The strangest thing I ate this week: Grand Sichuan, NYC
August 21, 2006
Pig intestines at Grand Sichuan were a lovely treat. Fried crispy, like cracklins, with a nice porky flavor. I have to say that for the money, there were a lot of intestines. Not that I have any barometer for such a thing. It just seemed like a lot.
Served with vegetables in a spicy sichuan pepper-kicked sauce. Highly recommended.
Grand Sichuan (the one on 2nd ave and 55th, which I'm preferring over the other branches) is my second favorite Chinese restaurant in NY. The first is Wu Liang Ye (the Lexington Ave branch). It's tough to even rate them though with that fine a detail. But if I had to, I'd compare and contrast like this:
- GS has at any given moment only 2 or 3 different white wines, and sometimes nothing but Chardonnay. WLY has about 5 or 6. Neither have very interesting or Chinese food-appropriate wines to my mind.
- GS has a decent-enough pinot blanc (when they have it), which is more than I can say for WLY.
- GS has a much larger menu than WLY.
- GS's much larger menu can be overwhelming.
- WLY has much better dan-dan noodle.
- GS's dishes often come swimming in red oil and you can order several dishes that effectively taste the same if you're not careful (I'm not careful).
- GS has freshly-killed chicken "not refrigerated long time", which has an interesting texture. No such chicken at WLY.
Thank goodness they both exist.
I wasn't careful with the below oil-laden and similar-tasting dishes