Great Szechuan

MSG treated lunch a few Fridays ago… car just finished being serviced and we thought to get some spicy grub.
Its chili spiciness, I think I am finally getting acclimated to. In between all the Riviera Maya food I’ve had recently, Desi curries and such, and Chinese, my palate is finally in the né’er-return-to-wimpy range, and I’d like to keep it that way.
Sichuan style chicken tenders: nice golden crisp, juicy tenders, and medium spicy.
My eggplant with garlic was also very good.
Solid…
Got the green onion pancakes… they’re either hit or miss here. Ours this go round: not bad at all.
Rolled outa there, into the sun, and proceeded to enjoy the food coma that ensued. Nothing like a phat nap and imitating my cats after a meal like that!
PS One of my personal faves: san bei ji: 3 cups chicken. it’s addictive! Betcha can’t just have one bowl of rice!

After walking around the mall to decide where to eat lunch with my friends, we decided on Great Szechuan. The restaurant was clean, as were my plate, cups, and chopsticks. A good sign.
From their menu, we ordered the sautéed eggplant, a spicy beef dish (not the Szechuan beef), and the pork ribs. I found all the food to be very oily, especially the eggplant dish. The beef dish was good, though not very spicy. Even eating the dried chili peppers, I felt no heat.
The pork ribs were probably the best. Smothered in sauce, the large fatty ribs were too big and slippery to eat with my chopsticks. I followed the lead of my friend and just decided to use my hands. Messy but satisfying, until an hour later when I started to feel sick due to all the oil I had eaten.
Glad to have tried and now can check this place off my list of eating venues in the Pacific East Mall. Unfortunately, I don’t think I will be back for a second return, unless someone really wants to eat here.

Really awesome Szechuan food. They have some stuff that’s genuinely spicy. Menu is super awesome and food very authentic, with a lot of dishes that you don’t see elsewhere (some familiar dishes as well for those who prefer the *safe choices*). Coming here, though, you really don’t want to be squeamish, ‘cuz the food is just so good and so different from many Chinese places most people would go to. As for the service, our waitress was actually really great, even though at a lot of really good Chinese places I usually don’t care about how the service is anyway. If you love spicy stuff and real Szechuan food, this will fit the bill.

Yummy! GREAT for groups, food is ultra spicy but they do have a FEW non-​spicy options for people that can’t handle the spicy items. Very authentic, a lot of Asian people here in large groups, waiters bi-​lingual and assume you want to order in Chinese unless you speak English.
Stable is the Spicy Fish… so good, order it every time!

very bad service! when we pay the bill for our lunch, the waiter (mid-​age) even forces us to pay 15% tips because we only tipped 12%, it’s ridiculous !!!
I argued that tips is optional and it depends on his service. He said it’s restaurant’s policy.
I’ll never go there again !!! Neither will any of my friends.

I love Szechuan and this place is good.
I love their Szechuan Beef Noodle and fried chicken.
I cannot wait to try other dishes to impress me, but so far we are so contents with those two dish.
I wish I can go to big group to try many thing, but not all of my friends can take spicy, so it is always ended up me and my hubby.

This place is great. Very clean and authentic food with a lot of dishes that you do not see in most of the standard bay area Szechuan restaurants. I have traveled a lot in China and I think this is the closest thing to the Szechuan food I have had over there.
Also, bonus that it is in the mall so you can get your 99 Ranch shopping on and stock up on Taiwanese pastries at the bake shop.
By the way, this is the same place as:
which also has 60 reviews.

Was thinking to write an update for Great Szechuan for a long long time. I just haven’t got a chance to do so.
I am not sure what happen to the cook or chefs, it doesn’t taste as good as it use to be. I ordered the Fried Chicken with Spicy Spice, the White Pork with Garlic Sauce, and a Fish cooked in Chili Oil. The Spicy is still there. However, seems the spicy and the taste doesn’t blend in too well these couple times that I went there.
The spice overrun the taste of the natural taste of each item.
Oh well, I guess is not like when they first open with some high quality standard to attract customers. It happens to all places, quality will deteriorate though time.

We just came here for a friend’s birthday.
First of all, we came with a party of 12, we said we didn’t mind waiting for one of the other parties to finish, instead the waitress brushed off my friend and pointed us to a make-​shift table that had no glass top and was wobbly… not cool.
We started off with some Dumpling appetizers which were just okay, the filling didn’t taste meaty enough and was kinda bland.
We had an array of dishes family style but I don’t know the correct names of all these dishes so bare with me:
Salt&Pepper Chicken– Really really good. The chicken was delicously crunchy and full of flavor. Too bad it wasn’t even spicy though so it didn’t feel szechuan. And watch out, there’s bones!
Chili Boiled Fish– SOO good! Flavorful and spicy! Probably my favorite dish of the night? Didn’t have more than a few bites though, had to share with the rest of the group. So yeah, less vegetables in the dish and more fish!
Beef pancake — probably the worst dish of the night? It looked/​tasted like hamburger patties fried in dough. had one bite and I was done.
Szechaun Style Tea Smoked Duck — I think we got this, but it tasted pretty much like Peking duck, didn’t tast any tea or spiciness even. Still tasty though.
Mapo Tofu — ehh, nothing special, again not «Szechuan» spicy enough for me.
Spicy Eggplant — me love eggplant! Can’t go wrong with eggplant. delicious, greasy, yummy. But again, less filler vegetables and more eggplant!
Pork Szechuan style — It was fattier than expected, but at the same time really dry, didn’t really like it…
I know we had even more food but I forgot them/​they weren’t that memorable. Overall, it wasn’t a bad meal, but everything just ended up tasting spicy by the end of the meal (and not even good spicy, but just mildly spicy). But for $ 12 ($ 14 covering our b-​day friend), it was a lot of food. Too bad I’ve had better Szechuan food.

To be honest, I’ve only really had their sichuan dim sum before, and that menu has some very good items. Unfortunately, I don’t know the names of the dishes in English, so I’ll just wing it with direct translations…
Try the red oil dumplings and the… ok actually I have no idea how to translate this, but it’s a beef patty wrapped in a thin dough. The mouth watering chicken is ok (used to be better, but I think they changed chefs).
I’m sure the main dishes are very good as well, and next time I find myself back in SF, I may try them!

(Updated review)
Either the quality of the food went down or I just don’t like the food as much anymore. Especially after discovering very authentic Shaanxi food in Toronto. It’s similar to Sichuan food, but wow the food there was Sooooooo Goooooooooooooood!!!
Anyway I heard there was a recent change in ownership in that the partnership split, however I don’t know if that’s something that effects the quality of the food.

A-​OK, not too bad. Typical Szechuan, greasssy, flavorful, spicy.
Even though the name is Great Szechuan (or Szechuan fusion), they have other Chinese region’s cuisine as well. Shanghai, Taiwan, Szechuan, just to name a few. The weekend menu consist of the more local eats like home made soymilk (sweet or salty).
The bf and I went during weekdays as we craved for something ridiculously spicy, and Szechuan seemed to be the answer at that moment.
We ordered the spicy house noodle soup, hot and sour noodle soup with pork intestines, dumplings mixed in hot oil, and shanghai xiao loong bao (shanghai little steamed dumplings.)
I’m not a big fan of my hot and sour noodle soup with pork intestines. Spicy?! Yes…, tongue-​numbing HOT (spicy). Tongue-​burning HOT as well. Very flavorful, pretty tasty pork intestines, don’t really like the noodle (clear thick noodle I think it’s green bean noodle?) Lot of very potent spices swimming in the soup. I took a bite of a tiny ball of (?), and it numbed my tongue and i pretty much couldn’t really taste anything afterward…
The spicy house noodle soup is not the szechuan style noodle soup. Like a typical spicy noodle soup with seafood. Not too impressed.
I was expecting the Xiao Loong Bao to be filled with juice inside. Not much juice, but meat packed though. I would preferred to have some juice.
Shanghai dumplings in hot oil was pretty good, but I had better ones before.
Overall, it was a good experience to experience another Szechuan style restaurant. But it just wasn’t one of the better one I tried.

Typically, whenever I go to a Chinese restaurant whose customers are entirely Chinese, I expect excellent stuff. It was slightly disappointing, given this expectation.
The menu is HUGE, so you’re sure to find something that interests you. Apparently, they don’t offer the bamboo rice bowls on weekends, even though the menu doesn’t say that.
The food was spicy, pretty tasty, and very greasy, in classic Szechuan tradition. But ultimately, it wasn’t particularly great food, and it wasn’t terribly cheap, unlike my favorite Szechuan place in the Seattle suburbs.
Service was fair at best.
Also note that this place is tucked away inside the Pacific East mall, so if you’re driving around looking for it, go inside the mall. There are no signs for it outside.

Went back for breakfast, where we had:
* Soy milk and fritters: Good
* Xiao Long Bao (XLB): So-​so
* Green Onion Pancake: A bit oily, not my favorite
* Some kind of meat sandwich thing: um, kind of an acquired taste, but OK
And then, when I thought it was over, we ordered:
* Radish pastries: These are flaky puff pastry-​like things filled with shredded radish and bits of Chinese ham or sausage. I enjoyed the filling, which was like a creamy version of the steamed radish cake you’d get for dimsum, but I think the pastry as whole should have been more fully baked, because the surrounding dough was quite pale and crumbly.
So breakfast was OK, but I’d stick the main courses here.

I tested my endurance for heat at Great Szechuan, where the intimidating cover of the menu doned a gigantic chili pepper. The best friend and I were seated immediately, and after a few minutes of perusing the impressive menu, we decided on the green onion pancakes, spicy eggplant, and szechuan fish fillet. Now, the bestie is a spicy food fanatic, and even has tiny bottles of Tabasco scattered randomly through his belongings. Not wanting to seem like a wimp, I secretly told myself that I’d hold out on drinking water as long as possible to see if I could withstand the heat.
When our spicy eggplant arrived, we were presented with a heaping dish of steaming hot eggplant, served in a spicy hoisin & plum sauce blend and topped with scallions and shredded carrot. The green onion pancake was sliced into eight pieces, each gleaming with enough oil to saturate the wax paper it was resting on. Our last dish consisted of fried red-​orange bite size pieces of fish tossed with chilis and served in an aluminum-​covered wooden tray.
The green onion pancake was way too greasy, and was more of a bread than the typical chinese pancake. Rather than being flaky and consisting of mulitple layers, this pancake was simply a circle of dough scattered with some onions and too much oil.
The eggplant was delicious! Even the bestie, an avid supporter of eating meat at every meal, agreed on the superiority of this veggie dish. The eggplant was sauteed nicely, and the sauce was perfectly spicy. The breading on the fish fillet was light, and the inside was moist and juicy, which complemented the heat of the seasoned breading. As we kept eating the extremely spicy food, the intensity of the heat increased, and I finally snatched my water and happily savored my cool refreshing beverage.
Mmm.

I liked the bun/​dumpling thing with chives, and the shredded bean curd. I have also uploaded a picture of the shredded bean curd to Unilocal,because it was a tasty dish and the Great Szechuan menu could use pictures (or I could get an iPhone and check out pictures of their dishes on Unilocal at the restaurant…).

This is an authentic Sichuan place. The food was fresh & tasty.
But I have to deduct two stars from them.
They did this thing that so many Sichuan places in the Bay Area have done to me everytime I’ve gone there with a crew that had a few non-​Asians.
They toned down the spiciness.
The leader of our crew insisted, in Chinese, that he wanted it to be full power. The waiter nodded, understood, and even provided recommendations. But I could tell when eating it that it had been toned down. The following dishes;
–lazi jiding (chicken friend with chilis)
–shui zhu yu pian (chicken filets cooked in a spicy red broth)
— mapo tofu (nuff said)
Should have caused me to start sweating and guzzling water & tea by the gallon. Unfortunately it did not.
I suspect the sichuan restaurant owners in the Bay Area are terrified of legal liability.
I’ll need to go there again by myself or just with a group of Asian’s to see what kind of damage they’ll do to me.

The rest of my family may be a fan of the handcut noodles here but I was disappointed. I found the noodles to be gummy and one big unhappy sticky mess! Plus, there was barely any goodies (besides sliced cabbage) it seemed.
I did greatly enjoy their fish and vermicelli soup topped with red hot chili peppers. Not to worry — the waitress skims off all the peppers before serving the individual portions.
The sauteed green beans weren’t crispy/​crunch enough. But then the tofu with a thin layer of egg batter was decent (guo1 ta1 dou4 fu3) and so was the lamb dish.
Service was quite fast and pleasant. A solid 3 stars methinks.

Came here for a late lunch. I remember this place being Shanghai Gourmet and I wasn’t too impressed with that so seeing that it is now a different restaurant, thought I’d give it a go … it’s unlikely I will ever return.
I ordered chicken pan fried noodles … which I thought would be crunchy … but instead were these really thick noodles. It’s okay, my mistake I guess. Even so, the food was really bland and I just picked at it … The table that was seated after us, ordered after us — got their entire meal before my noodles came out. This always aggravates me. The staff could have at least given me a heads up that my food was on the way …
My friend ordered a rice plate … shredded tofu with pork — I thought that was tastier then my noodles but he said it was just «okay». I also ordered a flat of xiao lung bao … and for those of you who have read my other reviews, know that only rarely do I order only 1 flat of XLB. But it’s a good thing … the skin was really thick, they were juiceless and I’m still burping up wierd XLB flavors.
It was unfortunately a rather disappointing experience …

I second Alex. This is no doubt one of the most authentic Chinese restaurants in East Bay. Been there three or four times now in two months — a full house each time. They offer an extensive menu — so far each dish I’ve ordered has been a pleasant surprise. The wait staff seem rushed, but they do put in an effort to help.
Stick to the spicy stuff, meat pies, noodles, et cetera, if that’s your cup of tea. In my opinion, they fare better in northern Chinese cuisine than they do with the more delicate southern taste. My two cents.
They’ve definitely made my short list. :)