Real fun place to eat. Took my brothers who are significantly less adventurous eaters than I am and they still mostly enjoyed it, except for the pig ears.
The Saliva Chicken really was incredible. One large piece had a significant amount of red blood being seemingly really undercooked. We avoided that piece. Not sure if part of this is supposed to be raw? Have always assumed red blood in chicken was a no go? But he rest of it is intimately succulent, and the hot sauce is one of the best sauces anywhere. It reminds me a lot of the sauce on the clams at Ruen Pair because it has a heat to it but at the same time is mild (the sauce on Ruen Pair’s clams being described as a spicy mild sauce). It’s alightly saccharine as well, but mostly just very unique in the way it blends heat and sweetness. An difficult to describe dish that has to be tried.
Cucumber Salad was a wonderful dish for $2. Tangy and cool with a nice crunch. It really anchors the meal by co feasting the numbing heat in most of the other dishes, I would say it’s an essential order here as much as the saliva chicken.
Pig Ears in Chili Oil are really good for pig ears and a bargain at $3. More than enough numbing chili oil on them. My brothers didn’t really eat them though. I would say that an essential order because it has so much of the same numbing heat as other dishes and the potion is almost too generous. However, if you love numbing heat and pig ear this is a veritable goldmine of porcine delight.
Chongqing Dan Dan Noodles were excellent. Other than perhaps Lukshons version of this dish, easily the best version I’ve tried. The noodles had a pretty nice heft and chew to them for not being made in house (this is the main thing Lukshon beats them in by making their own noodles). It was more savory than other versions, really nice. Of course quite numbing.
Youpo Noodles might’ve been the best dish after the saliva chicken. The noodles are like super toothsome pappardelle. Just remarkable chew. I am somewhat lot on how you are actually supposed to eat them with chopsticks but regardless the elegant simplicity of astringent greens and soy garlic sauce with these immense noodles was super addictive. It was nice to have a dish that didn’t have numbing heat in it as well in some ways.
Gele Mountain Style Fried Chicken Cubes were very “Americans Chinese” to my brothers haha they were remarkably succulent cubes with a salty punch that went well with the crunchy fried chiles all over the plate. However it was somewhat singular in taste without a ton of dimension I pared to the other dishes. Dipping the chicken into the Saliva Saice helped make it more exciting though.
Their house plum juice is super tasty and pairs extremely well with all of the food in lieu of alcohol btw. Forgot to photograph it though.
Overall including plum juice and tip it was $55 for theee people for some rather unique and incredible cooking. This is the kind of place that I heartily thank these forums for discovering!