Szechuan Taste

I’m adding this business here as I think the individual stalls inside the New York Food Court deserve consideration here on Unilocal.
I’m starting with Stall No. 25 — 天府之国 — which specializes in Sichuan dishes. This place is more focused than the Sichuan place in the Golden Food Court, where favorites like hui guo rou and gong bao qi ding are available. Here’s it’s mostly a couple of soups, small plates (sadly no hong you chao shou is around) and the noodles.
The sole dish I had here was a stunner. The mala liang main or spicy cold noodles are lovingly assembled to order at a transparent counter. There you see the simple genius that goes into creating this dish, much as you would on the streets of Chongqing. There is plenty of numbing spice, but also beans for crunch, a bits of sugar, salt, oil and other not easily discernible ingredients.
When mixed and served it burns the tongue in just the right way. Why this isn’t on the menu of every neighborhood Chinese place is beyond me. At least it’s now available (along with hundreds of other intriguing and quite wonderful dishes) here.