Last night, I finally made it to Gourmet San (or ‘The Old Place’ as it’s known in Chinese) on the Bethnal Green Road in East London, spurred on by Jay Rayner’s enthusiastic review in the Observer. It was filled with trendy young Chinese people, and the atmosphere was immediately charming.
Spicy Sichuanese dishes feature heavily on the menu – Geleshan chicken in a pile of chillies, twice-cooked pork and so on – with some Xinjiang-style lamb kebabs laced with cumin for good measure. It’s hearty, colourful food, served on vast platters. Despite the lavish use of dried chillies and Sichuan pepper, however, the food we ate didn’t seem to me very Sichuanese – there was a noticeable absence of chilli bean paste and sweet fermented paste, the classic spices of twice-cooked pork, and various ‘Sichuanese’ dishes weren’t cooked in the Chengdu or Chongqing style. Continue reading…
