Sichuan Gourmet House — Restaurant in Newton

Not great... Today we went to Sichuan Gormet House for lunch. We got there at 12:30 on a rainy October Saturday (Halloween weekend). Beside our party there was one other table of diners present. There were four in our party. We ordered an assortment of dishes. For appetizers we had soup dumplings and spicy wings. We ordered dan-dan noodles, duck fried rice and a sizzling fish in hot & spicy bowl. The positive... The restaurant was clean and tastefully decorated. Service was attentive without being pushy. The ingredients seemed reasonably fresh and freshly prepared. The negative... To start, our noodle dish was served a full 5 minutes before our appetizers. I know I'm being nit-picky but it seemed a bit strange to me. Our appetizers were the soup dumplings and spicy chicken wings. The dumplings were warm but not steaming hot, like they should have been. Also there was no soup in the dumplings. No in any one of them. I've had soup dumplings in many other restaurants, they all had soup within. Not these. The chicken wings tasted of salt. It was not that they had a "salty" flavor but I could actually taste the raw salt on them. They were tossed in a sauce containing onions, scallions and many dried chilis. While there was an abundance of dried chilis tossed with the wings, they had absolutely no heat at all. None. The only flavor these wings had was salt. I tried a few of the peppers on their own. These were the most teastless dried chilis I have ever encountered. The sizzling fish was a strange dish. A bowl of portions of white fish floating in chili oil. Yes, floating in a bowl of red colored oil. The portion size was generous but there was absolutely no sizzle on the fish. There was also no flavor other then oily. Fish portions floating in warm, red oil... The chili oil should have been spicy. The fish should have sizzled when it hit the oil. A rich flavor should have been in this dish. Sadly, it was all absent. A tasteless bowl of red oil and fish. Overall... The food was just not good. Not bad but not good either. Food that should have come from the kitchen piping hot was luke warm at best. While there were many chilis served in the dishes, none emparted and flavor nor heat. Salt was used as a primary flavor and not as a flavor enhancer. Pricing was on the high side. High-average but but portions were a bit small for the price. Nice restaurant, good location, nice staff, salty and oily food. Not a great...

Mostly used to get takeout but we have eaten here a few times as it was our go to neighbourhood Chinese place until we had 4 different occasions where they told us the order would be ready and then made us wait for over 30 mins to pick up- at that point we gave up and stopped going especially the last occasion when they seemed to be accusing me of ordering stuff that takes time- well they could just have told me the order would be ready later…!!

In terms of food we Particularly enjoyed the Chengdu’s chicken and some of the soup dumplings are good. Would not vouch for some of the baos however

That said - please expect unfriendly service esp at the reception/ counter and this is probably more due to them having trouble with the language rather than them misbehaving on purpose. One time while I was picking up - the lady told me it was not here but in a currently defunct building next door that I had to pick up- inspite of showing her the restaurant name etc and then finally she believed me when I used the telephone number on my online order and her phone rang! Also the waits are sometimes crazily long - inspite of whatever the apps tell you- it’s pretty rough that way!!! But...

Excellent authentic Chinese food, more particularly Sichuan cuisine, to my taste based on my 20+ years experience in mainland China. Certain diahes, such as ones made from "special" kind of animals (liver, tripe, feet, kidney, and so on) and the ones with standard spiciness/hotness, may not be popular for customers that are only used to American Chinese food. But they are indeed delicious as they are cooked properly here just as how it should. Of course, there are a few dishes in case someone is somehow really looking for American Chinese food, which is absolutely nothing wrong. It is worth mentioning that, unfortunately in a way, the English name of the restaurant is using common name for the "restaurant chain", which is kinda misleading. Because "Sichuan Gourmet" at different places in MA seemingly are running on their own, and different level of food (at least for taste and authenticity). However, this one is surely a gem among them. It is a shame I have not taken pictures of the dishes or the restaurant itself. Mainly it is because every time I am so excited about enjoying the dishes and simply forget taking pictures. Need to set a...