Chengdu 23 in serves some awesome Sichuan-style food, food which I eat several times a month. I've mentioned the place here. In addition to a regular menu, they offer dim sum service on Sundays (maybe Saturday?). We recently stopped in for dim sum on the way to the new Wayne Corrado's, and were really happy with the meal.
You'll essentially be ordering off a menu, but they do have carts that roam around with tasty looking dishes that you'll have a hard time refusing. The dishes range from 3 to 5 dollars, give or take.
Warning: cell phone pictures ahead...
The shrimp balls were almost as good as
China 46's version. That means they get high marks. Crispy on the outside, warm, shrimpy, and juicy on the inside. Perfect with some hot mustard.
I forget what these balls were billed as, but I recall greens, shrimp, and nuts on the inside of these delicate wrappers. Our thought was that the filling could have been a dish on its own. An incredible amount of flavor packed into a relatively small space. I could have used some vinegar/soy dipping sauce for these, but they were fine on their own.
A simple dish of tripe with hot peppers in an acidic sauce. Very nice indeed.
Spicy wonton is available during dim sum. These are not quite as good as Chengdu 1's version, but they are certainly more garlicky. Crazy garlicky.
Another notable dish was the "pork ribs". Don't get too attached to that "ribs" word. These are the knuckles of the ribs, if part of the ribs at all. Oh what the hell I'll attached the pic, even though it's horribly blurry:
Be prepared to get messy. You'll be sucking the meat off of the cartilage and bone with your fingers, and then you'll be sucking the awesome porky broth off of those fingers.
Chengdu 23 : 6 Willowbrook Rd (West Belt Plaza, behind Pizzerwhatever Uno) : 973.812.2800 : BYOB
