Szechuan Impression skewers all expectations

Water-boiled fish is one of the most impressive dishes in the Sichuan repertoire: an enormous bowl of vegetables and broth bloodied with a half-inch of vivid chile oil. At Fang’s Kitchen, the sleek new Chengdu-style Sichuan restaurant in Monterey...

Mao xue wang — a spicy stew with origins in Chongqing, southwestern China’s megacity — always contains a patchwork of ingredients emphasizing varied textures. Xiang La Hui, a new Sichuan restaurant in Alhambra, serves an extravagant version....

You know zhajiangmian. It’s that dish of springy wheat noodles, often hand-pulled, tossed with bean sauce, ground pork and usually some other stuff, that you may have tasted in Chinese noodle shops like Malan Noodles in Hacienda Heights and China...

The Dungeness crab at Hip Hot, Tiantian Qiu’s Monterey Park Sichuan seafood restaurant, is stir-fried with ungodly amounts of chiles and Sichuan peppercorn, tossed with potatoes and vegetables, and served in a gleaming heap. It has been expertly...

Spicy food is glorious stuff, particularly in times of duress, or when the weather is unreasonably chilly, or when you’ve misplaced that bottle of Double Chicken Brand Sriracha you still keep in your bag. So which restaurant to head for when the...