Mala chili 麻辣川味 — Restaurant in Austin

This’s how I would sum up Mala Chili - Friendly customer service, fast, delicious, freshly cooked to order food, and a very reasonable price for the portion size!

SERVICE: We stopped by for lunch here the first time on a Tuesday after reading good reviews on Yelp. We were greeted warmly by the lady at the counter (we are not sure, but think she might be the owner since she was there the second time we went too). There are plenty of seats indoors and a kiosk at the front to place an order (legendary if you’re not a people person; or just in a hurry). We told her that we wanted to sit outside so she told us to look at the menu online and asked if it’s okay for the food to be served in to-go containers (we were fine with that). We sat at their patio seating out front on the left side of the restaurant. After a few minutes, she came out to take our order.

FOOD: We got their SPICY CHICKEN and GENERAL TSO CHICKEN (…I know but it’s my husband’s favorite, what can I say 🙄).

SPICY CHICKEN (I personally love this dish with pork at another restaurant on Research Blvd), and it turned out I really love Mala Chili’s spicy chicken too as the chicken was so crispy on the outside and perfectly cooked inside. The spiciness and numbness level (from Sichuan peppers) was mild so you do not lose your sense of taste which I appreciate very much. GENERAL TSO CHICKEN - it was perfectly cooked too but there was too much sauce so the chicken got soggy quick (that was on us, we forgot we always customize this dish—need to order with less sauce, and extra spicy next time). We also tried their SHUMAI (STEAMED DUMPLINGS)and their PEKING DUCK which came with pancakes, julienned cucumber & scallion, and sauce and duck bone soup with cabbage & glass noodles and both were good.

We loved their food so much, we came back the following week to get their spicy chicken (again) and cumin lamb! CUMIN LAMB was so good, less spicy and less cumin leaves than what I got from another restaurant on Research Blvd but the flavor was good and the gaminess of the lamb was less pronounced where my husband could enjoy this dish (normally he doesn’t like it).

All in all, we will be regulars here. The food is top notch; it is close to our regular haunt H-Mart, and we love the staff. Major 5-stars, “two enthusiastic thumbs up, fine holiday fun” 🙌🏻😋( 10 points for whoever guesses what movie this quote...

This place was a 5/5 with the exception of one particularly bad experience that I want to start my review with. The soap in the bathroom is HORRIBLE. It has a very strong, ugly aroma and it leaves a persistent smell on your hands. Seriously, this place needs to do something about that soap. Please, use either a fragrance-free soap, or one with an aroma that dissipates quickly. I had to wash my hands before eating because they were dirty, but then I was left with that awful smell from the soap on my hands, and it seriously interfered with my ability to enjoy my meal.

The rest of the experience though? 5/5. The food was top-notch. Very good, authentic Chinese food. Not too spicy, very flavorful, very balanced. I loved the ingredients, lotus root, wood ear mushroom, the stuff that I love about this style of food. The shrimp were fried to perfection, the tail was so crispy you could eat the shell and chew it and it was great, yet the meat inside the shrimp was not at all overcooked. That takes great skill to execute. The chefs here must really know what they are doing.

The service was very good too. The interior and bathrooms were were clean. Nice, large tables.

My only other complaint about this place is the location. Frankly it is just kinda lousy. Right next to a highway, just a big ugly parking lot out the window. The whole area is incredibly car-oriented. The air quality is bad because of the highway and the cars and lack of trees. I hate this whole area, which is such a shame because it's right next to an H-Mart and I love H-Mart. I recognize that this is a problem bigger than just this one restaurant alone, but it's worth mentioning because it really does detract from the dining experience. Coming to and from here, getting out of the car and walking to the place, and looking out the window, are all a rather unpleasant experience, a jarring contrast to the exquisite nature of the food here. It's harder to fix than the soap too.

Seriously though, fix that soap. Either fragrance-free, or one with a quick-dissipating fragrance that is not so clashing with the food. A mild fruity or floral fragrance would be great. The soap here smelled ugly and like chemicals and just lingered on my hands through the whole meal. How anyone could not be aware of this is beyond me....

If you're craving authentic Sichuan with a fun unique robot experience, Mala Chili is the spot!

We had heard a lot about this hidden little gem inside the H-Mart parking lot, but didn’t expect the flavors to we ate to be so satisfying and soul warming!

They even have an adorable and hilarious robot server that had us giggling and grinning from the start.

FYI- The menu is HUGE—like, "you’ll need a second to process this" kind of huge—but thankfully, the manager was incredibly informative and helped us narrow it down based on our flavor and meat preferences plus gave us some insights on the spice tolerance.

While everything we ate was SUPER tasty, let’s talk about the stars of the show: The Mala Dry Pot Fish — hands down a must-order! We’re always hesitant to order fish at a Chinese restaurant, because we get nervous that it will smell or taste fish, but we can hands down say that this was one of our FAV’s!!! It was perfectly crispy, not fishy at all, and PACKED with flavor! The Spicy Chicken and the Fried Shrimp with Crispy Rice felt similar in flavoring as the dry pot fish and super easy to pop in your mouth and eat! So crispy such a MUST!

The Male Lamb Shank is a MUST for lamb lovers! Massive in size and the accompanied veggies were also to die for!

The Scallion pancakes were a classic and so crispy!

The 1/2 order of Peking Duck to make duck tacos and enjoy some glass noodle soup was also super fun and we LOVED the sauce and broth it came with! Don’t skip the bubbly drinks! We got the Golden Bubbly with no added sugar—and it was perfectly refreshing and just sweet enough to cool the spice.

Passion Fruit Panna Yotta was the perfect dessert finish!! Creamy, sweet and tangy!

Bonus: you can BYOB, and we did just that with some cerveza!

Portions are generous (come hungry or bring a friend with big chopstick energy), service is speedy, and the whole experience was way more fun than your average dinner out!

Whether you're a Sichuan pro or curious newbie like us, Mala Chili is absolutely worth...