The Establishment: Even though they still have last year’s Christmas decoration on the outside, you can see that they have done a respectable job with the renovations when you walk in. It is nice, bright and clean and looks upscale with the new cream upholstered booths and chairs.
The Wait: The couple of times we have visited the restaurant we did not have a real wait. The longest we waited was for them to seat 2 parties ahead of us.
The Staff: The staff is interesting. If you are there during Dim Sum on the weekends, you will get the feel of the real Asian culture, with the ladies pushing the food carts. When you are there for dinner, you will find the younger generation will be there to take your order.
The Order: We have been to Chendu 1 on various occasions. A couple for Dim Sum and twice for dinner. We have ordered the different selections of their Dim Sum and for dinner we have ordered the beef pan fried noodle, salt & pepper squid, steamed flounder, baby bok choy and black mushroom and the soup pork dumplings
The Food: The variety of Dim Sum is close to what you would get at any restaurant in Chinatown. The taste is good. We have ordered bean curd roll, wrapped sticky rice, steamed ribs, steamed beef ribs, steamed and stewed tripe, stewed muscle, veggie dumplings and soup dumplings. Due to my shrimp allergy I have not tried the steamed shrimp dumplings and so many other dishes that are made with shrimp. What makes the experience so interesting, is that you can see the dishes on the carts and even if you don’t know what it is, you can just point as to what looks good. The ladies (pushing the carts) may not all speak English fluently, but they will understand what you want and if by chance they don’t, they will get someone who does.
As for the dinner menu, I was in love with the steamed flounder, a whole fish, steamed with ginger, soy sauce, fish sauce and scallions. The baby bok choy and black mushroom with oyster sauce were delicious and the salt and pepper squid was good. We were not as enthused about the beef pan fried noodle. Don’t get me wrong, the presentation was beautiful, but it was not what we are used to with the noodles. Traditionally the noodles for the pan-fried dish is a thin egg noodles. This one is quite a bit thicker. Here is where you get the differences of the cuisines. We are used to the Cantonese cooking and are getting used to the Szechuan one. Their soup dumplings are comparable to Joe Shanghai in New York City.
The Price: The prices are reasonable. Dim Sum dishes run from $3.20 to $8.95 for specialty dishes. Dinner prices range from $7.95 for a vegetable dish, $8.95 for a fried rice to my steamed flounder at market price was $34.00. There are a few dishes that are more expensive, but it seems that they have prices for every budget.
The Consensus: They advertise their hot pot and sizzling platters as their specialty. We have not tried them yet. For us, not having to drive all the way into New York when we would like to have some authentic Chinese food, is a plus. Especially if most of what we have ordered has been mostly good to absolutely delicious. If there is anything that I would like to see, is more consistency in taste. The food comes out enough flavor, don’t get me wrong, but somedays the taste is more intense than others. I would love to see more of their intense taste come out. We will certainly take the 40-minute drive to Chengdu 1 numerous more times, especially because we have not even made a dent in their menu.
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