La Maison Szechuan — Restaurant in Gatineau

We traveled from Ottawa here in hope trying some authentic Sichuan food. We were not disappointed. The food was good as well as the service. I am really happy to see that there are still chefs who are passionate about introducing authentic Sichuan food to everyone.

Some notes for the owner:

I did find the food way too oily though. I am no stranger to Sichuan food, by the very contrast, I grew up eating Chengdu food. But even for me the oil in every dish we ordered can suffocated me. I didn’t feel well after finishing the meal. I walked in the neighbourhood trying to digest the heaviness in my stomach right after the meal, but I felt that I needed at least 2 hours of workout to get fully “recovered”.

Other than that, as a person who always prefers food with less salt, I surprisingly found my dishes were lack of salt. I am not sure if it was just for that day or it has always been like that. The waitress served us with salt right after we asked, it is just a tiny detail that a chef might pay more attention to though.

And I think the cucumbers in our dish Suanni Bairou would taste much yummy if they were buried underneath the meat.

Last but not least, compared with Sichuan restaurants in Ottawa, it’s much pricey. We ordered two dishes and it cost us nearly 70 bucks, which almost doubled what we paid in other Sichuan restaurants in Ottawa. We feel it’s still worth it. Just a note here for others who are curious about the cost.

In general, it’s a quite a good experience for us. We didn’t drive 40 mins here for nothing. I am told the chef is a Cantonese, and he did a decent job cooking Sichuan food. I also hope there can be more options, at least including some really classical Sichuan dishes like salad chicken and Fuqi Feipian, which are both missing from the menu. How could that be...

Was a very delicious experience, they have 3 menus, one may say, too many.

One is the typical Westernize Chinese with Sechuan influences.

A Second is a more authentic menu all in Chinese.

All you can eat menu is a more limited selection of the westernized Chinese menu of smaller plates in an all you can eat format. 3 to 4 dishes will usually satisfy me and an other but appetites vary, start small and reorder.

Everything was very tasty and freshly made, the lemon chicken surprised me, I often see that it's one dish with many diffrent sauces but not here. One chicken dish is dark meat while an other might be white, General Toa chicken might be cubes and lemon chicken more matchstick, this added to the crispiness and was not too sweet if that makes sense considering.

The service was on point and bilingual English/French on arrival but also Mandarin as soon as we showed any sense of fluency.

We really enjoyed our experience and instead of ordering, might drive down next time. The price was about the same with a larger...

IMPORTANT: Please check your bank account after you pay! We went for Valentine's day and my husband was charge twice on his bank account and not the only one. One charge was under the restaurant name and the other one for the same amount under a different name! My husband went to the restaurant, the manager was not able to help and directed him to the owner. After several weeks and phone calls, the owner turn around and told him, check with your bank! This is the most very poor service of my life!

Come on owner, don't you want an happy customer to make good comments about your place instead of doing bad publicity! We have to file a fraud to the bank as per your request? Wow good luck with your publicity and place because I will not sit on my a.. and make you good comments, more...