11 September 2012

Red Chilli Sichuan, Lunchbox. $10 lunch review

| johnboy
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sichuan

I spent a marvellous couple of weeks in Sichuan province back in the late 90s and still long to see a Sichuan restaurant in Canberra (or even Australia) serving food anything like what I ate back then.

On top of that I was devastated when, a few months ago, the excellent La Pasa Singaporean restaurant closed to make way for the Red Chilli Sichuan chain (that website has some fantastic chinglish howlers if you’re into that sort of thing).

But the refit is finally over and Red Chilli has been unleashed on Civic and they’re still doing lunchboxes for $8.50.

Yesterday at noon they weren’t quite ready so the Blue Olive got to make me a sandwich. But today the bain maries were loaded up and ready to go.

I went with Kung Pow Chicken (how can anyone resist that name?) and “beef and potato”. In the photo you can also see some things that look like hollowed out potatoes.

That in fact is “Chinese corn bread” and it is possibly the densest material you will encounter this side of neutronium.

I wasn’t expecting greatness here but I was pleasantly surprised. The flavours were rich and well balanced. The rice was marvelously fluffy. The corn bread was a novel experience.

I rather enjoyed it and will be going back.


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(For more sub $10 lunches in Civic check the tag, if you’ve got recommendations let me know.)

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Tried it out today at about 1pm, and found it to be pretty disappointing. I think they only had 3 options, I got the Kung Pow chicken and beef and potato as well. The cornbread didn’t appear to be available.

The rice was nice, the beef was kind of gristly, and I kept getting smacked in the face with waves of really strong garlic. The serving size was good for $8.5 though.

Probably the most disappointing thing was that the whole lot was only lukewarm, they really need to crank their bain marie up.

It’s a bit of a pitty, I used to really love the stuff that La Pasa did for lunch (and La Pasa’s lunches were 50c cheaper).

Madam Cholet1:01 pm 17 Sep 12

OK, tried it out. A good average. Not a huge choice – two chicken dishes, one beef, veggies and fried or steamed rice. Wondering if I was in too early, but the restaurant seemed to be decently populated. For $8.50 it’s not a bad deal, but was not blown away by the flavours. The veggies were quite tasty and nice and crisp. Spice was entirely comfortable although good level of dried chillies floating about in the chicken which you can either eat or discard. Didn’t need to have a cool drink whilst eating it though.

When I was queuing up I was debating whether to flee to the Burmese across the way due to the lack of choice. Stuck with it and on the whole would say it’s not really different to what you can get anywhere else.

Kerryhemsley12:13 pm 12 Sep 12

George likes his chicken spicy!

Madam Cholet9:50 am 12 Sep 12

Very sad when La Pasa closed….best Hunan chicken ever. This new place better be good given the time it took to open, but good to see another more than half decent place in City West. I think I’ll be checking it out on Monday!

JB, having spent some time in Chengdu (Sichuan province) in the last couple of months, the Kung Pow dish served to me there put blisters on the inside of my lips, I prefer the westernised ‘cooler’ version.

rosscoact said :

I went past there this morning and did a double take.

How was the spice level JB? I’m happiest when Kung Pow tastes like Thwack Bam Boom Chichen

It’s not red hot, more at the level of comfortable flavour IMHO.

I went past there this morning and did a double take.

How was the spice level JB? I’m happiest when Kung Pow tastes like Thwack Bam Boom Chichen

johnboy said :

I like to focus on the positives. But I leave plenty for an intelligent reader to read into it.

Hehe, touche.

JB, do you have any negative reviews in your $10 lunch roundup? They always seem reasonably positive.

I like to focus on the positives. But I leave plenty for an intelligent reader to read into it.

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