Sichuan Secret

Pretty good Korean food (I go to a lot of Korean restaurants but am not Korean). It’s leaning more towards fusion some nice traditional elements. Modern interior with nice draft beer selection. Better than average.

Went down last week and was closed. killed off by a sea of Korean, Japanese joints. Someone can make a lot of $$$ if they open a good, inexpensive Chinese restaurant on Bloor.

Realistically I’d go 3.5, but I settled on 4 for my awesome meal.
Ambiance — This has a very swank modern-​meets-​traditional Asian-​fusion interior and a decent sized, comfy looking patio. It used to house a more alcohol-​based establishment prior judging by the expansive, impressive-​looking bar. As is common with many Toronto eateries the facilities were downstairs — one of the swankest and cleanest restrooms I’ve ever seen. They had what sounded like Asian choral singers doing English, ambient covers of random pop and rock music, like Teenage Dirt Bag and Shake it Out by Florence and the Machine. It was awesome.
Food — The vegetable dumpling app my bf and I split was excellent — fresh, perfectly steamed, great dippping sauce, reasonable price. I scoured the menu for an entrée I hadn’t seen elsewhere and there were quite a few options. I settled on the fish flavored eggplant, a dish I had never even heard of, and substituted the white rice for «fried noodles.» It came out as a gigantic plate that was half perfectly seasoned vegetable lo mein and half Japanese eggplant (distinctive for its bright, almost neon purple color) stir fried with a mix of other tender veggies, in an amazing sweet but savory, slightly spicy brown sauce. I was incredibly pleased with the portion, quality of vegetables/​noodles and the complex flavor of their respective sauces. My date was less than thrilled with his MUCH smaller portions (he got a roasted pork dish with fried rice, and he literally received half the food I did, for the same price or even a tad more). He was pleased with the quality, but not the value for the money.
Drinks — They have a very interesting Asian-​fusion drink menu, along with wine and beer. After some consideration I got a green tea mixed drink. It featured it’s name-​sake ingredient, along with apple juice, melon liquer, apple liquor of some fashion (vodka?) and another ingredient that now escapes me. It came out tasting like nothing but tea and melon liquer. I asked the waitress for more apple juice and she took it back. It returned 10 minutes later and was then drinkable. Nothing to write home about, especially for nearly $ 8. She also clearly had no idea how to make the drink in the first place — another waitress explained it to her, but then didn’t supervise. There is no actual bartender, at least not at the time we went, despite a fairly extensive alcohol list.
Service — They completely lose a star for service, and only the awesomeness of my food keeps it from losing two. The portions being, well, disproportianate and the just okay drink weren’t major let downs, but the service was terrible. Zombie-​like, disappearing for huge amounts of time, blank-​faced and slow when any request was made, repeatedly went in the back for no apparent reason. Before someone makes the inevitable comment about a language barrier, the waitress’ first langauage was clearly Enlgish. Oh and… there was one waitress for the whole place most of the time, and she couldn’t handle the measly 6 people who were there (who all came in and ordered at different times, so she wouldn’t have had to strain herself keeping up). Another waitress popped in at some point, to tell mine how to make my drink, bu then was never really seen again. No idea what she was doing. It took forever for our’s to take our order, fill our drinks, bring our check or take our check. When my bf finally just went up to the bar to pay, as we were sick of waiting, she handed HIM the wireless credit card machine and walked off again. When I had no idea how to use it (you have to punch the tip in, instead of writing it on your receipt) she acted like I was a total idiot and got huffy with me about helping. Fire these people. Then hire three waitresses who want jobs and make sure at least one is on the floor at all times — when customers came in, didn’t get greeted and saw no staff around, they walked back out. Their dinner would have paid an extra waitress’ wages.

I finally had the chance to try out Sichuan Secret. It’s a little out of place since it’s probably the only chinese place in korean town. But hey, at least it stands out, right? ;) The décor is modern and there’s a lot of seating space. They definitely need more servers though. I had dinner on a Thursday evening and it wasn’t packed, but the service was pretty slow because they only had 2 servers floating around.
There were 5 of us and we ordered:
APPETIZERS:
— spicy tripe (yum!)
— crystal pork meat (it’s an interesting dish, try it at your own risk)
MAINS:
— sichuan fried chicken (spicy but good!)
— sesame beef (recommended!)
— dry sauteed green beans (great!)
The portions were pretty generous. We had 4 bowls of rice to split among the 5 of us and we left feeling full. However, our dishes had a lot of garlic and scallions in them, so don’t forget to bring some mints with you.
Our bill came up to $ 75 incl. taxes + tips (and person ordered a cocktail drink). I would definitely go back to this place and try other dishes :)

Came here with a friend to try a new resto… was slightly disappointed. The food was salty… and didn’t make a lasting impression… interesting effort… convincing for the chicken ball crowd…

They should rename it to Sichuan Spicy. Everything was spicy ! If youre not used to the Sichuan spice youre in for a treat.
It’s nice that a good value Chinese restaurant shows up in the area infiltrated by Japanese and Korean cuisine.
We had the Sesame beef. Highly recommended. Slightly sweet and spicy and crunchy.
Thee Dan Dan noodles wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for and was so spicy we couldn’t finish it.
The Eggplant spicy was good and tasty.
It was great to stop off at Gregs for a cool down.
The only thing to be improved is te service. Two servers that seemed really out of it. Our half eaten dishes stayed in front of us as we hit chatted for an hour. But I would think they would want to clear it. Had to call for our server multiple times to get or bill an the other server (not our table) didn’t really want to help out.
Price was good $ 18 each and went home with tons of leftovers.

Great authentic Chinese food! The ginger beef is sure to be a crowd pleaser! Go with your friends the first time so you can try out multiple dishes to pick out your favourites! Best Asian cuisine on the west side of Bloor!!!

I like this place. The décor is really nice. Restaurant wasn’t that busy when we went on a Friday night. Maybe because it’s quite new.
The food was good. We ordered the fish flavour pork, which was probably our fav dish. The fungus salad was also really nice. The sweet and sour shrimp on rice was a bit too sweet for us. Pan fried beef wrap was good as well.
We’ll be back soon for more! The only complaint was that there was a bit of a strange smell near the entrance of the door. Also, you have to pay extra if you’d like to drink tea instead of water.

Food here is awesome. Real authentic taste. Sure beats heading up north or going to Chinatown to get the real stuff.
prices are fair too. Clean, nice atmosphere, good location.
So far they are 2 for 2… Hope they keep it up.

The restaurant/​bar is at a good location. You can tell the owner spent lots of energy decorating the place, I like the interior design, it makes a good environment. The price is reasonable. Food is not really that authentic sichuan food, but it’s pretty tasty. Service is good, but there were only a few tables full when we were there. Will go again to try other items on the menu.