Ranajit Dam
YOU only need to enter Sanshisan Jiantang Restaurant in Futian District to know you’ve made the right choice. Adorned tastefully with traditional Chinese artifacts, the restaurant is stylish without being intimidatingly so; part of its floor is made of glass, and the leather-backed chairs have large, comfortable cushions you can sit back and relax against. Subdued lighting and colors, and a location in the trendy Donghai Shopping Plaza in Honey Lake area add to the atmosphere, but its only when you’ve tried the food that you realize what a great dining experience it all adds up to.
Apart from some Hunan dishes, the restaurant serves a significant amount of Sichuan cuisine, possibly the most popular ones of the eight major schools of China’s culinary art. Originating from Sichuan Province in western China, Sichuan cuisine, also known as chuancai (川菜), enjoys a reputation around the world for being spicy and flavorful, and yet the highly distinctive pungency is not its only characteristic. In fact, Sichuan cuisine also comprises a wide variety of flavors and different methods of cooking, featuring hot, sweet, sour, salty, and tongue-numbing tastes, which are all on offer at Sanshisan Jiantang.
With my favorite Sichuan dish being crab roe and tofu (xiehuang doufu, 蟹黄豆腐), I could not help but order it here. In Chinese, xiehuang is the orange-colored part of a cooked female crab, consisting of its roe, ovary, and digestive organs, and yes, while the dish sounds far from appetizing, it certainly is great to taste. In Sanshisan Jiantang, the xiehuang tofu (28 yuan, US$3.68) is nice and thick (unlike many other restaurants, which make it far too watery) with the saltiness of the crab roe mixing perfectly with the thick, gooey tofu.
And then of course there was the spice assault. Before I describe the spicy dishes we tried at the restaurant, it might be a good idea to explain why so many Sichuan dishes are so pungent, and what has given Sichuan cuisine such a reputation. Those who have visited the province, which includes the charming, laid-back, picturesque town of Chengdu, will know that Sichuan has a high level of humidity and many rainy or overcast days. Hot pepper helps to reduce the internal dampness, so it is used frequently in dishes.
At Sanshisan Jiantang, we tried the spicy shrimp (58 yuan), a big bucket of shrimp lounging languidly in a pond of oil, onion, garlic and peppers. As in most Chinese cuisine, the shrimp is neither shelled nor deveined, but the fun comes from eating the crunchy meat after just removing the tail.
The fried boneless chicken with peppers (30 yuan) was yet another form of sensual assault, but thankfully less intimidating than the shrimp. Unlike other establishments where the chicken is deep fried and crispy, here the chicken is softer and able to retain its taste. Other dishes we tried was the bean jelly (18 yuan) floating in oil, and a mild soup made using pulses, which acted as a counter to the oily, spicy dishes on the table. All in all, a great meal.
The restaurant has two minor shortcomings: For one, there is no English menu, leaving you to guess from the pictures or take a Chinese-speaking companion; secondly, the restaurant insists on playing cheesy Western ballads over the speakers (I could not believe my ears when I heard Bryan Adams’ “Everything I do, I do it for you,” it almost caused me to choke). But overall, Sanshisan Jiantang is a great place to go with business partners or a date and enjoy some delicious spicy food.
