I’ve passed by this restaurant numerous times and never bothered to try it, mainly because it looked a little dim inside. However I finally decided to walk in and try their food and was pleasantly surprised. From the inside the décor is actually pretty nice and the space is well kept. One of my pet peeves is when restaurants have dirty menus, but their menus were actually well organized and clean. Most importantly, the food here was good! I came in a group of 10 and every dish that we ordered was delicious! One of my favorites was their tomato and beef noodles. Most other restaurants will serve a dish reminiscent of spaghetti, which is OK, but the dish they served was different. The sauce was flavorful and the noodles were light and crunchy. If you are in the area looking for a bite to eat or maybe just shopping at 99 Ranch Market, check this place out!
Soy P.
Classificação do local: 5 El Cerrito, CA
I understand that this place is hit or miss based on which chef is cooking, but every time I have been it’s been delicious. My favorite dish is the white fish and tofu soup with pickled vegetable. I know it doesn’t sound really great and even looks like a plain soup but trust me — it’s REALLY good. The broth is a touch smoky and rich. Inside the soup you’ll find the softest type of tofu with soft boiled white fish. These things don’t have a lot of flavor but add a really nice texture to the soup, especially when contrasted with the crunchy sour and salty pickled greens in there and the zing of sichuan peppercorns and chopped green chili peppers on top. Overall a complex, delicious, rich but clean tasting soup with amazing textures and a bright, spicy numbing finish. The portion size is ginormous. Even if it’s the only thing you order, 2 people can’t possibly finish this soup in one sitting. We enjoyed the sichuan dumplings — typically in the oily sauce with lots of garlic on the side. The dumpling filling was very tasty. I’ve bought these to take home from their freezer as well. The last thing we ate was the knife cut noodles with vegetables. It was fresh tasting and delicious and only had nice vegetables — broccoli, pea pods, carrots, 2 types of mushroom, water chestnuts — and none of the grody filler vegetables(onions, cabbage, sprouts etc) The sauce was simple but tasty and would definitely order this one again.
Leo D.
Classificação do local: 3 Hercules, CA
Oh no, did the chef go on vacation? The meal was just okay. Service is still top notch. Our favorite fish with tofu was too salty. The green beans bland. The beef stew was the best this evening but the portions of meat seemed small.
Aziz A.
Classificação do local: 1 Alameda, CA
Can’t believe it, I have eaten here several times, there are some mice and insects inside the restaurant? I didn’t eat meals whole day, I feel suck right now, I will not go back to eat here anymore.
Sarah Z.
Classificação do local: 5 Alameda, CA
Highly recommended: — Tofu with Crab Egg(蟹黄豆腐): all of my friends LOVE it. This is a must-try. — Cucumber with tofu skin(黄瓜腐竹): best appetizer in this restaurant! Great location with almost no signal for phone… Glad there’re xfinity wifi available.
Kimberly K.
Classificação do local: 3 San Jose, CA
Good service, but food was meh for the price. Party of 5 ordered the kou shui chicken and rolled pork appetizers, as well as string beans, vegetarian hong shao tofu, cabbage/white meat clay pot, and sizzling pepper chicken. ***Key Takeaways: Kou shui chicken: favorite dish, the spiciness was really satisfying. WOULDRECOMMEND! Clay pot: very few ingredients for its price, soup was way too salty All the dishes were VERYSALTY and oily, had to gobble up lots of rice with them. Prices for each main dish was $ 11+, and rice was $ 1.5/person. Overall, food wasn’t too bad, but definitely not worth the price.
Jean K.
Classificação do local: 4 Oakland, CA
3.5 but I’ll round them up because one of the cooks is better than the other, and if you get Cook #1 the food is amazing. Cook #2 is good, but the same dishes come out differently. Xiao Lum Bao. The XLB are variable. Sometimes they’re great, sometimes too doughy and dry. Flavor is spot on, however. Uygur-style Spicy Lamb. Love this, but one of the variable ones. Always spicy, sometimes SUPER-spicy. Great dish, if you eat lots of rice! Stir-fried rice cake. SF’s version is closer to our ideal than other places make it. We love this Shanghainese dish, but do not like the style that is drenched in soya so the rice cakes turn brown. This one has a light hand with the soya, so much better. Spicy Green Beans are barely adequate. They make the beans spot on, technique is perfect. But there’s no heat at all despite the name, and they leave out the zha cai, which is essential. Green onion pancake is very well done here. They salt the green onions before frying the dough, which makes the difference. Skip the HK-style dishes, stay with what they do best.
Amy Y.
Classificação do local: 4 Berkeley, CA
Looking for some good Sichuan food? This place is easily one of them. This place has soymilk and chinese donut on weekends, but make sure you come early as they sell out easily. I really enjoy this location because of the taste. Living in the bay area, a lot of Chinese food are canto taste which has a light taste over a spicy taste. I enjoy the kungpao chicken here along with the shanghai noodle/knife cut friend noodle. It’s delicious, make sure you get it in 3 meat flavor. This is located within the plaza so there is parking located outside.
James L.
Classificação do local: 1 Arcadia, CA
When visiting family who live nearby, we make a point to come here for some spicy food. In fact, after my first visit, I gave them a generous 4 stars. What the f*** happened? How could they betray me so? Came here on a weekend for lunch. They were busy, but not full capacity, so we got a table immediately. Typical Chinese restaurant service, brought us some menus, came back in 3 minutes, and every 30 seconds thereafter to take our order. Our order: 1) Spicy fish filet served in a metal pot with a flame underneath to continue the cooking process as it’s brought out. Serves no purpose except to make it look fancy. Before, this dish rocked! Now, it’s an over salted, heavily battered dish w/very few pieces of fish and lots of sodium. I used to love this dish, now my heart breaks as if I found a close friend in a porno mag. 1 2) Spicy sliced beef is supposed to be thinly slices of lean tender beef and some glutinous cartilage served cold w/chilies and spices. This was an oily, fatty mess. No actual good pieces of beef. Oh, and it’s way too salty. 1 3) «Ants Crawling Up a Tree» would be the best translation of thIs dish’s Chinese name. It’s thin threads of glass noodles w/finely ground pork in a nice seasoning with a bit of spice.(so it looks like little ants going up branches) Their version was soaking in a pool of way too spicy & and unnecessarily way too salty, orange fluorescent oil. Disgusting and the oil made us all ill after a few bites. –1 4) XLB, the only item that was steamed and not spicy that we ordered. Since we no longer can eat our high sodium, liver & kidney damaging dishes, we waited eagerly for this to come out. And we waited … and waited. After a good ½ hr, it finally came out. Every place I’ve been to, they always serve 8 to 10 in an order. This place served 6 for about the same price. Each piece fell apart as we tried to use every arsenal we had on the table to keep it whole. 1 To seal the deal of doom, knowing that Sichuan food is spicy and everyone will need rice, they charged $ 6. for a small plastic pot, while all others charge $ 2. or anything at all. 1 Sichuan Fusion became the biggest disappointment I’ve had in the past few years. This place is a disgusting mess. Not coming back and can’t help but feel sorry for the people who still think this is in any way authentic or tasty.
Yuan Yuan T.
Classificação do local: 5 San Jose, CA
I have tried different Sichuan restaurants around east bay and I still think this is the best place to eat Hot & Spicy Food ! The staff are very friendly. I hope they will keep the good quality of food & service.
Tenzing S.
Classificação do local: 5 Santa Rosa, CA
Delicious spicy Sichuan good. A bit pricy and busy most of the time, but rightfully expected for a fantastic meal. Try the Beijing dry beef, Mapo tofu, sizzling chicken. Dyum.
Terry M.
Classificação do local: 4 Berkeley, CA
One of the many restaurants in the Pacific East Mall(Ranch 99); As such, parking’s no problem. The restaurant itself is a good size, so feel free to bring a larger group or have a family dinner! While we normally looove hot & spicy foods, after sitting down we suddenly were in the mood for something more mild. Our server was pretty cool, upbeat, & helpful and when he saw that we were a little overwhelmed by the menu, he gave us some time & brought out the complimentary tea while we decided. Here’s what we got: Spicy Wontons: Kinda small, but they were pretty good! It came with a good amount of sauce, which was a great way to flavor our other dishes. It was only a little spicy, and we used it as a way to give the other dishes just a *little* bit of a kick. Braised Beef Noodles & Sizzling Beef Both were great beef dishes. If you’re looking for something mild & non-spicy, here you go! Still had a lot of flavor though: the braised beef was nice & hot, and had a great black pepper sauce flavor. the noodles came with some great veges & the beef was really soft & tender. Overall, it was a delicious meal, with good-sized portions. While I didn’t expect the non-spicy food here to be all that, we were pleasantly surprised. We’ll definitely be back, and next time, I look forward to trying something with a ton of little, charred peppers!
Bryan W.
Classificação do local: 3 Berkeley, CA
I had really mixed feelings about this well. Given that I’m a huge sucker for spicy food, I immediately jumped on the opportunity of trying Szechuan Fusion when my friend recommended it to me. Definitely go during weeknight because we got in and left pretty quickly. One thing about their dinner menu is it’s pretty short but packed with a good number of unique items. We got the house chicken and spicy beef plate. Food came out fairly quickly which was nice hut unfortunately that was all that was nice for our dinner. The beef came out first and it wasn’t too spicy but overwhelmingly salty. I don’t know if it’s because of the peppers but my tongue was craving water too often. Although the taste wasn’t bad. Beef was very thinly cut so huge portion wasn’t so huge. We could’ve made do without the house special chicken. I didn’t know it was drenched in oil but most of it was just oil. There weren’t too many pieces of chicken legs and so I didn’t feel too comfortable with the price. Overall, I think we could’ve chosen better items. I definitely don’t think I spent the 20 $ I did appropriately. Even though portion sizes look big, paying $ 15 for house chicken didn’t seem worth it, even for a Chinese restaurant. I like to compare this place to Spices 3, a small place in Oakland Chinatown that has equally the same type of Szechuan food but bigger portions, spicier, and a lot cheaper. I suggest you try that one after this place and lmk! Eat well and prosper,
Laura M.
Classificação do local: 2 San Francisco, CA
I’m perplexed. This was the blandest, whitest Chinese food I’ve ever had yet the place was literally full of Asian patrons and there are all these other testimonials to the contrary. Perhaps it was a mistake having my elderly mother place the phone order? All I can surmise is that we got some kind of «super white people» preparation. One of our items, the orange peel chicken was even marked with a chilli pepper and had a few in it but they must have been made of wax. It wasn’t inedible just bland as all get out, about the only flavor profile was sweet. Our spring rolls, likewise, looked great but tasted like nothing, not salty, not savory just kind of carby, oily. All in all, the food was so generic in its mediocrity as to be almost worse than bad. Again, I can’t help but wondering if we were profiled by my mother’s age and ueber Caucasian accent. IF I try it again, I’ll be sure to end my order with a thank you in both Mandarin and Cantonese. The second star is only because I’m taking a generous view that our food was de-flavorfied out of misguided consideration and, based on other clientele, am guessing that they may have the capacity to dish out good grub. Portions were also liberal.
Xian S.
Classificação do local: 3 Berkeley, CA
I have been here for several times. I had to say that my three-star rating was associated with my very personal experience at this restaurant. I don’t like the service here. Waiters were normally neither focused nor friendly. And the fact that they accept no more than two credit cards really pissed me off. Anyway, we decided to come here today for a quick dinner before our weekend skiing trip. The food was actually served fast. We have ordered the famous ribs, cold noodles, four-season beans and Szechuan braised pork. We wrapped up the dinner very quickly and went on our trip. In the car, we discussed the food. At the beginning I could not really say anything that was bad. Every dish I had was actually ok taste. One of my friends pointed out the problem: this restaurant lacks of the depth of taste. For example, the Szechuan braised port is supposed to be really spicy. But the same dish here was not enough hot. The ribs are supposed to be salty and soft; while the dish here was very sweet. Therefore, we agreed that they missed the point of making authentic Chinese food but rather tried their best to satisfy a wide range of customers. It’s actually quite common in the US for Chinese restaurants. The last very point I wanted to mention: there is literally zero cell signal within the restaurant so that I have to type all the words in a fracking moving car: P.
Eric T.
Classificação do local: 5 Antioch, CA
This is the spot for spicy Chinese food. Their portions are huge! We had a small seafood hot and sour soup and it was enough for six people. The soup was well done and tasty. The texture and amount of heat was just right to prepare your tongue for the spiciness to come. The fried shrimp and fried chicken are spicy hot and very tasty; unlike some places where you can only taste the heat, here you can actually taste the different flavors of the food. The shrimp was good, the rice crackers was crispy and absorbed some of the chili oil(it felt like eating chili flavored rice crackers) and the steam broccoli was a perfect balance to the spicy food. The chicken were cut up small wings cut up. It looks like they cooked it once before they stir fried in the chili peppers and this was beyond good. The chicken had it’s own unique flavor and you also get a dose of the chili spices. Of course you have to have an order of non-spicy vegetables to balance the heat and the string beans was perfect. Dinner came to about $ 60.00 for a soup and three dishes, but you get lot of delicious food(not to mention the staff here are friendly and interactive).
Wendy D.
Classificação do local: 5 Novato, CA
1⁄18 They have huge selection of dishes in their menu, just hubby & I so we ordered 3 dishes=)) Fast & Friendly Service + Delicious Food & Nice Ambiance = Food taste just like HOME
Ryo M.
Classificação do local: 5 Berkeley, CA
We had the Spicy boiled beef and got sweaty. Don’t forget to bring your towel
Mike C.
Classificação do local: 4 San Francisco, CA
A nice thing about leaving SF is finding regional cuisine in neighboring areas. With the escalating Bay Area traffic problems, doing this depends on timing. Weekday mornings have recently worked for me, but we were in the area on a recent Saturday afternoon. We actually had lunch at a Taiwanese cuisine haunt a few doors down and studied this place’s takeout menu while eating. I chose their beef knife cut noodle soup( ), requesting the protein and noodles packed separately. They packed it well but probably is wiser to dine in as the noodles clump together when boxed and become more starchy when reheated. Another option is to order the normal egg noodles instead. The broth flavor was clean(ginger base) and there was a good variety of tendons and lean meat pieces. My friend and I shared their crispy sesame pancake(siu beng) which was decent after a short baking in the toaster oven. The flavors weren’t bad even after a few days later which indicates decent quality dough. The menu is different than typical Chinese restaurants with regional specialties from a variety of places, perhaps hence the«fusion» name. As Ken K.( ) mentioned, the regions are not exclusive to Szechuan though. Though the food was decent, it’s hard for me to resist the temptation of dining at that Taiwanese eatery just around the corner instead. Perhaps will return as a «backup» plan.
Kelly Y.
Classificação do local: 5 Ithaca, NY
We were really hungry, so my review might be a bit biased. Friends and I had accidentally missed the exit to the golden gate bridge, so after stopping and thinking about a new plan, it was getting pretty late after SDT(standard dinner time) and we ended up stopping by an Asian marketplace in hopes of sustenance. We ended up choosing this place, and boy am I glad we did. My favorite dish that disappeared the fastest was a fried and breaded spicy fish. So, so good. The rest of the food was also scrumptious. It’s good stuff.(At least the things we ordered were) (See my pictures for reference)