@secretasianman please elaborate, planning a trip to Sichuan & curious to hear your experience on how they compare vs Osaka/Tokyo.
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The street food is far superior in Sichuan vs Osaka and incredibly affordable to boot.
*note: I have never been to China or Japan, but I did watch Anthony Bourdain last night.
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this topic previously went in a direction iād prefer not to venture again, so iāll say this and no more: this started from my dance background talking with some fellow competitors about the japanese movie shall we dance and how some things got lost in translation in the horrid american re-make. one person who happens to be japanese told me that one character in the japanese movie was speaking with an obvious osaka accent which made him the equivalent of a country bumpkin in contrast to the more cultured tokyo residents. thereās supposed to be the same kind of vibe going on between cheng du (more refined) & chong qing, which has a tradition of its own but whose residents are apparently consideredā¦ earthier(?) than their cheng du counterparts.
Your original list is fine. Yes, it skews to Sichuan, but youāve got the two standout Sichuan places and Sichuan Kungfu Fish, which is quite different.
Also, itās Sichuan Impression now. They changed the sign and everything 
Youāll definitely see some other intriguing items on the menu at Shen Yang as well. Lao Xi is a gem. Youāll find buckwheat mao er duo there, but for the oat noodles youāll have to go to Shanxi Noodle House (Mandarin Noodle House also has oat noodles).
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back in the day (talking 25 years ago) when it was still known as dow shaw (approx. spelling) nobody was making these kinds of noodles and they were the bomb. since, other places now make comparable noodles, but what stands out to me is a lack of finesse. the noodles are still thick and chewy, but so are the dunplings and everything else made with dough there. OTOH i find that lao xi noodle house offers a greater range of finesse that you might expect from people motivated to create more of a range of flavors and textures to compensate for a limited range of raw materials for ingredients. i recommend lao xi noodle to just about everybody.