Si Chuan Food
January 18, 2008
If you really like spicy food, and you think that you haven’t tried anything that can make you give up eating that…you must try SI CHUAN cuisines. This is one of the spiciest food I’ve eaten and it really made my stomach growl in disagreement. We didn’t just order in some restaurant in Beijing, we got to try it where it orginated..Chengdu.
Since we were adventurous enough to try something local when we had this free time on our tour in Jui Zai Gou, we went to the nearest restaurant we found.
Trying our luck with the best local food, we asked the waitress to suggest what are their best sellers. The menu was full of food pictures so it was easy to choose even if it’s all in Chinese. Because Si Chuan cuisine is famous for their spicy entree, we had to try it for ourselves.
I was quick to judge at first. It didn’t seem too spicy for me. I can take a lot of kimchis and chilli sauce in my palate. But you can not just imagine but see it for yourself…the meat swimming in a red hot pool of soup. And you wonder, why at first try, it seem to be ok…OK…and after 5 seconds of chewing your food, you’ll feel your tongue and lips getting hotter…blood rushing to your face..and you can’t stop eating more rice to cover the spicy flavor. You quit eating and start drinking water..(ICE COLD ONE) but still, your mouth gets numb. —This is quite a vivid description of how I felt. Although I really think the food is good, I can’t seem to want to get another round from that red spicy pool of meat.
My stomach gave up….I wouldn’t want to eat that kind of food again. I think I’ll just go with my favorite corn bits (fried in duck egg yolk) which is sweet and yummy!
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February 21st, 2008 at 3:34 am
Hey! Have you tried the thin slices of fish swimming in Chili Oil? That was really deadly for me! But I appreciate spicy dishes!!
February 24th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
no, i haven’t ! haha i think i gave up quickly. I couldn’t quite take very spicy food…but i love korean spicy-ness haha
March 6th, 2008 at 7:31 am
Seriously, I honestly believe Sichuan food is the spiciest food I’ve ever tasted. I can normally take pretty spicy food, and I’ve eaten the local food in places like India, Thailand and Korea, but nothing comes close to Sichuan. It’s insanely spicy. The hotpot, dan dan noodles, mapo tofu - it’s all tasty, but whereas in other cultures, they will throw in a lot of chillis or spices into a curry base or what have you, in Sichuan the actual “soup” base is often just chilli oil.
And the thing that really gets you is not the “la” (spicy/chilli flavour), but the “ma”. It numbs your mouth so that you literally lose feeling in your tongue and cheeks and you can’t taste anything anymore.
I’ve been living in Chengdu for three weeks now and I really, really need to find some non-spicy food!