5 Spices House

Must try: Grilled fish.
Had take-​out from this newly opened restaurant and the place was packed when we were there. We didn’t know what to get and asked for advice and the lady at the cashier patiently explained to us what types of dish are popular. Will return def!

Nice dry hot pot, great addition to Chinatown. I’m not Chinese but I think I know good schezuan food, and this is it. Seems validated by other Chinese reviewers. Chinese or not food was good.

While the spicy hot pot soup was good in flavor, but it was too greasy, there’s a thick layer of oil on top of the bowl that could give you a cholesterol attack, plus they put too much MSG and alot of different spices. I asked for mild, but it’s still too spicy for me that I eaten just half of it.
Dan dan noodle and cumin spare ribs were decent but I thought they used the same seasonings for every dish or something, it tasted the same to me.
Couple hours after the meal, my husband and I had upset stomach and felt nauseous.
Even though there’s good reviews on dry hotpot that I want to try, but I’m afraid to come back to try any dish here.

So I went to have dinner with my bf one night– we were so hungry and expected a really great dinner. We ordered KaoYu — a sichuanese fish dish. We waited and waited the food finally came. It was dark inside so we couldn’t see much. We were so shocked after we dipped our chopsticks into the fish — daaaaammmmnnn. The fish had all its scales on — both front and back. The freakin chef didn’t even bother to take the time to remove the fish scales! We called the waitress who came and said that they cannot make a new dish but could give us a discount. However, after we got our check, a second surprise came: not only was the price of the fish increased, the friggin discount was only $ 4! The restaurant is the most stingy place ever — does not know how to provide the most basic standard of service. We do not recommend this place and will never return.

This is a relatively new-​opened spot where my friends would expect something spicy and hot with Chinese style food. It’s in Chinatown，we hold our exciting expectation just in case (sometimes the sad happens, you know it), and decided to give it shot at a Saturday night.
Attention please:
IF YOU ARE 1^st TIME TO TRY, BACK OFF!!!
请不要尝试这家菜品！
What I say all about is not only complaining something， but the service, food quality and food safety. This review is based on the truth and I am very seriously writing down for other people.
The Cup you get are not clean. We saw the waitress wiped table quickly and her hands are oil and stinks but coming to us by holding cups of water after a few seconds. We are not comfortable but not that uncomfortable.
Foods coming! Wow, smells good and taste spicy.
But，，，we got the HAIR and BUG just INSIDE THE PLATE! How dare you believe this could happen in such a good decorated place and always Chinese guys getting crowded. But it’s real not a joke. We NEVER come again.
The show time for DOUBLE WHAMMY：
the ladies are like a few hunter for your wallet，not care about service and attitude. All they do and want is more dishes you could order and more tips you give. The UNACCEPTABLE THING is we are already not satisfied with them and give them 15% tips（after tax） the lady’s face suddenly turn hostile！ and directly point out it’s less than average… my sister got unhappy at all that time. and we’ve never met such a «forcing tips» situation beforehat. What the hell of this place？
In Chinese，we said 黑店（hei dian） when you got totally ripped off but you cannot do nothing. 5 Spices House， My friends and I would definely support and be nice to Chinese Restaurant and feel their hard work. but for this site，no matter you’re Chinese or foreigners who wanna give it a shot，trust me and stop. That’ basic and simple move for you guys.
Learning Chinese time：
负分滚粗 （Fu Fen Gun Cu）
ZERO star and go to the Hell.

I am originally from Sichuan province in China so when it comes to spicy and numb taste (麻辣), I know what is authentic.
So let me just say — this is THE MOST AUTHENTIC SICHUAN restaurant in all of greater Boston. Heck I have lived in New York City for 4 years and California for 4+ and there weren’t any restaurants in those regions that came close to matching the taste here.
Why is it good? Sichuan, or rather Chengdu cuisine calls for 麻辣 or the combination of spicy and numb taste in the dishes. All Sichuan restaurant in the US go for the spicy side and completely ignore the numbness in the dishes. This is because Chengdu dishes emphasize the use of peppercorn, and fresh peppercorn is impossible to find in the US. I don’t know how Five Spices gets the numbness from the peppercorn so well, but it is really good! I thought I was magically transported back to Chengdu; the spicy sour noodle (酸辣粉) is as authentic as it gets (although I really wish they would add more meat to it, but you can easily fix that by getting a pot with meat and adding it to the soup).
I took the broth to go, none of that will be going to waste!

I had my first Dry Hotpot (麻辣香锅) experience here and it certainly did not disappoint! We came here on a Friday night around 7pm and the wait wasn’t too bad, we were seated after 15 minutes up on the 2^nd floor. The service here was much nicer than the other restaurants in Chinatown so that was a plus.
The meats and veggies are weighted by the pound. For meats we got beef, fish balls, tripe, fish filets, ham, and sausage. And for veggies we got vermicelli noodle, taro, potato, and lots of wood ear mushrooms! The whole thing cost about $ 23? It was more than enough for the both of us!
I can’t handle too much spiciness so we went for mild spicy, but even that was still too spicy for me lol. BUT it was SO good that I didn’t care about my running nose and the smoke coming out of my ears, I couldn’t stop indulging in the savory tongue-​burning bowl of deliciousness.
Friendly service, reasonable price, and tasty dry hotpot. I’m a fan!

On a cold night, szechuan-​style food cures the body of all its chills. The food came out quickly and was satisfying though the issue with most szechuan foods is that they all have relatively similar flavor profiles. Most dishes are doused in chili oil and chili flakes, and this place is no exception.
To prep the palette for a fiery spice fest, try the cold sliced spicy ox tail and tripe. You get a healthy portion with a good balance of meat and tripe (a little more meat which is a plus), and it’s not too spicy. The spicy beef noodle soup was good, but the portion is really lacking relative to other restaurants in Chinatown. There’s just enough to share among two people (assuming you’re sharing other dishes) but it’s probably best as a single serving, There’s also very little baby bok choy. I believe we had 2 – 3 small pieces. It’s nice to have a bit more veggies to cut the oiliness. Lastly, the fish in the spicy sliced fish dish was tender and had a mild flavor. The bowl is filled to the brim with sliced fish which sits on a bed of chinese cabbage, all smothered in a thick spicy, chili oil sauce. Accompany the fish with a nice bowl of steamed rice ($ 1.50) to mellow out the spiciness.
Tip, if you pay in cash, you get a bit of a price break. Your savings is equivalent or slightly more than tax. There may be a minimum ticket total for this offer to apply, so ask the staff for specifics.

I love coming here for lunch because of their reasonable prices and delicious dishes. For about $ 8.95 per person, you can get a dish with rice and a complimentary soup. The dishes I have tried here so far has all been delicious. I really like sichuan style hot and spicy dishes so the dish I always get here is the Mala Kidney, which is packed with flavor and simply delicious. Their Dan Dan Noodles are also very tasty and highly recommended. Other dishes that I have tried here and liked is the Intestine with pepper, and their meat ball dish.
They also serve mala tang (hotpot without the broth) for $ 10/​lb for meat or $ 8/​lb vegetarian, I have yet to try it here but will in the near future!

We enjoyed this place when it was just opened. The price was right so as the dishes. Apparently they are getting more and more popular and every time we visit there we realized that the price has been lifted up a little bit. For example — the Dan Dan Noodle. It started with $ 5 and then went up to $ 6.95. Not a big deal, but you just can’t simply lift the price like that without fixing the other typos on the menu. People order for a reason not because it is expensive.
The layout is kinda wired and it can actually accommodate more people if they design in a better way. The table next to the stairs is so tiny that you can only order at most 2 dishes if you sit there. 2 of us ordered 4 things and apparently there was no space for the 4^th dish. I asked to be switched to a bigger table since there were 3 empty larger tables in the lobby. The waitress said no and left the soup right next to my plate. She said no and left! Her reason was what if there are more people coming? Ok, the most important customer is always the next one which you don’t even know if the party will be 1, 2 or 3. By the time we left, there were empty tables. Just saying.
Please, fix all the typos from your menu before increasing the price again. And for a place that people usually spend $ 30 — 40 per person, please consider to make a formal menu for dine in customers instead of giving them the take out version menu plus a paper sheet with handwriting items jumping around plus typos.

21^st October, 2015
My first dry pot was in Flushing, New York and my second was at Rochester. I guess my first and second time set some high standards for the dry pot at 5 Spices. It was okay-​ish. I asked for mild spicy and it was not spicy at all. Sure there was a lot of peppers but it lacked the spice! The dry pots that I’ve had even though it was mild was still spicy. Like my previous experiences I thought maybe I would start feeling it as I continue eating. But nope, it tasted bland.
Still though I am happy that there is a restaurant that serves dry pot. I have gotten addicted to it. Perhaps next time, I’ll order really spicy.
Oh and don’t try the egg drop soup unless you like vinegar-​ish flavoured soup. It was the second nastiest soup I’ve ever had. How can you mess up an egg drop soup?

I’m happy to see that new Chinatown storefronts all have something a little different to make each stand out. What’s good to check out here is their spicy dry pot (around $ 8/​lb for vegetables and $ 9/​lb for meat&seafood choices). They have a small counter where you can make your selections, they weigh, and then you tell them how spicy you want it (1 to 5). Someone who cannot handle spice will take a 1 just fine. There is practically no spice level, but a bit salty. 3 is a decent medium. It’ll be a good drinking snack. probably because it’s so oily. Flavor reminds me of Q’s «mala» broth.
Veggie options of lotus root, potato, and mushrooms are good.
Protein options of sliced beef and fish pair well with the spice.
There are two levels of seating and the top can hold larger parties.

I am so excited about this restaurant that I am writing this review as I eat.
Let’s face it: Boston Chinatown sucks. I have not found a single restaurant close to deserving 4 stars. I miss my Excellent Porkchop House, my Xi An, my Prosperity Dumpling, and the likes, all sadly situated in NYC.
Until I stepped into 5 Spices House, that is. This place frickin blows Han Dynasty out of the water. Unilocal currently has the place labeled Taiwanese, which is COMPLETELY WRONG. This is your Sichuan destination.
The downstairs of the restaurant is on the smaller side with about 8 tables, most of which seat at least four. Tables are nicely spaced out so it’s not like a Gourmet Dumpling House where you’re elbow to elbow with your neighbors. The décor is cute and there’s a cooler with drinks and beer to the side. They also have an upstairs to accommodate larger parties, with round tables that sit 6+ people. It is much more spacious and quieter upstairs.
Between the two of us, my boyfriend and I ordered the dan dan noodles, the cumin spare ribs, and a dry pot. Our total bill ended up being $ 50 after tax and tip and we ordered way. way. too much food. We practically packed up the entire order of spare ribs ($ 15) to go.
Dan dan noodles – good, even though I’m used to having this with thicker round noodles instead of flat noodles. A lot more chili oil than peanut oil, which makes this dish way more authentic than other places. I personally feel like dan dan noodles are overhyped in general, but it’s a nice go to starter.
Cumin spare ribs – yummm these were cooked to a nice crisp and weren’t too spicy. The cumin flavor was not overpowering and I would recommend this if you don’t mind a fried dish.
Dry pot – Oh man, I could rave about this all day. You have the choice of a veggie, meat, or seafood pot. You then get to choose your own ingredients and the pot is weighed by the pound. My boyfriend and I got a pot with beef, lamb, fish balls, fish tofu, bok choy, lotus root, potatoes and it was only around $ 17. Seriously, that alone could have been our meal. The flavoring is also AMAZING. The pot was cooked with the perfect amount of spice (we chose medium) and oil. They throw in cilantro and sesame seeds as well which serve as the perfect garnish. I am seriously in love with the customizability of the dry pots here and everything about the flavor was perfect.
Food also came out very fast; we waited no more than 5 minutes before we began eating. The staff is incredibly friendly, but there can be a serious language barrier if you don’t speak Chinese. The table behind us asked a waitress «do you have any recommendations?» and she looked mortified before scurrying off to find someone else on the staff that could handle it for her.
Apparently 5 Spices has a bombass lunch special too.
I can safely say that this is the most authentic restaurant in Chinatown, by far. THIS how a Chinatown restaurant should be.
Thank you, 5 Spices House, for being my saving grace. My stomach is yours.

Best real Chinese food I’ve had outside of China. It’s pretty authentic and not like the take out stuff you get use to. It’s not too spicy though even though it should be, but good if your not use to spicy food. Suggest to try it if you like real Chinese food!

Was in town for a conference and wondered over to the Chinatown area for some food. My group was able to get a table during the lunch time rush with little wait. We ordered a spicy hot pot with seafood (one of their specials), Singapore Noodles, and a bbq ribs dish (not pictured). Sorry I don’t remember the exact names, don’t have a menu to reference. We left satisfied, but not overly impressed. Prices very reasonable for Boston. At the end of the day, I would come and eat here again.

** Hidden Gem Alert! Hidden Gem Alert! **
Promise this one is not going to be a Love Letter given the 5 stars! But given the first impressions, this place really blew me away. And for some very few simple reasons. As the saying goes — ‘Perfection is a lot of little things done right’ or something like that. This new-​bee in Chi-​town is doing all those things right. Kudos to them. And hope they continue the good job here! Here we go…
+ Dan Dan noodles: a very simple looking yet an extraordinarily complex a dish. The exploding rich flavors of sichuan peppercorns mixed with a bunch of other spices and chili oil that transform ground pork in to an out of this world experience, served over simple noodles (take my word for it as soon as you take that first bite and feel the tingling sensation doing it’s magic in your mouth). Boy do these people know how to make that dish so good. And this is after trying Dan Dan noodles in possibly every Asian restaurant that I have tried; hunting it down in metro Boston and other places around the country. This new place comes on top for this dish — so far. And dare I tell you how much it costs? No, I won’t. I’ll leave it for you to figure that out on your own, and be blown away (don’t forget to send me a message when you do and say Thank You!!!) :o)
+ The Hot pot dish with the option for vegetables, meat or seafood with noodles and veggies: This one comes with option for dry or with curry. 4 levels of heat — mild, medium, very spicy or crazy spicy. We went for level 3 with seafood. OK. So I like spicy hot food. I am SO glad I did not go for the Crazy spicy as the host warned us. Thank you thank you! I am in debt indeed! I would have regretted my decision for the rest of the weekend had I not listened to you. But for the level 3 — one word — Outstanding. The soupy curry with all the seafood and vegetables (lotus roots included — yum!) floating in it — had layers and layers of flavors and the spicy heat. My mind was singing — heaven is the place on earth — in some twisted way! I really was in so called heaven of that subtle pain of the sweet heat that this dish provided. Made me wonder what the dry counterpart would be like?! Cannot wait to try the same. The hot soupy version would be even better in the least anticipated cold winter days (Debbie downer alert — its gonna happen sooner than later!).
+ Ambiance /​Service: 5 stars. The place is brand new. Very neat and clean. Very well managed. The staff is super nice, very attentive, went out of the way to caution us about the heat index of the 2^nd dish and such. Genuinely happy and grateful for the same!
+ Given the above 2 dishes, I wonder what are our chances to surpass this first experience. I guess the trick would be to have lower expectations and take it from there; or play it safe and get the exact same 2 dishes all over again? Time will tell! For now, can’t wait to go back again. Especially ironic is the fact that the place is bang opposite one of our all time favorite eateries in the area. Life is indeed full of ironies. In this case, call us Lucky!

This Taiwanese restaurant just opened in Chinatown where Vinh Sun used to be and it’s a good place for big groups, but I wasn’t too impressed by the quality of their food. Although their portions are quite large, they are a little more expensive compared to other restaurants in the Chinatown area.
Ordered the:
–Taiwanese style rice cakes with beef and vegetables ($ 8): pretty big portion, but I don’t think the quality of the dish was worth the price I paid for it. You get A LOT of rice cakes… like more than I’m comfortable with, and that is what really fills you up. Some people are okay with that, but I personally dislike it whenever there is a drastic imbalance of ingredients in a dish. The beef, vegetables, and sauce were decent, but I probably won’t order any of their rice cake dishes again.
Overall, I’d really only come here for Taiwanese food if I’m with a larger-​sized group since Taiwan Café, across the street, has very limited seating. However, I’m still open to giving them another shot the next time I’m with a big group.

Decided to forgo the traditional Seafood in Boston tonight and head to Chinatown. Many choices with «traditional» neon signs but I opted for this corner restaurant with 5 four tops, 2 two tops and a circular table that would seat 6. At 8:30 on a Thursday night there were 12 patrons plus myself.
The menu contains choices for beef chicken and lamb along with a lobster tank option.
I opted for the spicy beef with peppers. It was asterisked with a spicy warning icon. I was not asked for a spice level (I do enjoy flavorful spicy, not OMG pass me the milk I can’t feel my tongue spicy).
The meal arrived within 5 minutes. The beef was well trimmed and tender. No gristle or fat that you sometimes get. The level of heat was perfect. Added flavor to the dish without covering it up. Personally I would rate it close to the left of medium in spice but if you are sensitive to spicy food you probably would call it very hot.
There is a radio station playing inside the restaurant at a low volume, easy to hold a conversation and the atmosphere was family oriented. Meaning I felt like I was somewhat in someone’s home but there were all adults.
I definitely recommend to try them out.

Ended up here on a whim last night with two friends after we couldn’t get in to some of our normal go-​to spots. We were pleasantly surprised at how good the food was and will definitely be back!
We ordered:
Dan Dan Noodles
Roast pork scallion pancake
Yellow leek and pork dumplings
Roast duck with hoisin
Cumin lamb with chili
Flat noodles with beef
The stand outs were definitely the dan dan noodles, roast pork scallion pancake, and cumin lamb. The noodles were super hot (but the mala spice which is more of a numbing spicy) and delicious. The lamb was cooked really nicely and had a good kick, but it wasn’t overpowering to the point where you couldn’t taste the cumin. Really delicious.
The flat noodles with beef were somewhat bland, and the duck was slightly overcooked, but still good. Portions were really generous too. Many of the other diners in the restaurant were eating the hot pot style menu which looked awesome.
Total bill for the 3 of us came to $ 58, and I should mention too that the service was super friendly and prompt.

5 Spices House occupies the former Vinh-​Sun spot on Beach Street.
The space is pretty much the same, they have cleaned up the look and perhaps more seats downstairs, I didn’t go up top though.
They have a similar menu for lunch but they are charging $ 8.50 vs $ 7.95 and $ 21.50 for 3 dishes. The lunch comes with broth/​soup and rice. I had sauteed Napa Cabbage with garlic and peppers (⁴⁄₅). I also had Ox Tendon and Tripe in Chili Sauce, it was a little heavy on the oil, slightly metallic but good (³⁄₅). I also sampled the Chive Pie (chives, eggs, cellophane noodles, and scrambled egg) 2 pies with ginger soy sauce, that were crispy and delicious (4.5÷5).
There is a chef specials menu that had some interesting items.
* new and shiny, flower bouquets in the foyer and all! (didn’t see firecracker paper)
* the staff were very attentive.
* Solid Taiwanese, with other Shanghai and Szechuan items and some generic dishes.
* Entrée Soups and Hot Pots were seen as well as Lion’s Head (meatballs).
* parking, nope, the usual suspects lots. Would not leave my car in any of the availble spots in Chinatown.