Chef Zhao Bistro — Restaurant in San Mateo

Chef Zhao Bistro is authentic Sichuan cuisine. Period. We liked their Mountain View shop a lot, but that one was closed during COVID-19. Our first visit to the Palo Alto shop didn't disappoint, followed by more.

To my disbelief, this store serves 鱼腥草 (fish leaves, Houttuynia cordata), my childhood favourite summer time salad. I immediately ordered it. Due to supply, their dish is mainly leaves when my hometown dish would come with lots of juicy stems. Their leaves are also on the dry side. Still, this was the first time I saw this outside Sichuan. (Other than dried plant in Chinese herb stores.) Because this plant has a very strong smell and after taste that people associate with fish, not many people order it. In fact, not many people from China even know that Sichuan people eat it in meals. My connaisseur order obviously struck a cord with the chef, who came out twice to chat with us. (We came before the dinner crowds.)

Another lowbrow salad, 伤心凉粉 ("heartbroken" bean-starch noodles), was also very flavourful. (This is more of an Eastern Sichuan flavour.) When such household, lesser known dishes are on the menu, I always use them as an assay for authenticity. Chef Zhao's always delivers.

The main dish we ordered, "water boiled fish", an extremely spicy dish, was much more authentic than many Sichuan restaurants in this area. Well, that we already knew from the closed store.

Two people couldn't order a lot. But we have had various dishes from Mountain View over the years. I can confidently say that you can throw a dart at the menu and it will come out authentic.

My daughter and I have since returned to Chef Zhao every time we travel to mid-peninsula. My heart skipped a beat when we saw their home made Sichuan sausages on the menu in a recent visit! Chinese sausage you can get from Chinese grocery stores here are mostly Guandong flavor. Even the occasional finds of Sichuan sausage is...

We had high hopes for chef Zhao but some of the food items were not up to standard. Interior is very clean and service is fast. Parking might be hard to find during busy dining hours.

Food that we got: Stir fried pork kidney - this is really well done, well flavoured and kidney is tender with no weird taste Sichuan style spicy wonton - the wonton skin is so chewy and it didn’t feel fresh. The filling was also kind of flavourless and we had to really dip the sauce to get any savoury taste Pea shoot - pretty good, garlic stir fried and tastes similar to other places Glutinous rice cake - definitely would not recommend this. Instead of using glutinous rice flour which is where most places do, they just squished together a lot of glutinous rice and fried it. The texture and the syrup both are not great Fish filet and tofu in preserved pickle - I don’t understand why they added tofu in it besides to cut cost. I’ve never seen tofu added to this dish before. Makes it feel like they’re being cheap

There are better Chinese places around here, we are a bit disappointed at the...

I ordered the Chongqing chili chicken.

Positives: marinade infuses a lot of good Sichuan peppercorn flavor into the food chicken is moist on the inside, crispy on the outside. Not overcooked at all

Negatives far too much sugar. There were clumps of rock sugar in my food. Even without biting into them, the food was too sweet not enough spice. There were a lot of dried peppers, but the flavor from them was not successfully imparted on the chicken portion was so small!! For this reason alone, I will not order again. I can get a portion that is 3x the size for the same price at other restaurants chicken is 60% bones, 30% meat, 10% inedible gristle

Overall, although tasty and more authentic than other Chinese restaurants in the area, I do not recommend. It is not good value for the price + too sugary and unnecessarily difficult to eat due...