636374 Mon Jul 13 18:02:12 -0700 2009 44 12 Boston Area 0 4855482 This is my first post, but I've been a long time lurker; finally found a place that it seems no one else has posted about. Thailand Cafe (302 Massachusetts Ave near MIT) -- a sub-par Thai restaurant that is barely acceptable even to MIT undergrads -- has recently started serving a very nice Sichuanese menu (see attached photo.) Rumor is that someone affiliated with Sichuan Gourmet is the new chef there. Went today with several students from MIT, on the recommendation of a grad student who grew up in Beijing and who swears by the place. Despite it being a run down Central Square hole-in-the-wall, the food was very good -- much better in my opinion than the now defunct Anise (which had some interesting dishes but tended to miss more often than not.) I haven't tried many of the other Sichuanese places in the Boston Area, but I found the food at least on par with Sichuan Garden, with a good balance of spices and quality ingredients. Not sure I can remember everything we had, but we had: Cold Noodles with Chili Sesame Vinaigrette - Spicy, large (rice?) noodles with lots of chili sauce. Sichuan-y goodness. Five Flavored Beef - Cold beef appetizer served plain. Well executed, but my least favorite of the dishes we ordered. Double Cooked Pork Belly with Spicy Capsicum -- Awesome; thin sliced pork belly, with green onions. Spicy but not overpowering. We also ordered a hotpot with fried chicken and taro (not on the menu, but apparently available in limited quantities if you ask for it); delicious, though not as overpoweringly fiery as some hotpot I have had. Chengdu dry hot chicken -- Great. Simple fried chicken chunks with lots of dry hot peppers. Towel gourd with bamboo fungus -- Gourd itself was plain but the bamboo fungus was outstanding -- soft, salty, spongy. Dry sauteed green bean -- We ordered this without pork (which I suspect would have made it better) to accommodate a vegetarian -- it was well executed but a bit plain. All in all, I was pretty happy. I'll definitely be back. Mon Jul 13 18:02:12 -0700 2009 1093299 damneddemand 1 4855541 nice, detailed first post. keep it up! Mon Jul 13 18:25:17 -0700 2009 4855482 12603 ScubaSteve 1 4856287 Welcome, very cool and a good find to boot. Tue Jul 14 02:25:46 -0700 2009 4855482 10169 StriperGuy 1 4856356 Thanks for that, great find. I will check it out as Sichuan is probably my favorite of the Chinese cuisines. Odd that now we have both a Thai restaurant and a Shanghainese (New Shanghai) with Sichuan menus. Tue Jul 14 04:29:27 -0700 2009 4855482 25417 Zatan 1 4858069 OH MAN Tue Jul 14 12:44:37 -0700 2009 4855482 10607 Luther 2 4864298 First pass: fu qi fei pian is nice and contains tender and thinly-sliced meat with a nice ground peanut/oil sauce, but is a little flat-tasting. Could use more of a smoky/spicy flavor. Dry hot chicken is delicious in that "how can you go wrong" sort of way, the flavor is dominated by salt but there is a good, slowly-building numbing flavor in the oil. Nothing was super-spicy, which is how I'd describe most of the dishes at Framingham Sichuan Gourmet. Here's a photo of the specials white board. I didn't notice it until after I'd placed my order, or I would've gotten the saliva chicken. Thu Jul 16 10:11:23 -0700 2009 4858069 10607 Luther 3 4864324 And I think I speak for ALL of us in our unanimity for begging you to translate that board for us! We know you can! THX,gg Thu Jul 16 10:16:41 -0700 2009 4864298 11108 galleygirl 4 4865041 The first two are saliva chicken and "ErJie" rabbit. As far as I know, ErJie is some famous restaurant in ChengDu and the dish looks something like this: http://community.travelchinaguide.com/show_photo.asp?p=70705010344566.jpg I'll translate some more later but perhaps someone who actually can read handwritten Chinese properly can do it faster. Thu Jul 16 13:23:35 -0700 2009 4864324 10607 Luther 4 4865689 1. 口水鸡 "kou shui ji" Saliva chicken $7.95 2. 二姐兔丁 "er jie tu ding" ErJie rabbit chunks $6.95 3. 樟茶鴨 Camphor and tea-smoked duck $13.95 4. 沸腾魚 "fei teng yu" Boiled fish (usually translated as boiled fish filets with chili sauce or something like that) $15.95 5. 干烧全魚 "guan shao quan yu" Dry-roasted whole fish $15.95 Thu Jul 16 17:02:08 -0700 2009 4864324 10607 Luther 5 4865723 Oooh, two fish dishes, and one (fei teng yu) my favorite....Thanks! Thu Jul 16 17:17:21 -0700 2009 4865689 11108 galleygirl 4 4865789 6. 粉蒸排骨 "fen zheng pai gu" Steamed rice-covered ribs $11.95 7. 荷叶蒸肉 "he ye zheng rou" Pork steamed in lotus leaves $11.95 8. 火爆腰花 "huo bao yao hua" Stir-fried "flower" pork kidney $9.95 9. 毛血旺 "mao xue wang" Chongqing-style duck's blood cubes in spicy sauce $12.95 10. 通心菜 "tong xin cai" Hollow-stem vegetable (kangkong; water convolvulus) $8.95 Thu Jul 16 17:41:18 -0700 2009 4864324 10607 Luther 4 4865910 11. 小椒牛肉丝 "xiao jiao niu rou" Shredded beef and peppers $9.95 12. 魚香鸡片 "yu xiang ji pian" Yu xiang chicken slices $8.95 13. 酸菜牛筋 "suan cai niu jin" Pickled cabbage beef tendon SOLD OUT $10.75 14. 魚香茄子 "yu xiang qie zi" Yu xiang eggplant $8.95 15. 肉末姜豆 "niu mo jiang dou" Minced pork with long beans $8.95 16. someone who can actually read these 17. help me out 18. 虎皮尖椒 "hu pi jian jiao" Tiger-skin peppers $8.95 Thu Jul 16 18:33:24 -0700 2009 4864324 10607 Luther 5 4865927 thanks for translating! Thu Jul 16 18:42:36 -0700 2009 4865910 22634 autopi 5 4866149 I think its: 16. 芋头烤鸡 "yu tou kao ji" - taro roast chicken 17. 酸菜大肠 "suan cai da chang" - stir-fried pickled cabbage and intestines (large intestine...) Thu Jul 16 20:17:47 -0700 2009 4865910 41832 avial 6 4866240 16. 芋头烧鸡 - yu4 tou shao1 ji1 - roast chicken with taro 17. 酸菜大肠 - suan1 cai4 da4 chang2 - sour cabbage with intestines Thu Jul 16 21:06:09 -0700 2009 4866149 14328 lipoff 7 4867398 I'm glad we arrived at the same characters, my mastery of the Chinese language has been ...absent... since I was 9 =) Fri Jul 17 09:41:11 -0700 2009 4866240 41832 avial 3 4865592 Interesting selection! If I have time for a break tomorrow, I'm going to have to try this place out. Thu Jul 16 16:19:10 -0700 2009 4864298 13028 kobuta 1 4858394 Wow, you could knock me over with a feather. If it wasn't for the great detail in your post and the photos I would have thought you were joking. Thailand Cafe is notoriously bad. I, unfortunately, went there once when I lived literally just down the street. But this looks wonderful --- I'll have to get over there this week to check it out. Thanks very much! Tue Jul 14 14:04:25 -0700 2009 4855482 14328 lipoff 2 4859076 I got takeout from this place years ago when we were living in temporary housing in the area. The Thai food was so bad I threw it away without eating, and I was really hungry, so that's saying a lot. Sounds like they've made quite a change! Tue Jul 14 17:39:18 -0700 2009 4858394 28323 MrsCheese 3 4859511 Don't be fooled. As the OP alluded to, the Thai is still abominable. They catered a recent event at MIT and the quality of food was horrifying. This new development, however, sounds very interesting and I hope to hear more feedback before jumping in and trying it myself. Tue Jul 14 20:14:03 -0700 2009 4859076 123281 Spenbald 1 4871609 Walked by yesterday and took a close up picture of their specials menu which is now posted in the front window. Must try their 炸酱面 soon. Sun Jul 19 09:11:12 -0700 2009 4855482 41832 avial 2 4871650 This is the same menu I posted in my initial post. Unfortunately, your picture, like mine, is pretty hard to read thanks to chowhound downsizing our photos.... It appears that they had a different specials menu out when Luther went -- I don't remember seeing this when I went (though we did order the roast chicken with Taro, which is what I described as being 'hot pot' -- it's really like a hot, soupy broth with big chunks of Taro and bone-in fried chicken.) Sun Jul 19 09:40:53 -0700 2009 4871609 1093299 damneddemand 2 4871873 that's odd, I was able to get a blown-up version of my uploaded image earlier. Well, let's fix that problem, why don't we: http://www.flickr.com/photos/avial/3736255662/sizes/l/ Sun Jul 19 12:01:52 -0700 2009 4871609 41832 avial 2 4872609 To clarify: there are 2.5 menus. One is the printed menu with English, which is what damneddemand posted originally (and is now in the window). There is also a "lunch specials" version of this menu that has about half of the dishes offered as rice plates. The other menu is the "specials" menu which is entirely in Chinese. It appears on a whiteboard in the front and a white piece of paper in the back, but the dishes are written in a different order on each. Sun Jul 19 18:10:53 -0700 2009 4871609 10607 Luther 2 4893430 I tried their zha zhang mian, and it's fairly simple - just the noodles and the sauce. Not a lot of notable mince pork pieces in the noodles (which was ok for me, since I prefer less meaty), but they were pretty tasty. Most version I've seen is a bit chunkier - not sure if the preferred or more authentic version is with more chunks or not. I need to work out the mandarin pronunciations for most of their menu, since it doesn't come with English that I can refer to. I'm never sure if I say it in Cantonese the worker will know which dish I mean. Mon Jul 27 07:08:31 -0700 2009 4871609 13028 kobuta 3 4893798 While I was there yesterday, I heard the owner (middle-aged Chinese man with big hair) talking to someone who looked like an account in Cantonese. He later spoke Mandarin to our waiter (it was just the two of them serving the place) who wore glasses and had a much neater, much more compact haircut. So I guess you'll have to roll the dice. Mon Jul 27 08:59:38 -0700 2009 4893430 41832 avial 4 4894233 Also, the hand-written menu uses traditional characters Mon Jul 27 10:58:47 -0700 2009 4893798 10607 Luther 5 4897182 Yeah, I can read them but they will be pronounced differently in the two dialects. Not all the name are also obvious as to what's in them unless one's very familiar with Sicuan cuisine, so while some are clear, some need some 'splainin for me. I've had a few good Sichuan dishes in my travels, but I hardly consider myself well-versed on this cuisine. Tue Jul 28 10:13:08 -0700 2009 4894233 13028 kobuta 6 4900117 I don't speak or read any Chinese dialect but my kids speak Mandarin. They translate the menus - not this one yet - and tell me, "It just says beef in special sauce" or some other name that means nothing if you don't know what the name means. Wed Jul 29 09:14:39 -0700 2009 4897182 71350 lergnom 7 4902748 Even knowing it's beef is a start. I would say in Chinese cooking 80% of the time you can get a sense of what's in the dish. Some of the names are "creative" and you have no idea what's in it. One of the items on the whiteboard is mao (fur/hair) xie (blood) wang (busy, filled, prosperous). I could assume it's a blood dish, but I have no way of telling and a literal translation of the characters makes no sense to me. I ordered mapo tofu with rice yesterday and it was really good. Swimming in chili oil, so not a dish you can have too often, but delicious. Thu Jul 30 06:36:21 -0700 2009 4900117 13028 kobuta 3 4896727 Could you tell if the noodles were homemade and fresh? I usually get my zha zhang mian fix at Buk Kyung in Union Sq. It'd be great to have someplace close to work. Tue Jul 28 08:05:30 -0700 2009 4893430 121319 digga 4 4897185 I would be surprised if they were homemade. They're not terrible, but I find homemade noodles to have an extra bite or chewiness to them when cooked right, and these didn't have that. Tue Jul 28 10:13:29 -0700 2009 4896727 13028 kobuta 4 4898264 have I missed something all these years or is a korean joint serving an authentic or quasi-authentic Chinese zha jiang mian or is it just the korean jya jya myung? Tue Jul 28 15:50:00 -0700 2009 4896727 41832 avial 5 4899625 From what I know, it's the Korean version (Korean-Chinese fare, if you will). Wed Jul 29 06:46:22 -0700 2009 4898264 13028 kobuta 1 4871651 Awesome -- that's the one of most chowhoundish posts I've read here in a while. Now 'fess up to your other secrets. *big grin* Sun Jul 19 09:41:09 -0700 2009 4855482 10076 limster 2 4872596 The awning actually says "sichuan cuisine" ... of course, I never noticed until now. It was an open secret! Sun Jul 19 18:07:55 -0700 2009 4871651 10607 Luther 3 4872606 On the awning - not just "Sichuan cuisine" but "authentic Sichuan cuisine" Sun Jul 19 18:10:21 -0700 2009 4872596 10076 limster 1 4892886 Finally got around to making a trip to this place. Went with 4 four friends and tore into about half the menu - ordered 6 entrees and 5 cold dishes. In summary: over-salted. Almost every dish was dominated by how salt which Luther alluded to in his description of the dry hot chicken. At times, I couldn't tell if my tongue was burning from the salt or the peppers and when given a moment to focus on the burning, you realize that it's the salt talking because there's just not that much heat in any of the dishes. I'm still gorged from the meal and can't quite focus on details yet. Sun Jul 26 21:09:33 -0700 2009 4855482 41832 avial 1 4896797 I stopped in on Friday, and just to add to the menu confusion (!) - they had a Chinese/English menu of Sichuan specials (not rice plates!) The prices correlated with the white board, so I assumed they were the same dishes. BUT Luther's list looks much more interesting that what I remember from the menu I saw, so.... I ordered Sichuan peppers with pork intestine - The waiter double checked that I saw it was intestine! I enjoyed the dish - the tripe was pleasantly chewy, there were a massive amt of red (large bird?) chilis (I ate only one at each meal, enough to get a good buzz! but I'm sure they also heated up the tripe) and many green chilis that were milder. I was happy! Tue Jul 28 08:24:49 -0700 2009 4855482 16129 fredid 2 4897168 Tripe is stomach, not intestine. Which was it in the dish? Tue Jul 28 10:09:41 -0700 2009 4896797 10607 Luther 2 4897790 Whoops! They were intestines... Some clarity on the SPECIALS MENUS!! The white board specials ARE as Luther translated them! Mr. BigHair got a kick out of the translations being done, and done online! (Saliva chicken - It makes you salivate! he explained. #9 - duck's blood cubes in spicy sauce - is not available for take-out, as there's much liquid and it's heated at the table.) The plastic Sichuan Specials menu - available at the front desk - overlaps with the whiteboard, but isn't as far-out! There's also a "lunch" version of this same menu, with cheaper prices, smaller portions, and rice. Both men speak English! If someone goes in when it's slow (e.g. not Fri lunch!) I think Mr. Big Hair would be happy to go over thewhite board specials! His English is fine, but, at moments, hard to understand. He got a kick out of us, and asked for the website! Tue Jul 28 13:17:10 -0700 2009 4896797 16129 fredid 3 4897804 We might consider changing our references to him as Mr.Big Hair, then... ;) Tue Jul 28 13:22:20 -0700 2009 4897790 11108 galleygirl 3 4909500 OK - The Village Voice's foodie bigman has vindIcated me! http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/archives/2009/07/organ_recital_t.php But the dish at Thailand Cafe was definitely intestines.. Sat Aug 01 16:01:31 -0700 2009 4897790 16129 fredid 4 4940579 Finally (!) made it here. It was really packed for lunch --- I'd never taken a really close look before, but I don't think I had ever seen it crowded at lunch in the "Thai-only" era. Ziran niurou (Cumin Beef) was really excellent. Lightly fried morsels of beef bathed in cumin and star anise, stir fried with piquant peppercorns and still-slightly-crunchy scallions. Spicy, flavorful, and textured, it still maintianed the subtle flavor of the beef. It was, however, perhaps the most unique prepartion of this dish that I'd ever had before. A DC's zha jiang mian was well textured and flavorful, albeit not the very best rendition of this dish she's ever had (she is a connoisseur of the zha jiang mian). My other DC had a squid dish from the Thai side of the menu, which . . . is best avoided in the future. For a restaurant that turned out excellent ziran niu, they did manage to get everything else wrong --- hard, dry rice, exercrable "duck" sauce on the table, inedible hot & sour soup (but a nice demonstration of a non-Newtonian fluid, since there was so much corn starch), tepid "ice" water, and tea that was undrinkably bad (and $1.25 to boot, for a single cup). Service was not rapid, although to be fair the small restaurant was truly packed. However, all told, I've found a new favorite spot for a sitdown lunch in the MIT area, if the walk to Mulan or Emma's is too long. It seems to be doing quite well too --- I think the large number of Chinese expatriates at MIT and the nearby pharma/biotech companies are literally hungry for authentic Chinese food in such a convenient place. Wed Aug 12 12:50:23 -0700 2009 4909500 14328 lipoff 5 4941256 Also, they charge like $1.25 or $1.50 for the bad rice. I'd hesitate to call it a "destination" type place based on the ambience, complexity of seasoning and value-for-money, but it is a really nice addition to the area. Wed Aug 12 16:08:33 -0700 2009 4940579 10607 Luther