SICHUAN KITCHEN 川香私厨 — Restaurant in Jacksonville

As an American born Chinese kid growing up in Jax, there were never very many places that lived up to my own mom’s cooking. Since moving to a bigger city, I’ve been spoiled by the amazing restaurants available in a higher Asian population city. But coming home for the holidays, my parents took me here and it BLEW my socks off. My mom always talks about “guo chi”, or the “spirit of cooking”, and how it’s hard to recreate the same flavor at home when you don’t have the same ingredients and high heat of a kitchen. This place is the restaurant she means when she talks about that - you just can’t recreate the authenticity of this food at home. It’s spicy, flavorful, and not overly fried or oily.

Dishes of note:

Their xiao long bao (soup dumplings) are handmade and amazing! Good strong ginger and pork flavor. Comes with black vinegar to cut the richness of the bite. Get a spicy dish and use some of the chili oil to drizzle on top!

The fu qi fei pian (sliced beef and ox tongue) is amazing and a great drinking snack if you get it to go. It’s cold sliced and seasoned beef, peanuts, and celery with chili oil. Think of it as an eastern, healthier version of buffalo wings. Good for nibbling on with beers and watching the game.

For noodles you can’t go wrong with the Dan Dan Mian. It’s a spicy and savory broth with some delicious ground pork and bok choy. A homey comfort dish.

For veggies, I normally go with the stir friend green beans because I love the crunch, but the eggplant is also amazing and the sauce is great over rice!

The one thing I will say about service and atmosphere is to remember that this is a Chinese restaurant, so the service standards are a bit different. These are hard working, salt of the earth people and they are all doing a million things at once (waiting tables, taking payment, take orders, bussing tables, bringing food out, etc.). They’ve got like 2 people working the entire front room, so don’t expect to have someone looking over your shoulder and babying you to see if your water glass is half empty. However, don’t be shy about politely calling someone over if you need anything. They’re super efficient and happy to help, but they don’t have time to ask how everything is because they know the food is fire anyway. Just catch their eye and give a little hand wave and they’ll be over in a jiffy, which is more than I can say for some western restaurants. Think of it as more of a European waiter experience (if you’ve been to France or Italy, you’ll know what I mean). It’s a much more efficient system and lets you have your privacy while you eat and talk.

The place itself is squeaky clean and tidy, but nothing to write home about in terms of decor. You’re there for the food anyway, and the good prices reflect that you’re not going for some insanely over decorated place anyway.

I forgot to take a photo because we devoured everything as it came out. The only photo I’ve got is the aftermath, as we groaned about how full we were but continued to pick away at our leftovers. Overall, you can tell it’s the real deal when every table there is occupied by a Chinese family, excited about the...

In a few words: fantastic, authentic, Sichuan filled spices, no other like it in jax. VEGETARIAN FRIENDLY. Does have pains of a new restaurant but the inconveniences are very worth it.

I was so excited that a Sichuan restaurant opened in jax. My vegetarian family and I have eaten this spicy cuisine all across the country and love it. We went for lunch. We are all vegetarian so had to specify and ask for vegetarian options/substitutions.

FOOD: Food was excellent! Delicious flavors, was brought out hot, just amazing. We liked it so much we orders three entree just to take home. If fantastic food is what you are looking for have no hesitations about this joint and please go support it because they deserve it (and I’d hate to see it go away). We liked it so much we orders three entree just to take home….and we’re already making plans to eat it when we got home.

SERVICE: like I said we are vegetarian. We had to explain our restrictions (this is hard sometimes in Asian restaurants as they are very meat heavy). But the person advised us on what they could and and what substitutions were allowed. This showed their desire to try to provide good customer service. We also had read the service was a bit slow. For the amount of food we ordered I didn’t think it was that slow, and we went at a time when all their tables were occupied. So overall, while they definitely need to hire more people I think these are just growing pains of a new restaurant. We were very pleased at how accommodating they were. Caveat: English is obviously not their first language (usually mean the food is amazing and that held true). So just have patience and you might have to work with them a bit.

Interior: we were too busy stuffing our faces to notice. Obviously not a bougie “look at these statues of horses or whatever” kind of place. But with food that good who cares?

Price: when the bill arrived and we tried to play “price is right” with each other we all lost because we went over. For the quantity and quality of food it was fantastic. Obviousness not like a Chinese take out price but it’s not fair to compare this food to that kind of food.

Again, overall GO CHECK THEM OUT. The food alone was so good but tie that in to the small family style business that is working hard to earn your business and you got a customer who’s about to gain a lot of weight and lose a lot of money here. Just keep in mind the growing pain of a new small business and you’ll become a fan too.

Pictures: cauliflower dish, Dan Dan noodles, potato and pepper, mapu tofu,...

Born and raised in Brooklyn, I was fortunate enough to enjoy "authentic" Chinese Food on occasion in the earlier days of my life in Chinatown. It was exciting to discover that Jacksonville is home to several highly rated dining establishments along the same style. Anyone who has eaten "authentic" Chinese Food knows there is quite a difference from what they serve in the typical American Chinese Takeout place. Both can be amazing depending on how well the food is prepared, but they are definitely different. And I do realize that what they serve non-Chinese people even at the "authentic" places are probably not exactly 100% true to what they might prepare for themselves, simply because the Western palate might not enjoy that enough to keep a business running.

Regardless of the above speculation, Sichuan Kitchen has excellent "authentic" Chinese Food that my family and I thoroughly enjoyed!

They are in a strip mall with plenty of parking. The restaurant interior was clean and inviting. The staff was extremely friendly, and even though we didn't understand everything we wanted to say in words, by using gestures together that was readily overcome.

In no particular order, we ordered Chongoing Chicken, Spicy Tofu, a dumpling soup, Fish Flavored Eggplant, fried rice, a pork on the bone dish, sesame balls, and spring rolls. The prices were a little high but that is typical everywhere these days, and the portions were very generous. We took home much of what we ordered and enjoyed several more meals the next day and the day after! I did not find the spice level overwhelming.

Everything was insanely good. The Chicken and Tofu were lightly battered and fried to a perfect crispy exterior. The flavors were exquisite. I wish I could recall the pork on bone dish, but it had a slightly sweet sauce that came from pineapple. Tender and delicious. Sesame balls were hot and stuffed with sweet filling. Soup broth complex and flavorful, but those dumpling, wow were they good. Spring rolls crunchy and delicious.

They did not bring white rice over so I assume you would need to request this separately. And there is an Asian grocery in the same strip mall, so you can go shopping for goodies after eating a very yummy meal.

We will be back as soon as we can! So nice to have found such an...