Sichuan Impression — Restaurant in Los Angeles

If I could avoid coming to the restaurants in Santa Monica for dine in, I would. The parking lots are never free, and you would barely get restaurants who provide complimentary parking. Nevertheless, the quality of food in Sichuan Impression are definitely worth coming back to (I have been here twice) every once in a while. Anyhow, the restaurant is cozy, spacious, clean and well lit. The customer service is also great! Food is served pretty quickly.

The food:

Home-style Fried Rice 🍚 (10/10): Find yourself a girlfriend that is not crazy about fried rice so that you get to enjoy it all by yourself ⚠️. Because this dish is one of the most delicious Chinese fried rice I have ever tasted! First of all, the aroma was great! The salt level was on point! The rice texture was perfect and the minced beef's 🐄 flavor was rich!

Toothpick Mutton 🐑 (10/10): Cooking quality lamb meat is not easy. However, Sichuan Impression has definitely perfected this skill and as a result, this dish was mouth-wateringly good! The meat was juicy, mildly chewy and didn't have that typical weird lamb meat's smell. Moreover, those toothpicks definitely made it more convenient to eat.

Stir-Fried Cauliflower (6/10): I had expectations for this, and sadly I have got to admit that this was the most disappointing dish of the day and my girlfriend agreed! I wanted to like this dish. It did smell good, but the taste (kind of plain tasting) didn't match the aroma.

Hot pot Starch Noodles/ Impressive cold noodles 🍜 (9/10): This was surprisingly delicious given the appearance of the dish. It didn't have anything else other than the glass noodles. The spice on the noodles was acceptable and the noodles were mildly chewy! Definitely a good appetizer!

'Big Mouth' Ginger Frog of Zigong 🐸 (9/10): This was also tasty! The only problem that I had was that the frogs didn't have a lot of meat on them but still cost us $30. Delicious but not worth the price!

Stir-fried Spicy Pork Intestines 🐖 (9/10): Ok, hear me out! I know the thought of eating intestines is weird! I felt the same way, but they are delicious nonetheless! This dish was great, and the flavor was spot on! I just wished that they were a little less crispy so the intestines would have a little bit of juice in them. Nevertheless, I think it depends on your preference! If you love juicy intestines, this might not be worth ordering. But if you like the crispy ones, then this is perfect!

Overall, just like other people have mentioned, I really enjoyed dining here because the food is great apart from the pricing, some of the dishes' pricing are ridiculous.

P.S., I had forgotten the name of the noodle dish we ordered. It's best to ask the server if you would like...

So very disappointing. We really wanted to like this place. We were able to make a reservation online (the wait time was 45 minutes when we checked) that said we could check in and be seated and that worked great! Then it went downhill. Our super sweet waiter had a bad cold. Like rubbing his sleeve against his runny nose bad. Then we noticed both bowls on the table were dirty. I mean oil line inside the bowl dirty. Why didn't we leave? Here was the conversation: Son: Well, I'm getting over a cold and you work with 70 kids a week. I think we're both exposed. Me: Yeaaah, I guess. Son: Also, this place is packed. If people were getting sick the reviews would say. Me: (Looks around, notices it's 90% Asian and hears Mandarin). "Hey, the food must be good. Let's not be the Westsiders who leave because things aren't perfect".

Side note: we were not at all adventurous in food choices which was 100% my fault. Son was willing to try the pigs feet, which looked and smelled just fine and yet I passed.

So, the waiter comes back with our french fry dish and the Impressive Sausage (or some such name), but NOT our street rice dish. 45 minutes later, no rice dish. I asked once and was assured it was on the way. Asked again 10 minutes later. Yep, on the way. Then I asked for the check. Which he brought me. Before he brought the dish that was supposed to be ready. So I asked to speak to the manager. I just wanted to let her know that charging someone for a dish that was 50 minutes late and had not showed up yet was kinda wrong.

That's when I really didn't like the conversation because she tried to blame that poor waiter! I set it straight: If you don't give your waiters the latitude to 'make things right' with the customer without fear (and this guy looked nervous), you're running your business wrong. And this was waaay wrong.

To be fair, on the way out she wanted to give me some 'discount for next time'. I politely took a hard pass on that. There will be no next time. Turns out I'm that kind...

The cold weather is just right for spicy food and Sichuan cuisine is one of the best to try.

From Google rating, Sichuan Impression has a branch here with more than 4 stars in average. That would be our choice for sure after 9pm.

The place is on 2nd floor within Santa Monica Plaza and all the parking spots are only 10 minutes limit or blocked. We later learned that it was for valet parking. In LA, valet is a very loose term that they just want to take more money out of your pocket and we also don't feel too comfortable someone we don't know has the key and drive our car due to bad experience of losing some cash inside. We end up parking behind the building ourselves. And after we step out, we also don't see the umbrella or the valet guy. I made the right decision to park myself.

The Mexican waiter is the best one in there. He is not only cleaning the tables, but also helping take orders, ask whether we need menu (on iPad rather than on our phone) and give us water, napkins, fork and spoon. He is indeed the best one there.

The food is good, spicy and flavorful. But the noodle soup I order is using fatty pork like bacon. That is the worst one in my opinion. The meat is not suitable for this dish, I cannot eat it and pack it home.

Overall, the food is on pricey side, portion is average, and they are generous in given chills or peppercorn that make the dish flavorful.

We may go back again for the tongue paralyzing...