How to a tell Malaysian Chinese apart from other Chinese (and a restaurant review)

Simple. Visit a Sichuan restaurant, and order in English (or a Chinese dialect without a Chinese accent), and inform the waiter that you want everything to be 'Sichuan spicy'. It is almost inevitable that the waiter's curiosity gets the better of him, and he would ask you and your friend:

'Excuse me, can I ask you if you are Malaysian?'

Cue the nods, and chomp down on full chilli strength Sichuan food upon arrival. Which unfortunately isn't that spicy to begin with. And which prompts thoughts of whether the chilli-hotness of Sichuan food is simply overrated (or perhaps we didn't order the 'hottest' dish), or maybe, just maybe, certain Malaysian foods have the potential to go head to head with Sichuan cuisine* in terms of spiciness.

The remainder of this post continues the initial review of the Red n' Hot Sichuan Restaurant, Charing Cross Road.

We called for green tea, with a difference.



We found the green tea unique as it came out as fresh green tea leaves! The tea had a nice summery taste, with a pleasant bitterness about it (please stir your glass somehow to get the flavour about!). 7/10. Plus, the leaves can be eaten if you so desire (no idea if you're recommended to, but hey). Most fascinating, and I will be trying to hunt this down at Harrods (one of the waiters was kind to provide us with some sample).

I called for the lamb belly again, and it did not let us down. Arguably one of the star dishes, and a must have. 8/10.


Picture taken from previous post.

We tried a pork dish. It was not too bad, but was outshone by the above mentioned lamb dish. 6/10.



*The hottest dish I've ever had so far was a dish of Xacutti (that's Goanese Indian cuisine) style-lamb. Tongue numbing with lots of water needed! But, managed to down even more than my Indian friend, heh.


Original review:
http://perplexed-peace.blogspot.com/2007/04/sichuan-meal.html