Spicy House revisited

So Spicy House is now under...what; it's third set of owners since 2010? I had some friends in town recently and they wanted to eat at Spicy House...mainly because our good friend Samuelo says it's the best Sichuan in town. Now, I take that with a grain of salt since "S" has all kinds of self imposed restrictions...he eats pork, but no intestines, pork ears....no tendon, no lamb,  no poultry of any kind.....no fun! He also is not super fond of Sichuan peppercorns and is mostly interested in straight up spicy and salty....he should really eat Hunan. Our friends who were visiting....well one of them can't really deal with seriously spicy food and our other friends, a wonderful couple really just want vegetables! Though MsA eats here often, I found out that it's mostly the Americanized "lunch specials". Sigh.....such is life....

So we all ordered dishes, with my objective of introducing these folks to other flavors and such....well Akira knows how I operate, having shared more than a few meals with me and his wonderful missus Diana is game for anything. As for Samuelo.....well at the last minute

I went ahead and ordered some Liang Cai....cold dishes, which Ms.A, in spite of eating here a couple of times a month had never even noticed....she and her husband really enjoyed these dishes.

Actually, these were among the better dishes of the evening.....

Of ocurse we had some vegetable items....like the very basic napa cabbage with black vinegar.....

Which I actually make better at home.....poor wok skills here as the cabbage really lacked any of the texture of something cooked over very high heat. The chilies really didn't bring anything to the dish.....a typical home style dish that seemed like it was cooked in a typical home.

Ms,A's husband decided to order the roasted peppers.....

Good heat(it had Akira turning a bright vermillion in color and coughing) and garlic, but not enoguh salt for me.

Akira, in spite of his low tolerance for heat, always enjoyed the Hot Pepper Prawns at Ba Ren, so he ordered the version here.

I'm not a big fan of this new style of batter, which is artificially sweet and almost cake like. This really needed more Sichuan peppercorns and in spite of looks was not very spicy....it had just been mixed with partially scalded chilies, rather than taking the time to actually stir fry the chilies with garlic and Sichuan peppercorns then removing from the heat, adding the shrimp and mixing well to coat the shrimp and batter in the fragrant seasoned oil.

The Ko Shui Ji was surprisingly tame and lacked a nice depth of flavor......a hint of black vinegar, ginger, garlic....

It was like cold chicken in weak chili oil.........

The surprise of the night was the Zi Ran Yang Rou - the Cumin Lamb. Ms.A's husband had never eaten lamb before and he loved the flavor of this.

The lamb was on the tough side, but this was seasoned fairly well....it could have used more cumin, but I really enjoy a lot of cumin so take that with a grain of salt. This was a decently prepared and cooked dish.

In end the end, it was great seeing old friends, the jokes and laughter.....the food was secondary. Which was probably for the better. I've got to get Samuelo here to find those "really good dishes" he tells me about.......

Spicy House
3860 Convoy Street #105
San Diego, CA 92111

Comments

[nhbilly]

Too many restrictions. No FUN!

[Kirk]

So true Billy....so true....

[Faye]

I haven't been here in ages. I admire "S" food restrictions :) Those roasted peppers look like jalapenos? The Ko Shui Ji is served cold right? Can you recommend the best place to get Ko Shui Ji in SD. It sounds great for lunch today.

[Kirk]

Hi Faye - I guess it would either be Fu An Garden or Spicy City for Ko Shui Ji, both are flawed. It is a cold dish. That and Sichuan Liang Mian used to be the cold spicy dishes I love when the weather's really warm. Good Luck!

[kat]

you should open a shop soon :)

[Kirk]

That would be too much work Kat!