Kung Fu 12 Szechuan (Baltimore) 功夫十二 — Restaurant in Timonium

I come back maybe once every other month or so. Still the best szechuan in the area. They respect my request for super mala.

I order weekly at the original location and couldn't wait to try the new location on their opening day. It's triple the distance from me, but was worth the trip to see what else Master Chef Lee could turn out. I think we caught glimpses of him, but we're not really sure what he looks like, so we'll never know!

The location is easy to find and the inside is much larger than the Clarksville location. Definitely brand new everything. They even have KF12 printed on all of the plates and dishes! Our waitress Kayla was great as well!

The menu is quite more expansive than the Clarksville location. We briefly met the owner and hope he will consider adding several of the dishes to the Clarksville location. (Garlic Cucumber, Sesame Cold Noodle, Stir-fried Cumin Lamb, and the Mala Spicy Fish)

I came here that night with friends and we ordered about $200 in dine-in and to-go dishes in order to try everything not currently available at Clarksville (sans the Double Cooked Pork).

Overall we thought the food was very flavorful and good. Can easily be a five star place with fixes to the following two things:

The menu doesn't describe the dishes at all. It would help to know the differences between several of the chicken dishes without asking our waitress too many questions. We also ended up with a dish that I think is the Szechuan Peppercorn Chicken, but its not anything like what we were told or had imagined. It's not bad, just not what we expected.

None of the three-pepper (out of three) dishes came close to providing the ma or la I would have expected. The only dish close enough was the mala tang, but none of the rest of them were numbing at all, and nothing was really very spicy. Another reviewer here noticed the same thing. Not sure if they held back, but none of them were nearly as fiery as the chicken with green/red pepper I always get at the Clarksville location. Usually spicy dishes make my head sweat, but nothing here did. If it costs extra to make it spicy, just denote that on the menu, and I will gladly pay extra for szechuan peppercorn numbing oil, and/or extra facing heaven, bullet head, or jing tiao chiles.

We ended up getting the following dishes from the Soft-Opening Menu. I have reordered them by how much I liked them (favorite to least favorite):

-Mala Tang (an assortment of typical hotpot items (meats, shrimp, bamboo shoots, lotus root, etc. in a mild mala sauce...the only dish to provide any level of numbing.)

-Mala Spicy Fish (Great flavors with the fish filets in a umami sauce and covered in all sorts of peppers, but no ma and medium la)

-Stir-fried Cumin Lamb (Not in-your-face cumin like the stuff I've had in Flushing NY, but still really tasty. It could be a bit more cumin-forward IMHO.)

-Garlic Cucumber (Great sauce that these crispy cucumbers are in!)

-Sesame Cold Noodle (Stellar example of sesame noodles)

-Mala Wonton (Has that mala-esque flavor both the wonton and the broth; no numbing.)

-Double Cooked Pork Belly (Lots more pepper in this dish at this location, but still cooked and seasoned well.)

-Chongqing Roast Chicken (Came out in a burner. Chunks of chicken, bean curd, and peppers in a decently thick sauce. Seasoned very well, just not very ma la.)

-Crispy Scallion Pancake (Done very well.)

-Spiced Spicy Chicken Chunk (This reminded me of the Henan Spicy Big Tray chicken from Spicy Village in NYC, except nowhere near as spicy...which caused it to be lower on this list.)

-Szechuan Peppercorn Chicken (Either we were given the wrong dish or this was the chicken in a green peppercorn broth that was supposed to go with ribbon noodles we were provided in our take-out. Definitely not what I was expecting to receive.)

-Truffle Edamame Dumpling (4)

The only dish that truly wasn't all that great were the dumplings. A bit dry and we all thought it probably needs to come with a sauce or something to help.

Otherwise, great experience and...

UPDATE: Ordered exact same meal from Bruce Lee. Egg roll with shrimp, 1.95; large chicken lo mein 8.95. 14 with tax, 17 with tip vs 24 for KF12. And- food was SO MUCH BETTER!! Lo mein greaseless with smoky touch of wok, egg roll fresh and overstuffed with shrimp, pork, cabbage- and they are nice, and their owner doesn't sass critics. I said I may go back there (I am a medical professional in building next door and often need a quick lunch)- nope; no one in my office has liked their food, either, as seen here owner is rude when their quality fails, and Bruce Lee will deliver right to my office door!

Not bad! Not amazing! Old Szechuan House was NOT our favorite - only thing good was fried rice, even egg rolls could be overcooked and gross there. Sad how the mall owners drove them out nonetheless....

So - this place is clean, sleek, modern, staff in cute uniforms. Probably VERY loud when busy - big open floor plan. Service- well, I work in offices next door I was on my lunch break. They kept repeating "just one" like I was committing a crime lol. So- not very welcoming, but staff was polite and attentive thereafter.

Since Chinese places can use cheap Sysco products (literally I Googled it once wondering why so many menus are identical) I order safety dishes to check quality before eating tendon and livers and eyeballs and whatever- I love unusual food but it has to be quality! - So spring roll, chicken lo mein, and tea.

Prices are HIGH - two small spring rolls, 5 bucks. Chicken lo mein - 13. Quality - rolls edible but forgettable, could even be frozen. Lo mein - just general carry out quality. The meat - looked like that nasty process meat so many places use, but texture was better than usual - but still processy. Best lo mein has that wok smokiness - this was just garlic, soy, oil. Lots of oil. Fine for 8 buck carry out - 13 though?

So overall - meh. Average carry out food at over average prices. If you can't do basics really well , don't trust the fancier stuff. And directly across the street is an amazing Chinese BBQ and hot pot place - they are AMAZING!! If you are going to locate here, taking place of old school beloved (I don't know why but it was!) Szechuan House and across street from top notch hot pot - you better do better. If I want traditional sit in I'll still go to Joey Chiu's, delivery Bruce Lee's, and authentic the BBQ hot pot. Maybe I'll try lunch here again - but at these prices the deli next door does a really good bulgogi and roasts fresh turkeys - hard to beat that for lunch!

Tea in a bag too...pot nice but ...24 bucks for 12 dollar meal ... LOTS of competition here, too, I didn't even mention that Szechuan place in downtown Towson we haven't been too yet because of the amazing variety of good restaurants here. If these folks don't improve I doubt they will last a year between bad will of House devotees and...

We’ve been coming here a long time. The waitresses all know us and are friendly and work hard. The kid at the front must be related to the owners because no one would hire this guy as a greeter in any establishment. Rude to customers. Sits there and eats ice cream when there are people waiting over 30 minutes with 2 open tables. Ignores me when I ask about those tables. Yells at my 90 year old father. Laughs when my husband told him not to talk to my father like that and that we didn’t appreciate his attitude. Proceeded to tell other customers how we were unreasonable in Chinese, thinking that I didn’t speak or understand, and when I said he didn’t have to tell other customers what was going on, they lied and said they were talking about something else. He shut up when I said I understood every word they were saying. Someone needs to teach him some manners and respect. Having us wait there for 30 minutes was unnecessary, but his attitude and condescension lost you some very loyal customers who had recommended you to a lot of people. Never again.

UPDATE: we were very patient. In all of the times we’ve been coming here, it was never so busy. We waited and waited. 4 tables opened up, including 2 large rounds. We waited and waited. The waiting room had all been seated except for us. We waited. I asked about those 2 large tables and he said we couldn’t have it because it’s for 8 people. We had 5. We waited and waited. He was waiting for a specific table to leave, but they weren’t leaving after they finished eating. We waited. I said to the guy that every time we eat in your restaurant, we always order enough food for AT LEAST 8 people. He reluctantly said he would give us the table, but it wasn’t clean. The waitresses were swamped and didn’t have time to clean it. It was cleared but not wiped. We waited and waited more. He sat there and ate ice cream! Then my father went to ask him about the empty tables and he YELLED at my father! What kind of behavior is that????? Then my husband stepped in and said we didn’t appreciate his attitude and you don’t ever yell at someone like that. He’s very disrespectful. And since posting publicly about this, many have commented on this attitude in their experiences. If he tells you something else happened, he’s lying.

UPDATE2: thank you for your reply. If it’s true that you don’t tolerate this behavior, the only action for you is to terminate his employment at your establishment. If he just gets a warning or a slap on the wrist, then you DO tolerate his poor and disrespectful manner. For a young Chinese person to talk to Chinese elders like that when all he did was to ask about empty tables after waiting for 30 minutes???...