Sichuan Gourmet

In the unlikely location on the first floor of a strip mall in Framingham lurks the best Chinese restaurant in Boston. It is that rarity - an authentic Sichuan restaurant. The place is very simple, with vast portions and absurdly low prices.  We over-ordered wildly and still ended up with a bill of less than $25 a head.

Hot and soup soup was properly made with a good meat stock (13/20). I was impressed by roast beef and tendon with chilli sauce, the strips of beef having good texture and the lively sauce enhancing rather than overwhelming the flavour of the meat (13/20). Salt crusted prawns were served in their shells and cooked through nicely, well seasoned and simple (12/20). Tea smoked duck was pleasant (12/20) though perhaps a little bland given the rest of the dishes.  JinGu fish fillets were excellent, the pieces of fish served with a spicy sauce involving proper Sichuan peppercorns as the usual chilli (14/20). Also good was beef and Napa cabbage with another spicy sauce (12/20). 

The only real blemish in the cooking was steamed bak choi with garlic that was cooked too long and so was not as tender as it should have been (11/20). We ended the meal with potato cakes with bean paste filling. Service was pleasant and overall this was quite a find. I preferred this to the Sichuan restaurant I was taken to in Beijing a year ago.