Szechuan Home

They closed

they told me they are moving.
not open yet. remodelling
new address
20 956 Homestead Rd.
Cupertino, CA 95 014

THEY CLOSED… what happened?
This place () had some of the most authentic Chinese food in the Bay Area! They had talked about moving last October but they changed their mind. Then, today all of a sudden they are GONE!

This place is «oily» as many say, but thats thats actually authentic sichuan style… Its supposed to be covered in red oil… Other than that – most legit sichuan available in the bay. Its spicy, lots of flavor, really asian and not panda express-​like. If thats your style, youll like it. Dont pay attention to the people here who have reviewed it like they were expecting an orang chicken.
Also, its a legit chinese restaurant… Service isnt too great, but people come here for the food.

We had shrimp fried rice, sweet and sour chicken, and mapo tofu.
The food was average and portions were typical for a Chinese restaurant. Service was not the best, as it was the manager who ended up coming around and refilling our water and not the waitstaff (which still took a while).

For some reason, this has been one of my regular lunch spots for a while. It’s one of many restaurants in a large Asian shopping center. Rather timid in the face of intense ethnicity, I cautiously ventured in here one day, and having successfully navigated it, I found it safe to return.
I’ve tried a number of its lunch specials. The best are the kung pao chicken (and a variant with different spices, mother spice chicken) and the twice-​cooked bacon-​cut pork. These chicken dishes are entirely dry-​braised, with peanuts and hardly any vegetables, the kind of kung pao that some people insist doesn’t exist in the Bay Area.
I’ve also been pleased with the salt & pepper dishes (fish, spareribs) and the «local flavor» lamb, which is a wetter dish and of variable spiciness. Do not order non-​Schezuan dishes here. The sweet and sour, and the Mongolian beef, are just peculiar and not at all good.

We ordered dry wok fish, twice cooked pork and cold dish combo (cucumber+chinese seaweed salad and spicy beef tongue). Dry wok fish is numb but not really spicy. Twice cooked pork was greasy. Cucumber and garlic flavored seaweed salad was good.
Kitchen was fast. We got our food within 10 mins after we ordered. Service was okay.

Had lunch here with my Szechuanese mother. Noodles were pretty good, and wonderfully spicy. Crispy potatoes dish was better than what I’ve had in the past. Good prices. Service was lacking though — our waitress barely said a word to us and neglected to bring us tea. We had to keep flagging down other waitstaff for things. Then she pulled a 180 and started laying on the compliments and making conversation when we were halfway thru the meal… not sure if someone told her to step it up or what.

The food here is great. Try the sizzling rice. You get fried rice squares seasoned and then the waiter pours a saucy vegetable mix over it and it sizzles. Yummy. I ordered curry chicken but got orange chicken instead because we didn’t speak the same language. Fortunately the orange chicken was delicious. Since I liked the sizzling rice and orange chicken so much, I decided to take a picture of my bill, which was written in Mandarin, I think. That way the next time I come back and I wanted the same thing, we understand each other. :)

My first time coming here I came out of the restaurant feeling very unsatisfied and indifferent. Second time coming here I left the restaurant feeling full but unsatisfied. That was the last time. When i see the name Szechuan, I automatically think of spicy food from a region of China that’s packed with numbing spices, chili oils and big flavor. This restaurant met the spicy standard quite well but failed in taste and authenticity.
I tried the cold appetizers that you order in the front. Those were consisted of marinated pig ears, marinated cold beef, cold chicken feet, etc. The chicken feet was overly salty, leaving me with a very bitter taste in my mouth that no amount of tea could wash it away. The cold beef was thinly sliced, however, the marinade did not soak through and the meat was very tough to chew. Flavorless and tough. That’s a bad sign. The marinated pig ears were too numbing with no flavor. They should have transferred some of the saltiness of the chicken feet to the pig ears. It would have balanced some flavors.
For the main course, we ordered the boiled fish fillet which had pieces of fish in a spicy brothy oil and numbing peppercorn with spring onions. That was really good, the flavors went together really well and was not overwhelming at all. A bit on the spicy side, but exactly what I had expected.
The second dish I tried was the General Tso chicken. I know that’s probably not the most authentic plate but it’s my panda express type guilty pleasure. They made it here with absolutely no care. It was just fried chicken tossed in a ketchup mixture. It was appalling to say the least. My palette is not picky (For my obvious Panda liking!), but the General Tso was bland and too… general.

I was too nice with 2 stars.
THEY NEED TO HIRE SOMEONE THAT CAN SPEAK CLEAR ENGLISH! NOT BROKEN BUT CLEAR! THIS IS THE BAY AREA NOT SICHUAN, CHINA.
Honestly, the food was excellent but the lack of english communcation was horrible and distressing. We even show them the pictures they had in front of the restaurant just to try to get the correct order but they still screwed it up. What’s even worse is that they will avoid your table if you don’t speak any mandarin. They wont even bother to make the effort. I will never come here ever again.

The yun nan noodle was slightly bland, I do like how the server mix it in front of you and the temperature was great, pipping hot– exactly how I like it. The dan dan noodles was very flavorful and spicy, but I definitely had better.
Service was okay.

If you love spicy Szechuan food, this is a great, no-​frills place to go. Frog was offered, but it is not my thing. I had the dry wok beef which was very spicy and fantastic. I also had a fish dish that was full of garlic, sichuan peppercorns and ginger as the main flavors. The fish was very delicate… I’m thinking sablefish or monkfish maybe. It was all delicious. Total meal with tea, rice and two entrees that I could not finish came to $ 34 with tip.
I really enjoyed this place. I’m not sure why the scores are low. Maybe some of the patrons are not Chinese and did not know what/​how to order? My experience was great.

I do agree with some of the comments made here but I had an enjoyable lunch here. The restaurant does get pretty busy. As with many Asian restaurants, service isn’t great. You have to keep requesting for water or rice. There’s a language barrier for those who can not speak Chinese. Many of the waiters just arrived from China or wherever. It’s really hard to communicate what you want. Surprisingly, there were many non-​Asian diners.
I haven’t had much Szechuan food but I liked most of the dishes I tried today. The mabo tofu was more on the spicy side but I like that extra kick. It was a bit oily. I’ve had better tasting vegetarian kung pao chicken but the the kung pao chicken is good here. With all the chili peppers in there, I expect it to be spicier but it wasn’t. The half and half hot pot was good. Both broths were good. The spicy one has a nice taste too but it is spicy. I had to drink water and coughed a few times.
I would definitely come back if I am in the area. It’s a nice contrast to the other restaurants in the area.

MEH. Service was alright. I had to actually wave down whenever I needed them or when I needed to order my food. The waitress kind of had a whatever attitude, which I did not enjoy much. I don’t have much to say about this place. Typical chinese restaurant. Plenty of chairs/​tables. Normal décor. This is more like a sit in and eat quickly type of place.
CASH ONLY
Ordered:
1. Kung Pao Chicken– I wish it was spicier. I saw the red peppers but I don’t think it had any effect on the dish. ahha
2. Tofu A La Szechuan– Tofu could of been cooked softer.
3. Beef Chow Fun– Too much bean sprouts! Ahhhh A bit bland for my taste.
$ 32 for 3 people
Good to try what else Cupertino Village has to offer but I don’t think I will be coming back here again… I rather go to Qcup if anything next door.

Holy hell. Slowest service ever. It took 1 hour to get the food that was ordered. Unresponsive waiters. Don’t waste your time here.

This place is the biggest no-​no I have ever given on Unilocal.Deserving of 0 stars for sure.
I went last night with my friend at about 8:30. It was pretty crowded so we thought it was a popular place. Little did we know.
We waited about 20 minutes just to get our order taken. In that time period, we noticed nearly every single table in that restaurant was waiting for something. Whether it be their food, their check, to-​go boxes, or their change after the check was collected.
A group two tables down were seated. I observed them get their own menus, get their own soup spoons, bring up their check to the cashier, and get their own to-​go boxes. They might as well have been workers there.
Another group sat down at a table next to us that had dishes from the previous group still on it. 15 minutes later, the dishes were still there, uncleared. And two other groups were waiting with their teapots open for the waiters to refill their tea. One guy even ended up taking the pot up to the waitress to ask her.
I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt and assumed that they were missing staff members that night. Except that the waiters were not friendly. The lady who took our order kept rolling her eyes and wiping her forehead as if we’d have sympathy that she’s working so hard. Which we did appreciate… until we saw her ANSWER HER PHONE as she was taking another couple’s order. That couple literally had to stop ordering, wait for her to finish her phone call, and then continue ordering.
Our food came approximately an hour later. And it was only one of our three dishes. The waitress put our soup on the table then walked away without even realizing that we didn’t have soup bowls or soup spoons. Whenever we tried to get her or anyone else’s attention, they kind of just looked at us but never came to help. At this point we were so frustrated with the service that we didn’t even want our other food.
I went up to ask a waiter to cancel the rest of our order. He didn’t speak english and looked at me blankly. I repeated myself and he threw up his hands in frustration and went to the kitchen to do god-​knows-​what and left me completely ignored. I then went to another lady I want to assume was the manager. I told her we’d been waiting a while for our food and before I could continue talking she said «ok!» and sped past me to give food to another table. Then she came back to me and said it was coming. Which it was. But that was only our second dish.
We waited another 10 minutes for our third dish. I again attempted to cancel the order but they would just ignore me and then finally bring it out. All the while, they had a worker at the host stand taking care of the checks. But considering how understaffed they were, I would assume they would take advantage of every worker they had and maybe had him clearing dishes or something simple. But no, he stood there the entire time doing nothing else except bills.
Oh and when they brought out that couple’s food, they had the order wrong. And I believe they also gave us a wrong dish but we were too frustrated to argue or even wait another hour for our food.
Overall, I saw MANY unhappy faces that night. I doubt a single group was pleased with the service. I couldn’t even enjoy the food since the service was so terrible. This meal lasted from 8:30 to 10:00 PM for 3 dishes. Yes, who waits that long for food? At 8:30 on a wednesday night nonetheless?
My understanding is that many Chinese restaurants have rude workers (like A&J for example, and I’m Chinese as well so don’t think I’m discriminating). But my rule is to always tip because even if the service was bad, I at least got my food in a timely manner and I was at least served.
In this case, we weren’t served, they were rude to us, and we got our food an hour late. This is the worst service I have ever received. And for that they didn’t get any tip at all, which I NEVER do.
It wasn’t till after this whole ordeal that we realized that the reason this place was so crowded was because people were sitting around waiting for their food, NOT because it was popular. NEVER go to this place. Opt for any other place with better food and better prices in Cupertino Village.

Service was actually very good here today. The Ma Bo was every bit as tasty in it’s lunch special version, which was a fairly large portion. So tasty!!!

We had very American stuff — small corn soup (could easily feed four people — $ 6.95), mongolian beef ($ 8.95) and kung pao chicken ($ 8.95 — I think). Everything plus tip and a diet coke was about $ 35. Cash or check only. They wrote «cock» on the check for «coke», which was pretty funny (see photo).
Service was ok. They packed up our food for us. They are open late — until 11p on the weekends. Probably would not come back unless I was craving spicy Chinese food. Corn in the corn soup was not cooked. Some of the beef in the Mongolian beef was not cooked. Kung pao chicken was cut up into little tiny pieces, almost the same size as the handful of peanuts in the dish.

Sesame pancake = good.
Baby bok choy w/​garlic = good.
Spicy beef stew noodle soup = good but not spicy.
Salt-​n-​Pepper pork ribs = good flavoring, but not much more, more fat than meat on the bones. :(
Green beans with pork = WTH. It was tart. As in preserved/​pickled green beans with ground pork… It did not say that in Chinese, nor in English. I had assumed that it was the stir-​fried green beans with ground pork!
Portions = small.
Service = okay. It’s not great and they’re not attentive, but if you flag them over… they come running. Typical Chinese joint.
Seating = clean enough.