a round of complimentary drinks. The restaurant itself is very small, probably only able to seat 15 as an absolute maximum. If you do want to come, make sure you book. This also serves as a quick check to see if the restaurant is in fact open, and sometimes it randomly closes for holidays. I do thoroughly recommend a visit, the food is great, albeit tear-inducing hot, the service, whilst a bit varied in quality, is always friendly. I am sure you will have a good time (unless of course you are made of stone).

This restaurant was highly recommended by a friend and glad we tried it…read more The staff were welcoming and very helpful. The noodle and vegetarian dishes were absolutely delightful, very well prepared and delicious. Looks like its a very popular place as it was completely full. Yu is on our top favs list of HK restaurants and we are coming back for more.

First review of 2016 (Time to do another 2016 100 review challenge I guess?!)…read more I really should review this place as I'm there almost once or twice a week. So what was the big attraction of this place? For me it was the Sichuan Dan Dan Noodles (四川擔擔麵) which tastes quite authentic according to many sichuan friends (I haven't been to Sichuan province yet, but it is on my list. Maybe this year is the year who knows?!). You know its so good that they've got a write up on the dish and have put up the prices multiple times in the last 6 months. Also it's not very expensive so you that also warrants multiple visits in a week - lets hope the prices don't go up too much. The levels of spiciness is also quite authentic (on par with sichuan restaurants on the mainland, which I guess is close enough to the real deal. For my frame of reference - I've been to Sichuan restaurants in Shanghai which was recommended by Sichuan friends so I guess I know what I'm tasting). For the real deal, get 3 or 4 chillies, and then wash it down with some soy juice (豆奶). Though I guess if you were going in a large group, you might have to wait a little as the place is small. If you go on your own, you can almost walk in without waiting.

One of my favorite Szechuan private kitchens in Hong Kong, friendly service…read moreAlthough the one in causeway bay tastes bettwr

Delicious. Authentic. No frills…read more Most dishes I had here were fantastic. I had the freshest black fungus mushrooms I've ever had here. And I'd rename the spicy fried prawns as shrimpers on crack. I had to knock a star because we ordered 2 vegetarian dishes and they sadly didn't hold up and were pretty boring. While I'm not a vegetarian, I appreciate good vegetarian dishes and I know they can crank it up a notch. Having said that, the least desirable dish here was still decent (albeit a bit boring), so you can't really go wrong here. It is on the pricier side since its a set meal with dishes determined by the size of your group. But we'll worth it. I'd be happy to come here every other week if I can find others as obsessed with Szechuan as I am to frequent with.

This is my first time giving 5 stars…read more I went for their lunch menu that is $128 per person. The food is good, the portion is generous, the environment is classy and the service is good. For $128, there are lot of lunch choices in Central. But for a decent siuchuan style lunch, I don't think you can find any better than this. The quality started from the cup of tea that was served - they served an authentic "Kung fu" herbal tea instead of the regular pot of tea served by other Chinese restaurants. The entree not only taste good but was also nicely presented (the picture that I took won't do justice as I ate 3/4 of the dish already). The portion of the main dish is generous and tastes good. At the end they also serve a dessert "腰果糊" which is very nice. The restaurant is properly staffed - ie. You don't have to wave your hand too much to have a waiter to serve you. It's just getting rare to have a restaurant that is adequately staffed these days...

Good location, good lunch set menu…read more Good portion size and seemed authentic, at least some of the dishes. Had the beef slices and fried chicken coupled with a side or rice. Finished with peanut soup, which was delicious. Good find and better than some others. Maybe not the most genuine Sichuan spot but caters to a western palette. Service is ok but they seemed rush. Always taking food away quickly, sometimes before I finished.

This place was recommended by our friend who used to live in Hong Kong and we were excited to try…read more What an amazing Sichuanese food experience we had while visiting HK. We visited twice on our 4 day trip! We loved everything we tried here and they have a dedicated vegetarian menu to cater our dietary needs. Dan Dan noodles and Ma Po Tofu is my fav when it comes to Sichuanese cuisine and they were flavor bomb here. Loved the peanut sauce twist to Dan Dan noodles. The egg fried rice looked so basic but it was spot on - one of the best we ever had. The vegetarian dumplings in chilli sauce were perfect to start with. The service was quick and it was easy to get the dinner reservation. It was nice to find a restaurant open till late.

This place is often recommended as a place to go for Sichuan food. On the positive side the dishes…read morethat say they are spicy are spicy and you do get the 麻辣 taste. On the negative side is the price and the taste. The food really is pretty average. If you have been to Sichuan and had Sichuan food there you will definitely not like this place. Perhaps it is more suited for a western or Hong Kong pallet. A number of people I have talked to say that you can't really get good Sichuan food in Hong Kong and based on my experience so far (not just here) I would have to agree with that statement. Don't order the 紅油抄 pretty disappointing.

If you are starting your journey into the way of the hot and spicy, look no further and get a table…read moreat Sijie right this instance! If you love Sichuan food or spicy food, you must absolutely visit Sijie for a taste. After hearing my friends rave about Sijie over the years, i finally had the chance to try it a few weeks. We were a big group of 12 so opted for the fixed price set menu, which is bonus to try as many different dishes as possible! Every dish is astounding! Every bite is a burst of flavor and (sometimes) heat. The hype is real. We had the chili scallion oil noodles first, and that disappeared so quickly that we even ordered a second! I didn't get a chance to take a photo of it because everyone was so eager to it. After that, the remaining 11 or so dishes came out one after another. This is not a meal for the light-hearted so come with a big appetite. From the chili fish soup 水煮魚, shredded potato dish 土豆絲 and many more... There was not one single bad dish. For the price tag, it added up to around HKD$500 per person. Definitely on the pricey side for Sichuan food. But worth the splurge if you want the real deal. Oh, one more important note, they only take cash, so you better bring those bills bills yo!

Overall great sichuan private kitchen. The food is on par and never disappoints…read more Great place for a group of people

For the more adventurous types…read more I had lunch with some Chinese colleagues and we were discussing Sichuan. Two of them looked on their version of Yelp, ricefinder or something, and this place popped up as a top prospect in the area. It's a little hard to find but it's up one floor to the first floor. The door says "members only", but it really isn't. The girl running the place said I'm now a member laughing and said it means nothing. I think they mostly only take reservations but she didn't have any problems accommodating me. This is not a nice atmosphere restaurant. It has really no ambience and feels like an older sleazy 70's diner with mirrors on the walls instead of tacky pictures. I was definitely the only non-local in there. It was fixed price $240 per person with a beer! Definitely a better place to go with someone else to share with, just don't expect it to be nice at all. It's more like a old small cafeteria room. I had Sichuan cold noodles for my cold item. The girl recommended both the dishes I ordered. It was probably the best cold noodles dish I've ever had. Spicy basil cold noodles would have been a better name. They were phenomenal! I was picking the lingering basil nubs of my plate. Wow! The hot dish she chose for me was Fish in Fiery Broth. Again it was fantastic, large serving that was definitely designed to share. Think hot fish soup with peppers everywhere and all types of ones you don't eat with some glass noodles and a few other spice nuggets mixed in as well. I basically just did my best picking out the white fish (probably tilapia) and noodles with some unavoidable (and some that were inedible) peppers mixed in. To say it was good would really be an understatement. For the adventurous persons only...

lot of good reviews, but didn't live up to expectations. HK not exactly a hotbed of top sichuan,…read morecompared to having it mainland. pseudo private kitchen, one of main prob was that all the dishes were sort of similarly spicy. didn't reflect the usual variety of spices/flavors.

We had a simple terrible time here. The venue stinks, buried under a bank in downtown. The…read moreentrance is hard to find: you go up, up and then down, down, down to get in. They stalled us upstairs. The timing of duck ruined the meal -- we had the duck on the table literally before they asked us if we wanted a drink. The meal was totally chaotic as a result of that and our server who was lost and frenetic. We were shoved in a backroom off the main dining area despite having booked months in advance. The duck was decent, but no more. The rest of the food was tasteless. I'd never come back here in any circumstances. Oh, and the waitress was so lost that she literally brought the check twice, bringing it a second time when she should have brought the credit card machine to pay it. Disaster.

This was my first time here, and it won't be the last. The location of this restaurant is inside a…read morebank building, which was very unique. Upon entrance of the building, I was greeted by a very nice young lady who checked my reservation and asked me to proceed downstairs to the restaurant. I booked the Peking duck and rosewood bbq bork in advance. The BBQ pork was in a wooden box with rosewood underneath to smoke the meat. The meat was melted in your mouth and very tasty. The Peking duck was not only tasty but also unique in presentation. The server brought us the deck before it went to the chef to be prepared for us. First, it came the duck skin, which was seasoned with yellow sugar and melted in your mouth. Then, the meat came with freshly baked flour skin. This dish was the highlight of the meal. The service provided by the servers was polite and attentive.