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
Tag Archives: Sichuan Cuisine
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
Sichuan Chilli King (Dublin, Summer 2023)
Only two more restaurant reports to go from our stay in Dublin this summer, and they’re both from places we really enjoyed. The first is a place we ate at twice as a family, and I went back a third time as well with a group of students in tow: Sichuan Chilli King. I had little idea before arriving in Dublin as to what the non-Irish and European food scene would be like. If I’d been asked, I probably would have said that I had low expectations of Chinese food in the city. And our first Chinese outings—dim sum at Ka Shing and Good World—would have mostly borne those expectations out: they were decent meals but nothing more. I certainly was not expecting to find good Sichuan food and so we did not have our hopes up on our first visit to Sichuan Chilli King: we went mostly because it was the start of our third week in Dublin and we needed some heat! As you can guess from the fact that there was both a second and third visit, we in fact liked the food there very much. Herewith a brief report on all three meals. 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
Legendary Spice (Minneapolis)
I said at the start of last week’s Twin Cities Metro review that it was and was not my first review of Pho Tempo. Similarly, this is and is not my first review of Legendary Spice. In the case of Pho Tempo it was because the restaurant (attached to Saigon Market) had undergone a renovation, menu makeover and name change since my first review. The story with Legendary Spice is a bit more complicated. They opened in 2017 as a Minneapolis franchise of the Chicago-based Lao Sze Chuan group. It was in that avatar that I reviewed them in 2018. The next year they split from the Lao Sze Chuan group, changing the name to Legendary Spice, now with a link to a Chengdu-based restaurant. They remained in the same space and have many of the same dishes. Back in 2018, we liked our meal fine but, as I said at the end of that review, we didn’t think it was anything that warranted driving a further 20 minutes north past the exit for Grand Szechuan or, for that matter, picking them over Tea House, which is just a minute or so away. This meal, however, was a different story. We liked it a lot more. 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
Pandemic Takeout 39: Grand Szechuan to Start the New Year
Can a year that begins with mapo tofu as excellent as the one pictured at left possibly be bad? Of course it can. We ate Grand Szechuan’s mapo tofu several times last year and it was a shit year anyway. So while I am very happy to have started 2021 with Grand Szechuan as our first pandemic takeout meal I’m not taking this as a portent of anything. Cheerful bastard, aren’t I? But a thing to be very happy for, regardless of your outlook, is that Grand Szechuan is still in business and that, if the number of people arriving for pickups while I was waiting outside this Sunday is any indication, they are not in danger of closing any time soon. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 34: Grand Szechuan (Bloomington, MN)
Well, we are back in quasi-lockdown in Minnesota. I say “quasi-lockdown” because nowhere in the US have we had anything resembling an actual lockdown since the beginning of the pandemic. Perhaps if we’d had one back in the first half of the year things wouldn’t be quite as fucked as they are now, with numbers spiking higher than they were in the first wave. Our own part of Southern Minnesota has been hit particularly hard with our little “metro area” down here regularly showing up once again in the “top 10” rankings for infection rates in the country. At home we have clamped down pretty tight. No more meals on the deck with friends and no more visits/meals inside with those we were podding with. (Alas, this means we’ll be doing Thanksgiving on our own for the first time in more than 15 years. We’ll manage.) I did one large Costco run earlier in the month that should take us through mid-December—it’ll be curbside grocery shopping for the foreseeable future after that. The only indulgence will continue to be weekly takeout runs—though we will be eating on our own for the foreseeable future. Hopefully most places will move to a curbside takeout system; if I need to go in for pickup I’ll double mask it as I’ve been doing in enclosed public spaces for the last month, and as I did at Grand Szechuan this past weekend. For yes, I went back to pick up yet another excessive order from them. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 28: Szechuan Spice (Minneapolis)
I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to keep up our long family walks on Saturday mornings in parks in the Twin Cities Metro. It’s about to start getting pretty cold. The maximum for this coming Saturday is forecast to be 46f, which means it’ll be in the high 30s at the time we usually start our walks. This past Saturday, however, was not quite so chilly and we went for a walk around Bde Maka Ska in Minneapolis. It’s a 3.2 mile loop around the lake but we managed to get off-track right at the start and added another .3 miles on to it. Which meant that by the time we picked up our lunch and took it home to eat with friends on our deck we were good and hungry. A good thing then that we picked up a lot of food. Where did we get it from? Szechuan Spice, which is just a few minutes drive from the lake. Continue reading
Pandemic Takeout 22: More Heat from Grand Szechuan
It’s been almost two months since my previous Grand Szechuan report but don’t worry, they’re still in business and we’re still eating their food on the regular. As of August 1 they are once again open seven days a week, but they’re still open only for takeout. That takeout business appears to be brisk—at least on weekend evenings. The place was hopping—in a masked and socially-distanced kind of way—when I picked up our most recent meal on a Friday evening. There seemed to be more staff visible as well. I hope they’re doing decent business at lunch and on weekdays as well. But to be safe we should all keep ordering from them. Continue reading
My Annoying Opinions 