Classic Sichuan

17 of us (big crowds eh!!) were seated in the small private room, just the right amount of space for all 17 of us (2 kids) to seat and eat! sweet!
Parking was a bit confusing. the parking lot is in the back of the restaurant. Don’t park in the lot right next to it. belongs to the Vietnamese rest and they will not hesitate to tow! so watch out!
We ordered (two orders each):
— Hot and sour soup — extremely generous portion! I think one portion was actually enough for all 17 small bowls! But we ordered two orders and had plenty leftover (even after seconds!). Unlike most hot and sour soup… they were generous with the ingridients. lots of thinly sliced pork meat, bamboo shoots, mushroom and egg drops. However, it lacked the «sourness» from the vinegar and not enough «heat» from the pepper.
— #83 Roasted pork belly served with preserved mustard. The pork was delicious and not overly fatty BUT it’s a bit on the salty side, so eat it with rice to tone down the saltiness. I disliked the preserved mustard that they used… it had a bit of some kind of fishy smell.
— Chongqing Style Chicken — This was the crowd favorite and the FIRST dish that was GONE! Despite the fierce look because of mountains of red peppers that come with the dish, the chicken was actually not spicy. It’s probably the best Chongqing style chicken I’ve had at a Szechuan restaurant.
— Szechuan spicy boiled fish. There are TWO versions of this dish on the menu. we got the cheaper one ($ 12.95). It’s not spicy at all… so for non-​spicy eaters, don’t worry. It’s more like a fish soup with bean sprouts and some dried red pepper and peppercorns. It was great to warm up the tummy on a cold day.
— Cumin Lamb. It was good BUT there were a bit too much of «filler veggies» like onions, and bellpeppers. The cumin smell helped to tone down the lamb smell. so even if you’re not a lamb eater. you will probably like this dish.
— Sauteed pea sprouts — they only had one portion so I didn’t try this dish bc it was on the other table.
— Hongkong Style fried noodles. Good portion to share with the whole table. It was good but nothing spectacular about this dish.
We were there and the birthday person treated us. so I didn’t know what the total tab was… but looking at the menu the prices are pretty reasonable.
It’s certainly not the best szechuan restaurant I’ve been to… I wanted the dishes to be stronger in flavor and spicier… but overall the food was pretty good! The lady (owner) was very friendly and she gave us free freshly-​fried sesame balls with red bean filling for dessert. Yummm, thanks!

We love spicy food and Sichuan usually satisfies all our cravings.
Moved to Classic Sichuan after we heard that the original management from Little Sichuan had moved here. We have been there a number of times and like to order at least one new dish every time, though we do have a set of staple dishes that we «HAVE» to order. They make the food from mild to very spicy, but I have found even their mild can be too spicy for some folks.
Service — The owner seems to be the main hostess out here and the only one who seems to know reasonable amount of English. The rest of the servers do not understand English but when pointed out, they correct themselves with a smile. They are very friendly as compared to the servers at Little Sichuan.
Ambiance — Not really good. The place is dark and the tables are crowded in. The last time we were there, the server was cutting vegetables and cleaning up spinach on a table right next to us.
Food — Depends on the time of the day. Dinner time the food is a hit or a miss (hence the 3 stars) but at lunch time it is outstanding. I have not seen it getting too crowded as Little Sichuan used to to but since it is a bit far away, I get to visit it only on weekends, which might explain the dearth of customers. A pot of hot green tea starts us off for the meal.
Vegetable Fried rice with eggs — The dish looks bland but is actually packed with flavor. One of my friends used to just order a plate of this dish and polish it off on his own. You can order this without the eggs, but it does not taste as good.
Sichuan Dry Cooked Chicken/​Shrimp — This is very good. The chicken or shrimp is always cooked in a batter and is very crisp. Then a spicy sauce is added to this dish.
Cumin Lamb — My must order non-​vegetarian dish at this place. It is absolutely delicious. They do overcook the lamb a bit but that seems to be the standard way it is cooked in most chinese restaurants.
Ma-​po Tofu — Absolutely the best in the whole bay area. I order the vegetarian version. The pork version is also good but I personally prefer the veggie one.
Cold noodles — i did not like this as the fishy taste from the shrimp paste was too strong
Beef in hot sauce — Ordered this for the first time and looks like it is going to become one of our staple orders. The dish is really spicy and very tasty.
Mu-​shu vegetable pancake — This was very dry. It was just a bunch of shredded vegetables with small pancakes. Somehow the dish seemed out of place with the other dishes.

This place has turned to garbage. Avoid it. It used to be, good but now it’s just crap.
We were one of the only 3 tables here and after 10 minutes I had to ask for someone to take my order. Really? Too busy doing nothing?
The sticky old menus smelled like mold. Probably because it DID have mold in it. Thanks for placing it right on my hand and plate and cup and chopsticks.
The place smells moldy and wet. The good was small in siZe and mediocre at best.
There is food stains splattered all over one of the wall. We conveniently sat next to the serving cart that had 3 days worth of food stains.
I’m very disappointed. I used to come here a lot. But since management change, this place is not good at all. I will never come here again.
YUCKS!

The cold spicy noodles are addictive! They are VERY spicy. Mmmm.
Nothing else there has wowed me, but it’s all pretty solid.
It’s true that the host/​waitress often disappears and can be terse, but the food comes out fast and fresh, and that’s what I come for.

Upon entering the restaurant, there was no server to greet us. When he did notice us he just pointed to an empty table. The menus were falling apart.
The food was greasy and too salty. The only props we can give are to two dishes: the green onion pancake was pretty good and a dried fried spicy beef dish was pretty tasty.
The silverware, cups and bowls were dirty.
I definitely would not recommend this place.

Ok with each subsequent visit, I dislike it a bit more.
I’ve noticed they cater mostly to tour bus crowds. So if you come with two or three people, you get stuffed in the corner tables. I’ve been here a few times and wondered why they’ve always made us sit in the corner with others when the entire place is empty.
And if you come here when the tour busses arrive, they will pretty much forget about you. Our food took 20 minutes to show up even though we came first and ordered before the large table of tourists. The tourists got their food rice and soup and were eating while we just sat there. That’s just not right. First come first serve should be the rule.
I went there once and they brough the soup over but no bowls or utensils. I thought they were coming back but they just left us in the corner looking at the soup. I asked for the bowl and spoons and the dude brings over the bowls and no spoons. I asked again and he brings over the spoons.
I guess the big money’s with the tour busses and the local small tables are just nuissances to their business.
I think only the woman that works there speaks English. The rest only speak Mandarin. So beware of the language barrier. And you sit very close to other tables in that little corner hidden away from the main tables. So if you have some annoying loud talkers, your dinner may not be enjoyable.
Extra star just because their food is actually pretty good and the portions are decent for the price. If you can put up with the service, it’s a decent place.

Hot, spicy, orange, greasy food? Yes, please! My dear half-​Sichuan mother brought me here, ’cause she swears it’s one of the few places around here that has good Sichuan food… and I’m the only one in the family who can eat food as spicy as she can.
She ordered shuizhu yu pian (water-​cooked fish), dan dan mian (spicy sesame noodles), and Chinese leek pastries.
The dan dan mian was good, but for us, it wasn’t quite spicy enough. I mean, yeah, it was spicy, but it wasn’t the kind of spicy that means your stomach will be burning. As a testament to its spiciness, it was orange colored ’cause it was covered with chili oil… mmm.
Shui zhu yu pian is this kind of crazy dish ’cause it translates into water cooked fish slices. Water cooked? Yes, the fish is poached in water first, but let me tell you, by the time it gets to your table, it’s swimming in that orange chili oil, and thank goodness for that. Y’all, this is the dish that my mom and I were raving about all through lunch. The fish was tender, the leeks were cooked well, and the entire dish was spicy and savory and absolutely lovely. It’s not as spicy as, say, a Sichuan hot pot would be, but there were enough chilis and peppers in there to actually make us start to sweat.
The Chinese leek pastries were tasty as well. I’m never sure what to call these things, since they’re actually stuffed with garlic chives, but I think most places call them leek pastries or something like that. The crust on these was thinner than I’m used to, which means they’re wonderfully crisp when they first come out, but you’d better eat fast, ’cause the liquid the garlic chives releases will turn them soggy fairly quickly. Still, they were flavorful, and hey, I’m a sucker for garlic chives.
So I can totally see why my mom wanted to take me here, and it’s mostly because I have a proper appreciation for chili oil, and I’m not afraid to eat things that are swimming in orange grease. After all, how else do you release the power of those chilis and peppers? Bottom line is, if you’re not afraid of a little chili oil, eat here and order anything shui zhu. Forget all that Cantonese American food you’re used to ordering, and try the Sichuan food, because duh, it’s a Sichuan restaurant. If you don’t know what the Sichuan dishes are, look for the chili peppers next to dishes on the menu, and pick one you’ve never seen on a Cantonese menu… unless it’s mapo tofu. I guarantee that Cantonese people don’t do mapo tofu right, so go ahead and try the real deal here.

I went here once, and ordered only one thing — the classic szechuan dish, spicy beef and tripe (e.g., ‘fei pian’).
The meat was quality and cooked well, but the flavor was not authentically szechuan. Barely any detectable ‘ma-​la’ overtones at all. And that, leaves me little hope for any of the other dishes.
Good food for uninformed tongues, perhaps, but it’s not szechuan.

Bring on the heat! Classic Sichuan is spicy hot goodness… Brought the fam here, and was worried that they didn’t have any non-​spicy dishes. They actually had a good balance of hot n spicy and non spicy dishes. WIsh I tried this place earlier, as this will likely be a regular spot for us in the neighborhood.
We had the Sichuan eggplant (swimming in hot chili oil), Beijing style sweet and sour fish filets (our kids fav dish here), stir fried rice cakes with pork and pickled veggies (another hit with the kids), spicy beef tripe (the waiter warned us about the little green peppers, and boy was he not kidding), salt and pepper prawns (done right). We were pretty impressed, as all the dishes were extremely fresh and tasty.
The décor is looking pretty worn. You could tell they didn’t start out that way with the private room in the side of the restaurant. More importantly the service was super friendly. I could care less about the décor, as food quality and service are more important to me… Definitely recommend this place if you are looking for some spicy food. WIll definitely be back.

Not sure if this restaurant has changed hands or not recently, but since my last review-​update they’ve put together a brand-​spanking-​new looking menu (with seemingly all the same entrees as before and possibly some new ones), new people who regularly run the joint, and possibly another different chef. Still there though, and the one constant throughout the life of this restaurant, is the wall of paper currency from around the world. Regardless of the aforementioned, the quality and the consistency of the taste of the food has improved and it’s a place I will likely begin to frequent once again.

Date/​Time: Friday — 2:00pm
Occasion: Lunch
Party of: Two
Ordered: Shanghai dumplings, bean sauce noodle, spicy beef in soup
Location: Small, a little older run down little place, interesting décor.
Total incl gratuity: $ 27.00
Sichuan food is great! I love spicy food and this place does a pretty good job! The bean sauce noodle is a must-​order! I’ve gone back twice and ordered the noodle twice! The spicy beef soup looks a lot scarier than it tastes. It’s beef dunked in soup that’s completely red… so at first glance it looks like it’s the spiciest thing you’ll eat but it’s really not so bad! The prices here are reasonable and the service is just right. Good place to go for a nice dose of Sichuan.

I had a Sichuan prawns rice plate for lunch. Came with your standard hot and sour soup, which I expected hotter for a Sichuan place, but it was fine. The prawns were good with a lot of spice and wood ear, but also came with a lot of bamboo shoots which I don’t prefer. You know it is spicy hot when your nose starts to run. (Ewww)
Service was just ok. There was only one other family in the room, and it took a while for the waitress to get my order. I thought it was just me, but another patron came in when I was finishing up, and he almost walked out because the waitress disappeared again.
I probably should give it another try with a larger group so I can try the other dishes, but I won’t go out of my way to do it.

Yum yum yum! This place is THE place for spicy chinese food. Its close to Millbrae BART and SF airport. I went for Chinese new year celebration and we ordered Spicy fish soup, shredded pancake with pork, spicy chicken (recommended by the host), seafood noodle and the best dish — spicy lamb. I loved all the dishes and trust me the food will make you sweat lol. Me being a spicy lover enjoyed their dishes. They also gave dessert which was tiny sesame balls in sweet water with fermented rice (not sure the name).
I highly recommend this place =) and will check it out again.

Great food, great price,
Time after time its consistently delicious… Love to eat here… as so many other people do to…

Edit: I started this review over 12 months ago, and I don’t really remember anything, but here it goes!
I wanted to give this place a 3.5, but I can’t, so tough luck.
What can I say about this place? It was full of laughter, that’s for sure.
Did my dad make it awkward for the waiter? Check
Did they steal our soup from us? Check
Did the spice burn off my lips? Check
Ahhhh…eating with my parents, what a joy. I don’t know what to eat at a Chinese restaurant, all my life my parents just ordered things and forced me to eat them. So… we ended up ordering some crispy duck, a cold noodle dish…
That is where my review ended. Interesting stuff I must say. I bet I had some interesting stuff about the soup being stolen. Drats.

I’m not a fan of spicy foods, but this place is pretty good!
CLEANLINESS: ⁴⁄₅
SERVICE: ⁵⁄₅
FOOD: ⁴⁄₅
— Spicy Cold Noodles
— Beef Tendons
— Lemon Chicken (Or some kind of chicken dish)
— Fried Chinese Pancake
— Wonton/​Dumpling in Spicy Broth
As a person who can’t eat spicy foods, the chicken dish was ultimately my favorite of the night. The presentation made the dish look irresistable. That goes for the other dishes too. All of them looked very pretty and delicious. The chicken was full of flavor and it wasn’t heavy at all. My next favorite was the Spicy Cold Noodles (minus the spicy part). I could only handle one scoop full of the noodles. Then my mouth was burning and lost taste after that. (I’m really sensitive to spicy foods). The noodles appear bland and tasteless, but that is so not the case! It was actually full of flavor and was quite delicious. The pancake was mediocre, I’ve had better. Beef tendons were pretty good, nothing amazing. Same goes with the wontons.
The service here is one of the best compared to other Chinese restaurants. Although it was kind of dead the night my family went, I still give them kudos for being very attentive. I LOVE ATTENTIVE WAITRESSES. Yes! Awesome service = Awesome experience, even if the food is mediocre. But this place had the service and the quality in their food (for some dishes). The waitress could tell I was having a hard time eating the food because it was spicy. She made small talk with my family and joked around. She also filled our glasses of water quite frequently. Thanks!
So if you’re someone who loves spicy foods and is looking for a Chinese restaurant, this could be a place to go. I haven’t tried many dishes from here, but I’m sure they know what’s popular!

Very good Chinese food. On our two visits, we’ve had the following 5 dishes:
–shrimp fried rice
–lemon chicken
–[a dish with chicken, mushrooms and snow peas in a dark sauce]
–mixed vegetables ()
–black mushrooms and tofu
I can actually recommend all 5 of them, which I feel is rare for a reasonably-​priced Chinese restaurant. The service was good and fast both times. The only flub we encountered was that we ordered the ‘curry cakes’ as an appetizer, and they didn’t come tell us that they were out of them until we’d waited 15 minutes. Fortunately our food came out immediately after that, so not having an appetizer was ok.
The bathroom was very clean, indeed.

Delicious authentic food, many many varieties of chinese dishes to a point where is overwhelming, but stomach wasn’t feeling good the next day. so
Good food… bad stomach pain the next day, good food, the bad stomach pain next day… hmmmm
Dilemma in life eh?

If you want fire, this place serves up a mighty 5-​alarm fire in its Chinese spicy Sichuan dishes.
Mapo tofu (vegetarian, no meat) — 4 stars — for those who like this dish and like it SPICY, it’s great here.
Green onion pancake — 4.5 stars — some of the best I’ve had. More doughy than other ones I’ve had but very flavorful and nicely chewy.
Green beans, chinese style — 4 stars — very tasty and green beans were frsh
Spicy beef noodle stew — 3 stars — was SPICY! You can see the noodles and beef in the deep sea of chili red soup base. However, we’ve had better Chinese noodles elsewhere.
NOTE: I love spicy food and we only had MEDIUM SPICY («Easy spicy» on the bill) and it was already enough to make me cry uncle (and I felt like I had a strenuous workout from all the sweat pouring from my head from the hot food!). They use those special Chinese chilis which have that numbing feel so make sure you like that before you go to this place.
Lunch specials are Mon-​Sat and are a great deal around $ 6.25−7.00 altho on weekends you don’t get a soup with it. You get a very decent portion of the main dish and rice served in a cool bamboo pot.
The restaurant itself is surprisingly nice inside, esp since I wasn’t expecting much. Parking is misleading — looks like they have a nice-​sized parking lot right next to it but it belongs only to the Vietnamese restaurant next store. But there should be enough street parking on El Camino and along the next side street.
Bottom line: Deliciously tasty spicy Chinese dishes in a very nice modern interior. I’ve tried both Little Sichuan in San Mateo and Sichuan Delight in Redwood City and like Classic Sichuan as the best of the three. But be FOREWARNED if you ask for your food VERY SPICY — medium spicy was already pretty wicked (for me at least). If you sweat when you eat really spicy foods (like I do), bring a roll of Bounty with you.

Decided to stop by tonight since it’s in the old Kwong’s location we were fond of before it went away. Immediately noticed that they had discovered the hidden potential in the décor of the place. It actually looks like a warm and welcoming family restaurant now. Also a bonus that it’s open till midnight everyday! That’s great news for me to pick up dinner after getting off work late. Too bad they don’t have to-​go friendly dishes though. You pretty much have to order full $ 8.95 entrees and splurge the extra $ 1 for steamed rice.
The food itself was noticeably more refined than your typical to-​go joint, but it is a real family restaurant after all. Not much to rave about, but definitely not bad. It gets bonus points for simply being an open late mandarin alternative to the plethora of cantonese cuisine Millbrae is known for. Solid for what it is.