taste of sichuan beaverton

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 ofsichuanon 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.

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 ofsichuanmay be liberal with thesichuanpeppercorns, 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 ofsichuanseveral 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 ofsichuanhas 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 distinctivesichuanflavor ma la (literally, "hot-numb" [spicy from crushed red chile peppers, numbing from formerly-illegalsichuanpeppercorns]) 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.

it should have been better. i lived in beijing over a year and have been back several times. i had been looking forward to trying a taste of sichuan.

i felt the service was quite terrible. it took nearly an hour and a half for the mu shu pork to arrive at our table. what were they doing? chasing down the pig? the mu shu pork should not have been served so late. it was very rude of the waiter to insist we accept it, especially since we had told him to forget it only a few minutes before.

the noodles were too thick, machine cut, and had too thick a sauce, and that was americanized almost beyond recognition - not at all what i had eaten in chengdu.

the pepper beef dish was also too americanized. it was not a recognizable chinese dish.

the fresh pork belly with chiles was ok but nothing special.

the ma po dofu was a potentially outstanding dish, representative ofsichuanstyle - except for the notable absence of any "lip feel" from 麻辣 (málà), which should have been its signature.

the green onion pancakes were good, but the vinegar served with them was taiwanese, not shaanxi. it is just the wrong flavor.

the potstickers were a little too thick-walled for my taste, and the ginger emphasis in the filling disproportionate to the rest of the spices.

i was a bit surprised that they had only a rather ordinary jasmine tea.

all in all, it was a notch above mediocre; decent but not exceptional food ruined by dreadful service.

i am willing to give it another shot, but the next time i want to try much more of the "wild side" dishes. still on my list (all of which i ate during my year in china):
dry cooked frog
chengdu bbq lamb
the other parts of a pig
fire pot - beef brisket, fish morsels and intestine
swimming fire fish

as far as the spice level, i don't think it came even close to that in chengdu. i did not find it overwhelming.

the service really was bad. our table was dreadful. it was obvious there were communication issues between the kitchen and the wait staff. it was also clear to me that our waiter understood it was wrong to thrust that very late dish on us, but he did it anyway.

i think if we are going to eat americanized chinese, we have better options elsewhere. i would like to go back to beijing hot pot (out near fubonn) and see how they are faring under their new management.

don't bother...... tried lunch there.....how can a chinese restaurant screw up fried rice...? they did! bland, soggy fried rice with no meat, 2 peas and a couple of cubed carrots...that was it.
tried thesichuanchicken with hot garlic sauce........way to much garlic even for this garlic lover......!
not good!

pretty good. i was a little hesitant to try taste ofsichuanbecause of a previous review i read. but, food was good, service was good, and pricing was good.

i ordered the lunch special and had the garlic pork with a coke. the lunch special came with sweet and sour soup, your choice of rice (fried or steamed), and meat.

the waiters seemed a little inexperienced, but very responsive once you asked for something. the place was very busy when i showed up for lunch, so i thought the service was very good based on the workload the waiters were dealing with.

not so good. i went to taste ofsichuanthis afternoon because they had a $6.99 lunch special on a sidewalk sign. this is the old marie calendars location on cornell rd. i was seated promptly and given a menu.

i told my waiter i wanted the lunch special and he asked if i wanted beef, chicken or pork, and hot and sour for soup. i told him beef. he also asked if i wanted steamed or fried rice, i requested fried.

the soup came and it was sour but not hot (spicy), and it was a lot different than other hot & sour soups. it was just ok. my beef came, and it was smothered with sautéed brown onions, and green onions in a gravy with not much beef. it did not taste so great. the fried rice was completely flavorless. what was unusual for chinese was a pile of shredded lettuce between my fried rice and the beef and onions. very out of place and bizarre.

i waited a long time for my check so i went up to the cashier
and she charged me $7.99. i had to explain the lunch special issue. next i gave her my amex card. she repeatedly tried to run it and then realized they don't take amex. i paid with another card and she did give me $1.00 back in cash.

i can't recommend this place at all. this is my first negative review of an eatery, and i have written many. i hope they improve.