taste of sichuan beaverton

went there for lunch in a group of 8 and ordered from lunch menu. the quantity of food served and taste were ok, nothing spectacular. service was good.

not bad but not great. i was hopeful with some positive word-of-mouth endorsements and the proportion of asian guests in the waiting area. i'd get occasional whiffs of a really fishy smell and notice the cluttered spaces, which didn't enhance the experience. the service wasn't horrible as some reviews indicate but it was far from good. an example is they didn't ask if we wanted to order drinks. the taste of our orders was ok and the portions were fairly generous. the spicy dish, kung pao chicken (sichuan style) even had some heat. i wouldn't go out of my way for this place but it's better than many other places.

just picked up dinner for take-out. two meals, soup, pot stickers. when i got home found there was no white rice in bag. when i called to ask about it, was informed white rice does not come with meal. when i asked what they thought we were going to put the food over and why they didn't offer rice when the order was placed, was essentially told "too bad". can understand a mistake, but not the attitude. this place clearly does not care about customer satisfaction. will not be going back

alpo might be better..... being that i travel extensively as an it infrastructure consultant, i have opportunity to sample the local fare in many cities across the usa. tonight, i decided to give taste of sichuan on cornell rd a go.

let's start with the appetizer..

handmade potstickers - i could make these while camping for christ's sake! the meat filling tastes as if it were made from hotdogs. save yourself a few dollars and just get some oscar mayer dogs from the market and some buns....same flavor.

the entrees -

1) sweet and sour pork - soggy sad pieces of flavorless meat hiding in a forest of green peppers and water chestnuts. breading made from either wet cardboard or the leftover potsticker wrappers. don't waste you time with this one....it's a lost cause.

2) mongolian beef - slimy but the flavor was ok...not great, just...ok.

3) general's chicken - wtf is this?! it's supposed to be a spicy yet slightly sweet sauce. this was no general chicken that i know. this was sugar chicken. the general was so sweet he may even give you cavities. just dismiss him before your wallet gets lighter.

overall -
a poor excuse for chinese food. a complete waste of my time and $50. at least my dog likes it.

great food, why the bad reviews?. i was surprised this restaurant got a mediocre rating. the food here is very good. reading the reviews, most of the complaints are about poor service. i have eaten at this restaurant three times now, and although the service can be a bit leisurely, i have never had a significant problem. the service is fine, the food is excellent and authentic, and the prices are good. it is very popular (especially with asians), which may explain some of the slow service.

i did see a few reviews complaining about the food. let me explain something. did you ever notice that chinese restaurants used to always say "chinese and american food"? that's because most of what americans think is chinese food is not chinese, it was invented here. that includes chow mein, fried rice, lo mein, egg rolls, mu shu, general tso's chicken, orange chicken, mongolian beef, ginger beef, kung pao chicken, chop suey, egg foo young, wonton soup, and many other dishes.

if you ever visit china (i have) you realize that. as many reviews have stated, this restaurant is authentic. it may not match what you are used to. if so, don't down-vote it just because it is unfamiliar and not what you expect. if you hate surprises, go eat at mcdonalds.

these noodles are to die for.

so good. i moved from ca 6 yrs. ago and had yet to find decent chinese food. this place takes the cake-by far. service-ok. food great. we ordered the dry cooked string beans (very good) orange beef (not bad but the weakest dish on the table) and kung pao chicken (very good) the servings were very generous. even the fortune cookies were good--when was the last time you had a fortune cookie that wasn't stale and tasteless?!? thumbs up!!!

very disappointed, msg. i was very excited to try taste of sichuan! i grew up on san francisco chinese food and my parents and grandparents chinese food. i thought the food was delicious while eating it. a few hours later my fingers were so swollen they ached. they still do today, just slightly less.

i'm i'm very disappointed in the restaurant for using msg! i don't know if i liked the food because of the non msg ingredients or the msg. taste of sichuan may be liberal with the sichuan peppercorns, but they're also liberal with the msg. i'll give it a 2nd try, because my family and i really liked this place. i'll insist on no msg, but we'll see.

we ate white rice, sweet & sour pork, seafood chow mein with hand shaved noodles, general's chichen in sweet & spicy sauce, chong qing chicken, the other parts of the pig.

great food, sketchy service. having gone to taste of sichuan several times in the months since it opened, i can honestly say that while they have delicious food, their sense of service leaves something to be desired.

the good:
their food is fantastic. noodles, rice, chicken, pork, beef, pork buns, frog, jellyfish, i've had it all and loved it all. i don't know how authentic it is, but it strikes me as closer to the mark than pf changs, panda express, and the like. moreover there seems to be a large following of local chinese residents so i'm inclined to believe their dishes are authentic. so delicious and authentic chinese cuisine = awesome.

the bad:
if you go any time other than lunch, you will likely find yourself waiting, and by waiting i mean waiting a long time at every stage of the encounter. you will sit in line to be seated. you will wait to be approached about your drink order. you will wait to actually order. at this point, you will have waited at least half an hour. sometimes you will have to actually approach the servers yourself and ask if you can place your order.

then your food will come in stages, so that you feel inclined to either sit and wait for your friend's/family's food to arrive, or wait for the rice to come with your meat dish or you end up finishing an entire segment of your meal before the remainder arrives.

then you'll find yourself waiting again while your server is busy doing everything but bringing you your bill, more drinks, or to-go boxes.

and if they mess up your take-out order they won't give you a refund. to their credit, they'll give you a free entre that you did order, but you may ultimately still find yourself out several dollars more than expected. this involves a somewhat dubious system of giving your name and keeping your bill (which doesn't list what you purchased) and so i was inclined to just take the extra food immediately and save it rather than risk not getting it later.

in sum:
i really want to love this place. my first experience here was great. the second was worse. the third established a pattern. lunch is a great time to go, prices are cheap, portions are large, and the food is excellent (if only a limited version of the menu). but dinner and take-out are dubious. i'd hoped that the early service problems were due to new establishment growing pains, but its been a long while now and nothing has improved; if anything its gotten worse. this place could be fantastic with some streamlining of the service systems. as it stands, it is only "ok" and that's merely on the strength of its food.

astonishingly good. taste of sichuan has taken my lukewarm feelings about chinese food to true, unadulterated enthusiasm! everything we ordered was fresh, hot, and exquisitely flavored.... i'm pretty sure i've never had such wonderful chinese.

tip: the crispy walnut prawns are *amazing* - with a light, subtly lemony creamy sauce that accentuates the yummy prawins, my husband & i agreed it was our favorite. we also loved the dry cooked string beans, cooked perfectly until tender-crisp and flavored so well.

the interior is fine, not quite chinese cafe, and not a full-on romantic date spot, but is still good for a fun friday night out.... and with food like this, who needs romantic ambiance?

authentic ma la flavor - in beaverton?. yes! when my hot-and-sour soup--a prequel to my lunch entree and included in the price--arrived, i was very pleased to detect the distinctive sichuan flavor ma la (literally, "hot-numb" [spicy from crushed red chile peppers, numbing from formerly-illegal sichuan peppercorns]) throughout. delicious, and absolutely szechwan in nature. my entree was chow mein (i chose hand-shaved for my noodles, chicken as the protein) and it was delicious. very subtle, not salty or hot in the least--but intricately seasoned, full of crisp-tender julienned vegetables. the hand-shaved noodles--thick, rough, angular, variable in size--were authentic too; i had missed these since i left seattle.

everything about the visit was spot on. i arrived for a late lunch, just shy of 2:00 pm. service for me was excellent; my server spoke english well and absolutely everything about my order--including a carefully-described beverage--was accurate and timely. of course, service probably has more to do with the actual person waiting on you; i heard some peeved yet polite white people in a nearby booth asking their server (a different person) for -their- soup, now that they were well into their entree. the cavernous place was spotlessly clean, and though not terribly full at my odd visiting hour, one can see that it is built to accommodate tremendous crowds. when i visited the men's restroom, i found it spacious, beautifully appointed, and impeccably clean.

about that mild chow mein: my server assured me that next time, i can order it with extra spice, chiles, ma la oil--whatever i want. no one can beat that! this place is wonderful, and well worth the schlep out to the far reaches of beaverton.

this was our first time there and i thought it was pretty good. i started off with a cup of the egg flower soup which was a little on the sweet side because they put sweet corn in it. but it's probably their recipe. next came the pot stickers! they were delicious! they came with a hot chili sauce that was very flavorful . for a main course, i ordered the crispy hot chili chicken which was pretty good except it was a bit on the sweet side for my tastes. my wife ordered the spicy prawns with black mushrooms and snow peas. that was really good! overall, it was a pretty good experience. one note: the restaurant was packed and probably over 95 percent of the patrons were asian which is a very good sign that this place is good! we will be back and try something else. also the waitresses were cute.

food was inedible. the food was so salty it was inedible. the first time we tried this place, the food and the service as good. but this last time the food was so salty, we couldn't eat it. we won't be back.

ok noodles... stay away from the stir fry.. i was very curious about this establishments always seeing the parking lot full. i decided to take the family and give it a try. the staff quickly greeted us and we got a seat quickly. we ordered the 3 dishes. the handmade potstickers to start (at least i was hoping), beef chow mein, crispy chicken with hot garlic sauce, and the chon qing hot chicken. the food literally came out within 5 minutes of placing our order. not just the potstickers but the main dishes as well. in any case we began to eat. the chong qing chicken seemed to have a little to much numbing powder and it it was bearable at best. the crispy chicken wasn't crispy at all. the potstickers were cooked fried on one side only, usually you would brown both sides to get a little crimping of the both sides. the highlight of the meal was the handmade noodles in the chow mein. the noodles were perfect in texture and thickness. the downside to the chow mein was the amount of oil they used. my family has been in the chinese restaurant business for a good 25 years of my life and was the head chef for 5 of those years, but there is no need to cover the noodles in oil. a teaspoon of vegetable oil to cover the wok is all you should need. i think there was at least several tablespoons. i will return but will try there noodle soups and stay clear of the stir fry.

we love this place!. have been several times, food is piping hot....staff is friendly, great selection of food entrees........we think it's the best chinese place in area.