I regret to inform that till this past weekend it had somehow been almost five months since we’d last eaten at Grand Szechuan. I blame our summer travels and the fact that most of the friends we typically go there with were out of town when we got back. On the other hand, I am very happy to inform that is now only three days since our last meal at Grand Szechuan. We went back for lunch this Sunday with most of our aforementioned crew of Grand Szechuan regulars and did our usual excessive order. We got a mix of all-time favourites and dishes that we had not ordered in a while. Do I need to say that it was an excellent meal? Well, it was. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Grand Szechuan
Grand Szechuan, April 2025 (Bloomington, MN)
We didn’t go out to eat this past weekend. The missus is out of town and the boys and I spent what felt like the entire weekend setting up our community garden plot in advance of the rain that has been pissing down in southern Minnesota since Monday evening (and will continue through Wednesday). But I have a Twin Cities meal report for you anyway this week. It’s of another meal at Grand Szechuan in Bloomington. We’d eaten this meal with friends just about a month ago. At the time, I’d only just reported on another meal eaten at Grand Szechuan just a few weeks prior, and so I’d held off on posting the report, expecting to merge it with a report on our next meal there. I do hope we’ll eat there in June before our summer travel plans get going but if not the memory of this meal will have to tide us over till the next. Continue reading
Grand Szechuan, March 2025 (Bloomington, MN)
What better way to mark your return to Minnesota than with a meal at Grand Szechuan? You’re right: there is none. I got back from Delhi on Friday evening, and at noon on Saturday we descended on Grand Szechuan for lunch. It had somehow been three months since our last meal there (this Christmas blowout). We made up at least partially for lost time with another large meal. We were a group of 10 regulars—the four of us plus a few friends we eat there with often. The only surprising thing about the meal was that we did not order the Triple Flavour Squid/Spicy Squid Roll. We did get some other dishes we order often but supplemented them with others we hadn’t had in a while. The absence of squiddy goodness notwithstanding, it was another excellent meal at our family’s favourite restaurant in Minnesota. Continue reading
Grand Szechuan, Christmas 2024 (Bloomington, MN)
We bade farewell to Twin Cities dining in 2023 with lunch at Grand Szechuan on Christmas and it seemed only right to see 2024 off the same way. We once again descended on them with a bunch of the people we eat there with most often and once again had a bit of a blowout meal, comprised largely of old favourites—and also one dish that I ordered without telling anyone (look to the left). 2024 was a year in which we ate out a lot (see my post from yesterday on my favourite restaurant meals of the year). Our meals at Grand Szechuan were among the highlights of the year and this last lunch was no exception. Given the vagaries of the restaurant world—to say nothing of the additional stresses of the pandemic—we feel very fortunate that Grand Szechuan—our family’s favourite restaurant in Minnesota—is still going strong. And we are very grateful that they are still putting out food at a very high level. Continue reading
Grand Szechuan, October 2024 (Bloomington, MN)
My last two Twin Cities restaurant reports have been from the high end of the market: Oro and Tenant. Let’s now go back to the more affordable end of the price spectrum. Price, of course, has no necessary bearing on quality or enjoyment of a meal; and it certainly doesn’t when the affordable meal is at Grand Szechuan in Bloomington. As I’ve said before, it is our family’s favourite restaurant in Minnesota, and is the place we eat at more than any other. It having been a dangerously long time since our last meal there (about two months ago), we went back this weekend for a bit of a blowout lunch. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Grand Szechuan, Summer 2024 (Bloomington, MN)
Yes, I am aware that I did not post the last New York and Seoul restaurant reports from my winter and spring travels that I’d said I’d post this past weekend. Let’s not dwell on that. Let’s instead look to the present and to the Twin Cities metro. It has been a dangerously long time since my last Grand Szechuan report—a full four months, in fact—and so here is a mid-year check-in. It comprises a look at two separate meals eaten just a couple of weeks apart in July and August. The first was a small affair with just the four of us in attendance; the second featured a larger group of seven. At the first meal we placed a fairly basic order of ye olde Sichuan cliches; the second was quite a bit more extensive (and also had more than twice as many dishes). Both meals were very good; the second was truly excellent. Here is a quick report on both. If you haven’t been eating at Grand Szechuan this summer, it’s not too late to correct your error. Continue reading
Grand Szechuan, March 2024 (Bloomington, MN)
We got back to Minnesota on Wednesday, March 27. On Sunday, March 31 we ate our first meal out. Of course, it was at Grand Szechuan, our family’s favourite restaurant in Minnesota. It’s always one of our favourite ways to welcome ourselves back to Minnesota after extended travel. And given that we hadn’t eaten any Sichuan food in three months—and no Chinese food beyond one Korean Chinese lunch in Seoul and one Indian Chinese dinner in Delhi—it was a particularly great way to welcome ourselves home after a long time away. We were joined by two friends who often eat with us there. Here’s how the meal went. Continue reading
Grand Szechuan, December 2023 (Bloomington, MN)
This is not the last restaurant report I’ll be posting this year—I still have one each to come later this week from Dublin and New York. It is, however, a report on our last restaurant meal in 2023. Fittingly, it was eaten at our family’s favourite restaurant in the Twin Cities metro: Grand Szechuan. We descended on them for lunch on Christmas with our most die-hard Grand Szechuan crew. There were eight of us and we did a fair bit of damage, with an order that was a mix of old favourites and some things we had not got in a while. It was an excellent meal and the perfect way to bid farewell to Twin Cities dining for a while. We’re going to be gone to Bombay and Seoul (and then Delhi) for a few months—there will be lots of excellent eating done in all those cities but we’ll miss Grand Szechuan anyway. Continue reading
Grand Szechuan, September 2023 (Bloomington, MN)
Well, it took a month but the tour of our favourite restaurants in the Twin Cities metro, after our return from a summer away, finally arrived at what is our family favourite restaurant in the Twin Cities: Grand Szechuan in Bloomington. Lunch here in June is how we had bid farewell to eating in the Twin Cities for more than two months. That we did not eat there right away on our return is down only to the fact that we unexpectedly ate very good Sichuan food in Dublin and so had other more urgent culinary desires to fulfill (Mexican and Thai among them). But this past weekend we finally made it there. We were accompanied by most of our usual Grand Szechuan crew. We were a large party of 11 diners (including our boys) and did a goodly amount of damage. Herewith the details. Continue reading
Grand Szechuan, June 2023 (Bloomington, MN)
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. Continue reading
A Grand Szechuan Check-In (Bloomington, MN)
Here is a quick, somewhat anxious check-in at Grand Szechuan, the Twin Cities metro’s house of Sichuan delights par excellence. Why anxious? Well, late last year—as noted in my annual year-end survey of our meals eaten there—the voluminous menu at Grand Szechuan suddenly shrank. The large “leather”-bound menus were replaced by a somewhat makeshift menu on folded printer paper. I did not see this myself but this was confirmed by a number of people. And a number of favourite dishes were not on that menu. The word was that there were staffing problems that caused this. We left for India shortly thereafter, had a busy February after we got back, and then I was off in Seoul in early March. And so it wasn’t till last week that I finally had a chance to go see for myself where things stood. Here is what I found. Continue reading
Grand Szechuan, 2022 (Bloomington, MN)
As I have said many times before, Grand Szechuan in Bloomington is probably our family’s favourite restaurant in Minnesota. It is the place we eat at the most, the place we’ve eaten at the most with the largest cross-section of our Minnesota friends, and the place we’ve probably taken more out-of-town guests to than any other. Through the first two years of the pandemic we got takeout from them at a steady tick, and this February they were the first Minnesota restaurant all four of us ate together at. I’ve previously chronicled that happy return on the blog. This report covers three other meals we ate in at Grand Szechuan over the rest of the year, mostly in the company of our usual Grand Szechuan crew. I can’t think of a more appropriate restaurant with which to close out my year in restaurant meal reports/reviews. Continue reading
Grand Szechuan: The Return
This past Saturday was a momentous day for our family. We went out to eat indoors at a restaurant in Minnesota for the first time since the pandemic began in early 2020. We’ve eaten outdoors at a number of places together; we’ve eaten indoors in Kansas City and Los Angeles; the missus and I have gone out to a few dine-in meals with friends; but we had not gone out, all four of us, to eat inside a restaurant in Minnesota. Before omicron happened we’d expected we’d be doing this as soon as the younger boy got his shots in November—but as it turned out, we needed to wait another two-and-a-half months to get comfortable with the idea. But now that things seem to be improving a fair bit in the state we felt—and feel—more comfortable with the prospect and indeed it seems now (with all of us double vaxxed and 3/4 of us boosted) that if we don’t begin to resume something more close to our old normal public life we might never do so. Hopefully, this decision will not come back to bite us in the rear: three days later we seem to all be fine and I pray it will stay that way. Continue reading
A Guide to Ordering at Grand Szechuan (Bloomington, MN)
As I never tire of saying, Grand Szechuan is our family’s favourite restaurant in Minnesota. We eat there more often each year than anywhere else—probably more than the next five places put together. Over the years—from well before I ever started this blog—we’ve introduced a good number of friends and colleagues to this great restaurant; and via the blog I’ve introduced a number of strangers to it as well. The introductions for friends and colleagues come with detailed suggestions—tailored to their tastes—on what to order. On the blog I once presented a suggested order but for the most part I’ve let my reviews function as a guide to the menu. But the menu is large and for people who aren’t just first-timers to the restaurant but also new to Sichuan food it also can be overwhelming. And so—sparked most recently by interest on the excellent Twin Cities East Metro Foodies Facebook page—here is a fuller guide to the menu that will hopefully result in not just a good first order but a second and third and fourth and fifth as well. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 71: Grand Szechuan (Bloomington, MN)
As I said last week, it’s been a dangerously long time since our last meal from Grand Szechuan. And so rather than compound that danger we picked up a big order from them this past Saturday. For a change we didn’t have a large crew of people joining us for pandemic takeout: it was just the four of us eating. However, those who know us well will not be surprised to hear that we ordered exactly the same amount of food for the four of us as we would have if there had been 8-10 of us. It’s the right thing to do. You get to eat a proper range of dishes and then you get leftovers that mean a few more days of deliciousness. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 66: Grand Szechuan (Bloomington, MN)
It’s been just about a month since my last pandemic takeout report. At the time of that post (a brief write-up of takeout from Matt’s Bar) I’d begun to think we were done with mostly takeout meals. We ate dinner in at Tenant, we ate in at all our meals in Kansas City, and we came back to the Twin Cities and ate in at Estelle. The coda to that Estelle meal, however, was a call from the restaurant the next day alerting us that a server had tested positive for covid and that they’d be shutting down for a few days as a result. A bad omen it seemed like and so it proved to be. With the rapid spread of the delta variant we’ve gone back to our previous cautious posture. We did not eat in anywhere in Madison and are unlikely to be eating in anywhere until either the numbers approve or vaccines are approved for <12 yos. We’re happy to eat at places with outdoor seating (see Taco Madre) and we’re happy to bring food back to eat with cautious and vaccinated friends at home. And that is what we did this past weekend with a a takeout order from Grand Szechuan. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 60: Grand Szechuan, Again
It has been almost three months since we last got food from Grand Szechuan, a situation that suggests dangerous negligence. But don’t alert the authorities: I went back this past Saturday and picked up a large order to eat with some of the friends we’ve been eating with throughout the pandemic. We have not yet eaten in anywhere and we haven’t yet had anyone but our pod friends inside the house. Both these things will change soon. Well, we might aim for outdoor eating at a restaurant before we take the plunge to go indoors. And it is quite likely that Grand Szechuan won’t be our first dine-in experience. This because they too are being cautious and are not yet open for dine-in. On Saturday I was told that they’ll almost certainly be opened back up for normal service in July and possibly as early as the end of June. Let’s see how it goes. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 50: A Midweek Grand Szechuan Feast
So the plan for last week’s pandemic takeout had been a return to Homi in St. Paul. But for tedious reasons we don’t need to go into—not least because it would involve my having to divulge my own idiocy—these got spiked on Wednesday. The options were no pandemic takeout last week or something midweek. The former option being clearly unacceptable we ended up doing takeout dinner on Thursday—and as a bonus we ended up getting food from Grand Szechuan. So winners all around and it turns out I was not an idiot after all but a hero. We’ll try to go back to Homi this week. In the meantime here’s a report on Sichuan excess. Continue reading