General Pot — Restaurant in Fremont

General Pot’s authentic Chongqing flavor, generous portions, and very stylish decors win me over. (Bewarned that Chongqing is the hotter one among the two most popular Sichuan cuisines.)

The place comes recommended by Chihuo San Francisco Bay Area. For appetizers we ordered bean jelly with chili sauce and mixed beef & tripe with chili sauce. Both local favorites, the former from Chongqing, the latter from Chengdu with its own legend. (Its Chinese name, 夫妻肺片, translates into husband-wife lung slices. By the way, lung is not a main ingredient in this dish if used at all.) Both are quite on the mark.

For the main course, we ordered spicy pig’s large intestine in dry pot. This was the first time I had dry pot. (I tend to believe that it was a relatively recent development.) It has some characteristics of a hotpot, but comes fully cooked. It also has some characteristics of a stew, but the flavor is closer to sir fry and braise. Given the restaurant is called General Pots, I highly recommend that you get one. Here is a new cooking technique that I don’t want to do at home. Of course, pork intestine is always a great ingredient for this type of cooking.

General Pots is in a less densely populated open mall. We entered at peak dinner time, and get seated quickly. The service was also relatively quick. (Dry pot takes a while.)

I cannot leave without a praise of its Northern Sichuan themed decor. I have seen quite a number of new Chinese restaurants in the SF Bay Area open with decors that I call all show, no-substance. Some of them also try to create a “high cuisine” environment to jack up price (without a taste to match). Not General Pots. Its decor and lighting is very stylish without being in your face. Seating is very comfortable. Definitely a place I’d like to...

One of my favorite places that serves authentic Chinese dry pots. My go to choices are either the bullfrog ($MP) in which they use fresh meat, not the frozen thigh only kind, or the large pigs intestine ($25) that is cooked to a Chinese style spicy skewers type of texture which I love. The dish is large enough to be shared between 2 or 3 people and contains a lot of cabbage, bean sprouts and some wood ear mushrooms and cauliflower. My favorite add-ons are the "potato noodles" ($4) which are clear/glass noodles made with potato starch, lotus root ($4) to provide that crunch, and potato chips/slices ($3) that soak up all the excess sauce and flavors. Great with a bowl of white rice or by itself but my PRO TIP is to go next door to Shang Cafe and get the Rose Ice Jelly ($6) to enjoy with your meal! It's the perfect sweet cooling deliciousness to pair with...

We decided to give this place a try since we’ve enjoyed several great Sichuan restaurants nearby. We ordered the grilled fish, fried towel gourd, and pig ears in chili oil. The pig ears were decent, but the towel gourd tasted undercooked and lacked flavor. Our biggest disappointment was the grilled fish — the waiter said it was fresh catfish, but at a hefty price of $55.99, it turned out tough and tasteless. It also came with very few side dishes as you can see from the photos. One can definitely find much better options at nearby restaurants, where similar dishes usually cost between $32.99 and $42.99. With this experience, we’ve decided to cross this place off our future...