Spicy Szechuan — Restaurant in Austin

The fourth star is for being one of the few Chinese restaurants open during COVID-19. In fact, aside from the staff wearing masks, you'd hardly even know there was a change, which I appreciated. The food still comes out on actual plates, there's real silverware, and there's sweetener for the tea.

First things first. The staff is friendly, efficient, and happy to customize orders. As far as customizing orders, I'd also note that the menu lists what's on every entree -- which, as a picky eater, I really appreciate. Also, the food comes out quick. Very quick -- as in approaching fast food speeds.

Let's talk about the food. Fried pork potstickers. Classic Americanized Chinese food goodness. Unlike a lot of restaurants using the same food service product, these are the real deal -- steamed, then a quick pan fry before serving. And they're also larger than average. Combine these with the sauce and the chili oil (served on request) and you have a great appetizer to share or even a small plate for one. I also tried the General Tso's Chicken. Spicy Szechuan brags about serving all white meat chicken and it shows. As much as I know the quality of white meat is better, it also makes for a dryer entree. As such, I'd have appreciated a bit more sauce on the chicken. The large bowl of white rice was cooked correctly and made a perfect accompaniment for the chicken.

All in all, it's perfectly good Americanized Chinese food -- and even more perfect as a dine-in option in the current...

I've eaten in Spicy Szechuan once, and once intended to dine in but ended up ordering for take-out.

The food is good and portion sizes are excellent for the price (soup, egg roll, and 1.5 people worth of entrée for $16). I ordered kung pao chicken. The meat was well-cooked and the vegetables are fresh and crunchy. Sauce is a bit uninspired, but was better than anything I can make.

The staff is very pleasant, if a bit quiet and timid. No issues there.

Now to the reason I ordered take out on a Friday - the place was overrun with unruly kids there for unlimited sake. Everyone I saw showed ID, but I'm not convinced they were all 21. They group brought a speaker and was playing excessively loud club music, to the extent that I wasn't able to dine in the other room. They were being rude to the staff. I ended up ordering takeout instead and the food was still good - but I'm disappointed that times have been hard to the extent that they have to cater to such a unpleasant audience.

Overall, this place deserves better than the business it gets. Decent food, decent service, decent prices. I'm not going to dock points for...

So before lunch this morning, I placed an order online for pickup of an entree order of Beef & Broccoli to be ready for pickup around 1205. These guys nailed it and it was waiting on the counter as soon as I walked in. What I don't understand is how you completely excluded the chili paste I asked to be included either in the dish or on the side. I asked for fried rice and got white rice. Lame, but ok. Additionally, you charged me $2 for a CAN of coke. A bit of a rip-off, don't you think? Also, the entree order was flavorless aside from 2 or 3 little strings of green onion that was mixed in. It had zero flavor and I'm debating if they normally serve this order in a plastic bowl or if they did that because of the excess amount of juice. I did not order the soup variation of this meal. Maybe these guys weren't on their game today, maybe they were behind, maybe their new manager is just trying to find his niche but regardless... This was a...