La Vie En Szechuan

The most authentic boiled spicy dish I’ve ever had in NYC. The service is awesome and very quick. The beef is just the way I want it (you can ask the chef to make it spicy if you prefer). No doubt will be back again. Five stars to recommend

This is Grady Casher as I see in other place in middle town. May be it was there DNA. As they put my take out order and eat in in same bill which is they got extra tips from take out Cusion plus automatically charging over 18% gratitude rate as payment pc of junk.

I’d rather give them 0 star if I can. They have the worst service in NYC and food not clean at all. I’ve been so many restaurants and never met this kind of f**k waiter before. He forced us to give more tips even he didn’t give us any service at all. And he said «don’t come here again Mainland Chinese people! We don’t welcome you!» 那个男的服务生说大陆人我们不欢迎你,这里又不是大陆那种地方，呵呵。。Such a nice waiter! I Strongly encourage every Chinese from mainland China not going to here. You have better choice than here. Plus they Don’t wash their pot after cook the first dish. We order one dish, and then found several pieces of first dish food in second dish. I’m sure I’m not the only one who was forced give them tips, Chinese who are in US should work together and ban this Chinese restaurant. Especially after the waiter said they don’t welcome Mainland Chinese! I’ll never go there again for sure.

You get a lot of food for the price. The lunch special list is long and I ordered the double cooked pork. I thought it was going to be the crispy skin pork but it was just bacon that’s just been cooked with some spices and greens. So I was a little disappointed, but it’s very typical Chinese take out. Nothing too great in terms of taste but a great bang for your buck. I ordered egg drop soup and it’s pretty good, a little sweet but I’m assuming that’s because of the canned corn they put in. I’ll probably return just because the price is worth it for the area. Oh and you need cash, credit card minimum is like $ 30 I think.

The service is terrible. We waited so long to order. And we are forces to pay 20 percent of tip. I won’t recommend anyone to come to this place because the food is expensive and also not good for Sichuan food. (My parents are from there and they didn’t like it at all) you can find so many better food in New York so don’t waste your time at this place.

I just don’t understand why you have to ask a few times for water and it still doesn’t come. The waiters work here so reluctantly and the service is terrible!!!

I just love this place. They serve authentic Chinese food and 90% of the patrons are consistently Asian… so you know it’s good.

Very authentic and never got disappointed. but the service is horribbbbble. so aggressive like a sales person. really really horrible service.

Great food and very helpful service. Spicy but very easy to eat. Nice presentation.
I found this place from a poster in Los Angeles — all in Chinese — that said where to eat when you are in NYC.

Review is for take out.
Great lunch special. $ 8.95 for an entrée, rice and a soup or spring roll. The sesame chicken was great, chicken was moist and sauce was tasty. Delivery was FAST.

Hands down the best Sichuan food in the city! The food is authentic and the portions are generous. When the food is stated to be hot, it means hot! There is almost always a line out the door during dinner hours, so make sure to best the rush or go during an off time.
My favorite dishes are:
— Water beef: sliced beef in a hot and spicy red soupy sauce with mixed veggies. A must-​try!
— Hot and spicy chicken: diced chicken with hot red peppers and fried dough.
— Hot beef tripe and tendon: cold beef dish in a hot oil. This dish definitely gives you the numbing effect, so if you don’t like that make a pass.
— Chicken in a dry hot pot: spicy sliced chicken tossed with veggies in a dry hot spice. This dish is good for beginners to spice!

Holy Szechuan peppercorn! I am no stranger to this spice, nor am I a stranger to Szechuan food, but our mouth-​numbing meal took me by surprise. Somehow when all other Szechuan spots have failed to ignite, this unassuming midtown spot was fiahhhh.
The entire menu is photographs, so Chinese literacy is no issue here. The dining room is small and you may have to give dirty looks to Chinese people who try to whine their way into being seated when their entire party isn’t present yet. Sigh. Manners.
We got:
— dan dan mian (擔擔麵). This little bowl with the tiniest tingle of peppercorn was a nice way to whet our appetites for what was to come. Noodles were good, sauce balance was perfect.
— garlic chives with ground pork and black bean sauce. Myself and another Taiwanese friend were excited since this is a dish both our mothers used to cook. Not the most exciting thing for those who have a narrow understanding of «ethnic food» and demand it only be satisfied in one way, but this was pretty tasty.
— cumin lamb (孜然羊肉). Ordered with «less sauce» since a dining partner said that it had been too sauced last time. Who knows whether they entertained us, but what came out was great. The mutton was in inconveniently large slices, but it was delicious and nicely fired up.
— pea shoots (豆苗) sautéed in garlic. Not my favorite preparation of this wonderful green, which is typically more delicate. Good, but not $ 18-​good. (Darn seasonal pricing.)
— braised pork in «fiery broth.» Lies! Fiery it is, but the «broth» isn’t edible since it’s just sliced pork belly, cabbage, and a slew of spices swimming in a vat of chili oil. The pork was unbearably, inedibly salty. Either something went wrong with the execution of this dish, or Szechuan people dine by an immunity to kidney disease I wasn’t aware of. We ended up not finishing it, partly because it was so salty (bad) and partly because it felt like our tongues had been hit with anesthetic (good).
Our meal came out to $ 110. Gratuity of 18% was automatically added in, even though we were only a party of four. There’s a 10% discount if you pay in cash, but you have to ask for it.
La Vie En Szechuan generally serves Restaurant Dishes that you’d find at some nice hotel in China, not homestyle eats. Next time I want to beat my taste buds into tingly submission, I know where I’m going.

Came back for the Zhajiangmian. Happened to be excellent. Not much at 10.95 or something similar.
Listed as tofu in spicy sauce or something similar.

It is cool. Majority of Chinese have small dirty and unnoticeable front door, but this one, though not as good as one would be in china, is much more easy to spot than others. Inside is clean. The front door server and manager greeted me very warmly, and that definitely ensured a high acknowledgment I have for this place.
Szechuan, obviously is about spicy food, like hot pot. We ordered a hotpot for 3, $ 30 each. I asked the waiter to pack my food back, which I was super embarrassed when I noticed it was actually a buffet. food came slowly. they use small gas stove to heat the pot on your table. They brought a huge plate filled with vegetables, noodles, tofu, fuzhu, pork belly, stomach, fish, etc. I guess every ingredient were fresh, but they could be too high quality for me to enjoy. I love those ones lamb that are think, and blood tofu that are soft.
Our waiter was nice too. He speaks clear and give suggestions with respect. They only take 2 credit card max, be careful about that.

I really love this place. The lunch specials are delicious — as long as you stick to the more traditional Chinese-​style dishes! I am not keen on any of their American style entrees. My favorite by far is the Shredded Pork With Spicy Garlic Sauce, which comes with celery, peppers, and Chinese wood mushrooms. It’s spicy and flavorful, and will warm you up on a cold day!
The Mapo Tofu is also really good, but it will get you with the Szechuan peppercorn, so keep tissues handy. The hot and sour soup is also quite good. So are the spring rolls that come with the lunch special. Bonus points for brown rice.
I’ve been a consistent customer since I started working in the hood, and I plan to keep coming. Quality is consistent, and it’s always good! Highly recommend!

Worth the walk.
Originally calling in for delivery, I later found out that their delivery service doesn’t make deliveries to 1^st Avenue, even though it is only a little over 5 avenues away. However, at the prospect of high-​quality Sichuan food, I was certain I was no longer in the mood for low-​quality «Chinese food,» and thus made the trade.
I placed orders for the fried spring rolls, the Singapore noodles, and the Chinese broccoli with chili peppers, which came with a side of rice. Told that it would be ready in 10 minutes and realizing that the walk would take 15, I rushed out the door. Fortunately, they (purposely?) underestimated the time it would take to prepare the food and even though I arrived to pick it up 20 minutes later, I had to wait for 5 minutes, ensuring that it was still hot.
Twenty more minutes passed, and my friend and I sat down to eat. I was pleasantly surprised that not only had the food retained its heat, but was also delicious. The spring rolls, absurdly small for their price, were still crisp and tasty. The Singapore noodles were out of this world. With shrimp, chicken, and pork and seasoned with curry, they contained a perfectly balanced blend of ingredients. And the Chinese broccoli was neither overcooked nor greasy.
La Vie en Szechuan deserves a full four stars.

I have been here constantly and have always enjoyed the Chinese food here. I used to give a 4-​star review to this restaurant until my friends and I came here last time, ordered broiled spicy fish recommended by the waiter, and found a plastic film sheet with a supermarket price tag on it… no matter how tasty their food is, I don’t wanna come back ever again…
Also, the attitude between waiters and manager differs a lot. Our waiter didn’t add water once during the entire eating, he found several excuses to explain why the plastic bag can be in our food, and still stopped us at the door asked for tips… The manager’s attitude was better. She removed the fish price and offered 20% off. Although this didn’t alter the fact that we ate one whole fish that has been cooked in super high temperature with plastic bag…

4.5 Stars
This review is based upon more than twenty visits to this restaurant:
One of the greatest things about working in Midtown is the proliferation of great Chinese (mostly Sichuan) restaurants. Reasonable people will disagree about whether Szechuan Gourmet, Lan Sheng or La Vie En Szechuan is the best. While I will continue to evaluate the first two before reviewing them, it is clear to me that I like La Vie En Szechuan the best. Service just has seemed more hospitable there.
The restaurant is generally packed at lunch time with a largely Asian-​American crowd, but somewhat easier to get into at lunch time than the two previously mentioned restaurants where you generally have to race to get there before noon. Despite its popularity, La Vie En Szechuan has a generally less hectic feel than the other two.
The food at this restaurant is excellent. I LOVE both the Double Cooked Pork and the Stir Fried Pork with Chili Leeks. Unbelievably delicious!!! I have also enjoyed the Shredded Pork with Garlic Sauce, Chicken with String Beans and Chicken with Asparagus.
I am extremely lucky that La Vie En Szechuan is in my regular lunch time rotation. Finally, we have a great Chinese restaurant in very close walking distance from Penn Station.

I’m sure La Vie En Szechuan is very good if you are very used to the cuisine and are looking for the completely authentic experience. But for my friends and me, whose exposure to Szechuan style food is the more Americanized Han Dynasty restaurant in Philly, it was hard for us to handle and we could barely eat our meals.
After waiting for a table outside for about 15 minutes, we picked our entrees by showing our waitress photos from the Unilocal page and she helped us accordingly (very accommodating). Also ordered the scallion pancakes and Dan Dan noodles as apps. The scallion pancakes were greasy and soggy, do not recommend. and the noodles very average.
I agree with other Unilocalers that they go way overboard on the spice. I really love spicy food but I’m not a big fan of going numb in the mouth. We ordered a spicy beef and vegetable dish, chicken with crispy noodles, and shrimp and veg. Each dish was loaded with Szechuan peppercorn, which made our mouths numb and made the water taste funny. I’m sure if you are used to it, it’s fine, but it really detracted from the eating experience and I lost my appetite. We ended up barely eating and didn’t even bring it home. It wasn’t cheap either, almost $ 100 for the 3 of us.
In summary, if you’re prepared for Szechuan cuisine and accustomed to the numbing peppercorn, go for it. If you’re like me, and have been to some Szechuan restaurants but with toned down flavors, it’s probably a little too out of the comfort zone.

以前很好，现在很差。This used to be my favorite restaurant. Now with increasing number of customers and reputation, the quality of the food dropped exponentially. So did everything else.
First of all, the waitress will always sit large group first to make more profit. They will never give priority to a 4-​people group over a 5-​people group no matter how much earlier you came just because the table sits 5. The waitress also recommends the most expensive dishes regardless of what you really want to eat. If you want to order something cheap and time-​consuming they will tell you that they are out of ingredient. The recommendations don’t taste any better than the cheaper dishes. Lastly and the worst, THEY CHARGE A 20% MANDATORY GRATITUDE! In what world do they deserve a 20% tip I don’t understand. They deserve a negative tip. Really.
Please don’t come here. They should be ashamed of themselves.