We are out of Minnesota for most of the summer. Fittingly, the restaurant meal with which we bid goodbye to the Twin Cities metro was a dinner at Grand Szechuan with many members of our usual Grand Szechuan crew. I am very pleased to report that the restaurant is now all the way back from its staffing issues that lingered from late last year into the early part of this year. Yes, we had a very good meal there in late March (see here) but that had still featured the smaller, folded paper menus and there weren’t many familiar faces to be seen. At this meal we were once again presented with large, formal menus. Not everything that used to be on the pre-crisis menu is on it—no “Spicy, Hammered Chicken” for instance—but it is mostly comprehensive. And though we didn’t see Chef Luo at this meal either (though we were at an out-of-the-way table behind the check-in desk) we saw plenty of other faces we’ve known for a while. And, most importantly, it was a rather excellent meal. Here are the details.

We were a group of 10. As we were eating dinner on a Saturday, we’d prudently made a reservation. A good thing too as all the other large tables were taken. It was very good to see them so busy. We sat down at one of the two large round tables behind/beside the check-in desk and got down to business.

What did we get? A mix of old favourites and new things. Well, it was mostly old favourites though we did also get four dishes from the specials menu on the wall by the entrance.

Smaller dishes to start:

• Chengdu Spicy Dumplings. Very good as always.
• Chengdu Spicy Wontons. Ditto. (And in case you’re wondering, these are not in identical sauces.)
• Dan Dan Noodles. Mostly demolished by our boys, who reported it was as good as always.
• Szechuan Cucumbers. It’s good to eat your veg. Especially when they’re crisp and tossed in chilli oil.
• 8 Second Potatoes. This is a starter from the specials listed on the wall and it’s just great. Thin strips of potatoes that have presumably been cooked for just 8 seconds—and then tossed in chilli oil and showered with ground Sichuan peppercorn. This was our first time eating this and it’s now going in the regular rotation.
• Sour Spicy Vermicelli. As is this dish of glass noodles in a vinegary, spicy sauce that was also on the specials menu.
• Couples’ Beef. An old-favourite, this mix of cold sliced beef and tripe in chilli oil was very good as always.

Soup:

• Fish in Milky White Broth. One of our favourite soups on the menu (it had also originated on the specials menu many years ago), this is also very good as a relief dish.

Larger non- vegetarian dishes:

• Fish Flavoured Pork. A reminder for those who’ve not had this genre of dishes, despite the name, there is no fish in this: the pork is cooked with flavours used for fish. Excellent as always.
• Triple Flavoured Squid/Spicy Squid Roll: This remains one of the best dishes available in the Twin Cities Metro.
• Fish Fillet with Bean Jelly in Spicy Sauce: We love this dish and don’t get it often enough. Glad to scratch the itch on this occasion though.
• Soft Tofu with Salted Egg Yolk: This had hit the specials board right before the pandemic and is still on it. You have to like the texture of soft tofu but if you do, the mild, delicate pleasures of this dish will please you.
• Stir-Fried Beef Aorta: Yes. This had also entered the specials menu before the pandemic. We’d had it once before and were happy to try it again. The texture of the aorta is close to that of squid and the spicy-sour sauce it is stir-fried with complements it nicely.
• Chengdu Grilled Lamb. Another old-favourite that did not disappoint.

Vegetarian dishes:

• Szechuan Green Beans: If you eat at Grand Szechuan and don’t get these then have you really eaten at Grand Szechuan?
• Eggplant in Sweet Bean Sauce. We’re always happy to get either this or the fish-flavoured eggplant; but as we’d got the fish-flavoured pork, we were happy to get this version instead. Just great.

For a look at what we ate, click on an image below to launch a larger slideshow. Scroll down to see how much it all cost and to see what’s coming next on the restaurant report front.

With tax and tip, this prodigious amount of food cost $300 or $30/head. That’s not including the fact that there were leftovers—and that we all over-ate like crazy. So the effective per head price is in fact much lower. Still one of the great values in the Twin Cities given the high quality of the food. There was not one dish at this dinner that was not at least very good but I’ll single out the following: the 8 Second Potatoes, the Spicy Sour Vermicelli, the Triple-Flavour Squid (of course), the Soft Tofu with Salted Egg Yolk, and the Eggplant in Sweet Bean Sauce. By the way, I should say that only a few of the dishes on the specials menu have their names translated to English. But if you ask your server to tell you what they all are, they—or someone more English-fluent—will be glad to tell you.

Odds are very good that Grand Szechuan will be our first port of call when we’re back in Minnesota later in the summer. I will have a couple more Twin Cities reports before then, but those will be of grocery stores, not restaurants. Restaurant reports will come your way primarily from Italy and Ireland (with the occasional Seoul and New York straggler).