Grand Sichuan Chinatown- the redheaded stepdaughter of Grand Sichuan Chelsea

We decided for once not to have a hot pot dinner at Grand Sichuan on 125 Canal Street. This is a well known "hot pot" stop, where you should order your broth half spicy and half regular so you can dip a variety of tasty vegetables, meats, and seafood into the aromatic broth, swish it around for a few moments while they cook in the gurgling liquid, and summarily  gulp them down. When we walked in on a Friday evening there was a pot on every table ...except ours. We decided to order from the menu and forgo our usual favorite dish. We were daring, we were adventurous, but most of all, we were disappointed.

There is another, grander Grand Sichuan only a few miles North of Chinatown at 229 9th Avenue in Chelsea. They are the gold standard for Sichuan food in Manhattan (there may be other hidden gems in Flushing). At the Chelsea location, nearly every dish is delicious, with the exception of the Ma Po Tofu, which I found a bit salty and overpowering there. Still, everything else is glorious- dishes like fiery Au Zhou chicken are rife with tongue numbing Sichuan peppercorns and the Dan Dan noodles are the best I've had, although to be fair I've only had them in three or four places. The Canal Street restaurant is most likely of no relation to the Chelsea variant or to the 1/2 dozen restaurants also calling themselves Grand Sichuan in NYC, but I'm not sure- hey- I'm just a blogger!

We started out with a few appetizers, including wontons in a spicy oil, Dan Dan noodles, cold noodles in sesame paste, and some garlic cucumbers to cool us down.

Wontons in spicy oil

WIDE SHOT---- so so  DAN DAN noodles on the right.

All of the dishes in this pic were just OK. As a matter of fact, that seemed to be the theme of the meal, everything was just OK. I mean, do I look happy?

OK I look happy.

OK- so even so so noodles are enough to delight me. However,  Eugene was perplexed, and Ian tried to put on a happy face, but I'm not sure I believed him.

Eugene interrogates his dinner

Looks happy but crying inside?

The main dishes were all decent but vaguely disappointing. The kitchen is actually downstairs and dishes arrive via a dumbwaiter system. I imagine it's a lonely and dark existence down there in that basement, which might account for the lack of love our dishes received. There was nothing noticeably wrong with anything, but that's no great compliment either. For mains courses, we chose sesame beef, Kung Po chicken, braised beef filet in Szechuan sauce, sauteed water spinach and sauteed string beans. The braised beef was a spicy, oily, stew served on a bed of Chinese cabbage and was the most handsome  and the best dish of a middling bunch, but it still lacked star power.

Braised beef in Sichuan Sauce front and center

The best I can say about this meal is- no one went home hungry. DO come to Grand Sichuan for the hot pot. It's tasty and above all it's fun to eat, especially if you're with a big group. DON'T come to Grand Sichuan for a Sichuan dinner, instead head uptown to 9th Avenue and 24th street, to the other Grand Sichuan, where typical Sichuan dishes are much better.