I went to Szechuan impression today and I had these French fries.
I liked the al dente texture. I liked the ma la seasoning.
I also had the boiled fish pictured above. It was very good. I thought the spicing tasted more refined than at most places. But I was disappointed that it didn’t have soybean sprouts.
Another nice thing about this restaurant is they have tasty drinks. Honey pomelo was surprisingly good.
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Been out of town for a couple of days. Let me see if I can glean the exact menu descriptions from online sources, starting from top to bottom:
Wonton Red Chili Oil
Lamb on Toothpicks
(Can’t remember or find the shrimp dish’s name!)
Cinderella’s Pumpkin Rides
Boiled Fish Filets in Chili Sauce
Impressive Bean Jelly
Fried Rice Cake with Black Sugar
What I didn’t snap a picture of were a plate of sautéed ong chong (very nice) and a dish of spicy crab that was rather cumbersome to eat
Our group’s undisputed favorite was the shrimp. Nice balance of flavors, heat, and texture. My personal fave was that rice cake dessert. A friend and I were battling over the syrup remnants at the bottom of the dish. Although I prefer the toothpick lamb and boiled fish at Chengdu Taste, this was a delightful meal and I would be most happy to return again,
Duh. How could I forget. It was called, “Impressive Shrimp.”
Here you go MAO, and w/b to LA:
this is the latest December menu (or should be, I hope):
I will follow up with ordering recs for a 4-top, and 6+ etc.
I gotta say… I’m impressed.
A not very definitive guide to Szechuan Impression:
From the beginning of the menu Apps/Snacks:
No. 2: Impressive cold noodles: “Press” love this and the cold starch noodle I’m actually very ho-hum on this especially after tasting Chengdu Impression (Chengdu)'s OG version. Szechuan Impression’s team told me it’s simply impossible due to the oil Chengdu Impression has access to. Not a must do, but a filler, just like at Chengdu Taste. Better to start with Shuangliu intestine starch noodles No. 3 which is another Chengdu street “snack”.
No. 10: street corner (wolf teeth) fries: mala, served lukewarm, (just like Chengdu streets), fried to al dente. really addictive. very close to Chengdu flavors. Sorta must.
from the Szechuan Faves:
No. 22: farm chix in chili oil
slightly sweet, slightly mala, served room temp:
this was one of BRod’s fave,and rightfully so. It’s a crowd pleaser. And showcases the balance of Chengdu style Sichuan. They don’t use “Jidori”, but it’s local Vikon chix. Fantastic texture.
No. 26: tea (seven kilometer) smoked ribs:
The presentation alone is worth the ordering. Shows that Chinese food doesn’t have to race to the bottom. Chuan’s has also been very good at not cheapening Sichuan food. The ribs here are marinated, smoked, then fried; a 3-day prep, IIRC.
From Szechuan Provincial Delights:
No 28: Leshan Beef combo, “legcrossingly yum” beef:
I love this soup. Tons of offals. Spice it up to your own level. Great for cutting up the spiciness.
No. 31 Impressive Spicy Steampot, aka: Mao Cai : 冒菜
Outside of hotpot, bobo chicken and mao cai are the most commonly eaten dishes on a day to day basis in Chengdu. I really can’t get down with bo bo chicken, but mao cai is the budaejigae that budaejigae can only dream to be. Order it da la and wait for your mouth to get raped by the SZ peppercorn this kitchen brings in by “human flesh” couriering. This is a must. People ordering the red water-boiled beef all over SGV are just doing it wrong. This is the symbolic Szechuan cholent.
Still under Szechuan Provincial Delights:
No. 41 boiled fish rattan pepper, or: at Chengdu Taste: water boiled fish in green peppercorn.
No pics, but the unroasted green peppercorn here smells of citrus. This dish is a better way to show off the wide variety of SZ peppers.
From the "Refresh Golden Soup Series:
No. 50. golden soup with fatty beef (sliced brisket): Even better than the Leshan beef soup above. The pumpkin soup is tangy, spicy, and just… different. Must-get. If looking for red water boiled fish, switch to golden soup (available also with fish filets) instead.
Below that on the menu is the “Steaming series”:
No. 53: steamed rice powder lamb. It is really lamby. Mary would approve. I like it better than the steamed rice powder pork here.
No. 12 (and no 59.) rice cake with black sugar: Again, more Chengdu street snack. Mochi on steroids. Slightly oily, extremely sweet if you dip into sauce; finished off with soy powder. Popular, but not my personal fave.
My personal dessert is to drink half of the smoked plum tea, save the other half to go. Why? Adding 2 shots of gin makes the dreamiest herbal “cocktail” that no tincture/shrub can rival. I should open a bar in Chengdu just slinging this one cocktail. It’d be more popular than Jellyfish.
for a 4 top: I’d do the intestine starch noodles to start, the street fries, the farm chicken, the mao cai, finish off with black sugar cakes.
for 6+, I’d add the pumpkin brisket soup, the steamed lamb, and a chili/sour market veggies.
Merry Christmas to all the MOT. And no @Porthos, not doing one for Jitlada. Search is your friend.
[edited: for typo/clarification/reference to Jellyfish]
OMW. Hope they are not busy.
amazing JOB
I just slobbered all over myself
Nice reporting. I like how you do the non standards.
That No 50 and No 31 look great!
I guess this “I can put together a menu at Jitlada that runs circles around other thai restaurants” was all talk or too difficult. It’s cool. Good job anyways 
Thanks so much, Tony! Looking forward to it–and we will order enough for a 6-top whether there are two of us or six…
The street fries are great. I also love the fresh bamboo shoots; probably the best bamboo shoot dish I’ve had in LA.
A quick question: what’s the beer situation? Do they allow or have a don’t ask/don’t tell policy on beer?
does not exist. it’s not a “don’t ask, don’t tell” sitch.
hope you got your luggage.
Aha.
Arrived with luggage. Of course, the carry-on I checked in at the gate in exchange for a better seat was in the last wave of bags to arrive at the carousel…
Awesome suggestions, Tony.
The golden soup and smoked ribs are indeed fan-frickin-tastic.
to be fair, they’re nothing alike in terms of cooking technique or ingredients of origin; my understanding is that mao (冒) means that the ingredients (chosen by the person eating and can be vegetarian) have first been blanched in water but the soup it’s served with is not necessarily the original cooking liquid, OTOH, budae (military) jjigae is more about making american processed meat (spam/hot dogs) that you’d find as military rations palatable by throwing them in a simmering pot with kimchi along with whatever else your poverty level affords. budae jjigae is going to suffer in comparison just by basic definition. having said that, throw in the fact that you’d have to pay $30+ for budae jjigae at a place like chunju han il kwan in k-town vs. whatever they charge for the mao cai, i’d probably go with the mao cai.
Excellent lunch here today. I’d describe it as a more refined version of Sichuan food than we’ve had previously (including at Chengdu Taste). High quality ingredients and nothing tried to beat us across the mouth with heat for its own sake (and the experience was generally far less painful on that front than your average meal at Chengdu Taste).
What did we eat? There were four adults and three kids and we pretty much got most of Tony’s recs above:
Only complaint: the fries and sausage cried out for beer.
Very nice space too and we thought the service was fine. Our waitress’s demeanour ranged from impassive to friendly but everyone else we interacted with was entirely at the friendly end of the continuum. This is not your cheap SGV Chinese place though (as you can tell by looking at Tony’s menu pics). All of the above plus four iced coffees came to about $150 all in. Worth it.
I’ll post a more detailed review with pics on my blog next week–will post the link here then (unless there’s a prohibition on doing so).
Thanks again to Tony for the recommendations–we’ll be back again on the next trip for sure. Maybe they’ll have a liquor license by then?
The Jitlada of LA Sichuan food.
not going to happen. not in the works cuz physically prohibitive.
By next trip, the Tustin location, with Type 41, will for sure be open. And you’ll know not to over order 
I’ve had the chance to munch on the hot “fries” (done extra spicy), and the sausage, and the diced rabbit, with beer. It was friggin glorious.
My writeup of our meal at Szechuan Impression last week is up on the blog. It starts with some brief comments about transformations in the SGV over the last decade and a half that I’m sure you’ll all have opinions on. I’m pasting in the bulk of the review here. What’s missing is the photos and the captions (which is where the descriptions/evaluations of the dishes are)–apologies but it’s a bit of a pain doing the pictures in two different formats in two places.
Szechuan Impression opened in 2014 and almost immediately became the major rival to Chengdu Taste in what could be called the second major wave of Sichuan restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley. The first wave, by my reckoning, crested in the early 2000s with the debut of Chung King in Monterey Park (on Garfield). Chung King carried on for a decade and a half (about three lifetimes in the SGV), moving to new digs in San Gabriel in the process, but by the time they ignominiously folded up last year they had well and truly been eclipsed by the new standard bearer, Chengdu Taste. I will note, however, that the coverage of Chengdu Taste always seemed to me to forget how good Chung King had been in its prime. Still, Chengdu Taste’s newer dishes were a revelation and their greater attention to ambience was also a far cry from the utilitarian aesthetic of Chung King and Yunkun Garden and co. One way to describe Szechuan Impression is to say that it goes further along both of those axes.
To take the second first, Szechuan Impression’s dining room’s aesthetic is a stylish, modern one that is not really associated with Chinese restaurants in the US. It has little in common with the kitschy opulence of a place like Shanghai No. I: instead, the brightness of the room, the high ceilings, the wooden tables and benches, the exposed brick etc. evoke trendy places that serve new American cuisine aimed at a very different audience, ethnically speaking. Indeed, once upon a time a room like this one would have signaled to me that it was aimed at a non-Chinese audience and would likely feature severely toned down food. That is not at all the case here. The major demographic shift in the San Gabriel Valley in the 13 years since we left Los Angeles seems to have been an uptick in wealthier immigrants and places like Szechuan Impression are clearly catering to a wealthier—and younger and trendier—clientele than used to be the case not only at the old guard but also than we saw at Chengdu Taste at our two meals there.
The food too seems to be in line with trends in mainstream American dining with quite a lot of what seem like street foods and snacks and far less of an emphasis on more familiar, traditional dishes—though please keep in mind that my knowledge of Sichuan cuisine is relatively small (I could be wrong about all of this). The cooking too, at least in what we ate, was more refined than at Chengdu Taste: with greater subtlety in some dishes and in general a lighter hand with oil and chilli peppers. Of course, this could just be an artifact of what we ordered; however, the selection of vegetable dishes is somewhat limited. It must be said that the prices are higher than at most SGV places: our meal came to $150 or so with tax and tip and that was without beer, which regrettably they do not serve. But the ingredients were of high quality and many of the dishes were anything but simple and hearty.
Still, if your desires for Chinese food are that it be cheap and served in crusty surroundings Szechuan Impression is not for you—but I think a taste of the food would force you to be more open-minded. That “authentic” Asian food in the US has long been served in ambience-free settings doesn’t mean it has to be; nor does it mean that food served in more stylish settings is necessarily watered-down. This is especially not true of the San Gabriel Valley which has never looked to anything but a Chinese clientele for approval—very unlike, say, the new wave of trendy and expensive Indian restaurants in the major US cities which seem to largely be serving the same old tikka masala in new bottles. Szechuan Impression’s aesthetic may be stylish and modern but the palates and desires they’re aiming (primarily) to feed are very much Chinese.
Anyway, on to what we ate! (There were four adults and three small children eating.)
Classic “Potato Strips on Street Corner”
Mouthful-Aroma Sausage
Shuangliu Intestine Starch Noodle
Wonton Chicken Soup
Farm Chicken in Chilli Oil
Tea Smoked Rib
Golden Soup with Fish Fillet
Steamed Rice Powder Lamb
Impressive Spicy Steampot
As you can see, some of the dishes have names that seem to have been translated somewhat literally; this is also true of many of the titles of the sections on the menu, which range from the poetic (“Time, Defied”) to the kitschy-charming (“A Smidgen of Spice, Sweetens Your Life”) to the mysterious (“Szechuan Proveutial Delight”; provincial? proverbial?). While most of the dishes have prosaic English names, some amount of drinking was clearly involved (“Cinderella’s Pumpkin Rides”). These amusements aside, the menu features not only translations of all the dishes but also clear indications of dishes that can be ordered spicy and non-spicy. The staff are also very fluent in English (at least those we encountered were).
Please click on an image below to launch a slideshow with larger pictures and more details on the food.
…
Oh yes, the service: our primary server’s demeanour ranged from the impassive to the friendly but everyone else who brought over food or bussed the table was very friendly. And as an annoying food blogger I will give them kudos for figuring out very quickly on their own that it was most efficient to put everything down first in front of me and my stupid camera. One of the servers, who was probably making fun of me, took great pleasure in arranging the dishes at striking angles as he put them down. And despite the people waiting they did not pressure us to hurry up at any point. The only issue was, as I noted in the slideshow captions, that the mao cai was brought out well after everything else. Yes, we’d over-ordered but the plan was to eat a wide range and take leftovers of everything home. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stop munching on all the other stuff as we waited for the mao cai and so when it arrived we were full and not able to appreciate it fully.
Since I noted the higher price here than at most Sichuan places in the SGV, I should note that with leftovers this was enough food probably for six adults. So even at the higher than usual tab this was $25/head which is a screaming deal in the larger scheme of things. I just wish they’d get a liquor license as so much of the food cries out for beer. Anyway, If you haven’t been, you should go. You don’t have to stand in line for an hour or two outside Chengdu taste to eat excellent Sichuan food in the SGV. I expect we’ll be back in the summer to try more of their menu.
(I should also note that our selections were almost entirely taken from a little guide to the menu that Tony Chen put together on FoodTalkCentral. Thanks very much again, Tony!)
