Szechuan Chef

one of my two fav chinese restaurants in SD!

Eh I really wasn’t that impressed with their food or service. The waitress seated us and was nice enough, but I immediately got this feeling that service is slow there. I wasn’t completely wrong, since they started my friend and me off with tea and it took a number of notifications before we were able to get a couple of waters.
We were trying to order foods that were as spicy ad it can get, but the waitress seemed rather indifferent about recommending any of the dishes. Once we got our dishes, the spicy chicken and fish we ordered was rather tolerable for me, where I can only comfortably handle mild spice in most situations. Overall, it could have been a potentially good experience, but this place just didn’t have what we were looking for.

I love this place and I crave it weekly. If I could, I would have it more than 3 times weekly.
3 stars just for the Spicy Cabbage hot pot. If you love spicy cabbage, you will love this one. It’s nice and garlicky, peppery and just the right amount of oil to taste. My friends and I like to order extra cabbage and extra garlic. Yum!
1 star for the pork and green onion dish. So good! A light crisp pork and I am thinking it’s pork belly slices but am not sure. Either way, it’s yum!
1 star for the fish and tofu dish. My friends and I also add extra garlic to this dish as well! The garlic cloves are put in there whole and it’s so good when cooked through!
This is one of my favorite lunch spots on Convoy. Yum!

This is the most authentic Chinese food I have ever eaten in America. My friends introduced me to this restaurant for lunch, and they recommended me a few dishes, like Pork with Bean Sauce, Cold noodles with chicken shreds, Spicy sliced fish and so on. They are so delicious! The soybean milk in the restaurant is very good, and it’s cheap. This reminds me of the soybean milk in my university in China. Although the restaurant is not big, the environment is very good. The waiter service attitude is very good, and they will also recommend some dishes to me.
All in all, food in this restaurant is very delicious. I strongly recommend this restaurant!

Thanks to my Chinese girlfriend’s recommendation, now my family goes there almost every weekend for the fish (black bean sauce fish with tofu) because we don’t eat port or beef, we always order the same thing. I knows it sounds boring but hey, they taste good! The only downside is that is far from us, have to drive 30 minutes to eat:-(

Wow… I’ve never known this restaurant before. This is possibly the cleanest Chinese restaurant I’ve ever been to, no kidding. The interior is so spacious, unlike any other Chinese restaurants in general where I usually can’t walk freely. They have plenty of tables, but unfortunately, I’m not so sure if so many people know that this restaurant exists.
FOOD — I ordered chicken soup ($ 1.99), spicy fish fillet & tofu, and beef fillet with mushroom. I would say that their food is pretty good. However, the sauce for spicy fish fillet & tofu was very much liquid. I expected it to be a bit thicker.
SERVICE — Their menu book is very spacious, organized, and not cramped at all. What made me a bit dissatisfied is that the waitresses kept coming back asking if we were ready to order. They were like in rush most of the time.
PARKING — Plenty of spaces, but sometimes the lot is almost full. The spot is considered narrow though.
I still give them 4 stars because the cleanliness of their place pleased me well. My friend said that when a restaurant is clean, their food is supposedly clean too.

Their dishes deserve a 5 star rating, but again, the service is terrible. We had to clean our own table and sat there waiting for someone to take the orders.
We usually come here because their dishes are tasty, wish someday, they would pay more attention to the customers.

Actually have been here for more than 3 times but first checked in on Unilocal this time.
Low price for great taste, what would you expect more? Love Szechuan style spicy food. Be careful those who can’t do spicy. The American scale of 1 – 10 is only equivalent to 1 – 3 here. Best in cold winter days for some hot yum soup!
There are non-​spicy choices as well such as the wonderful chicken noodle soup. The real one, not from canned broth.
Five star. You know what this means.

The food was good, the service wasn’t. I asked for a to go box for my chicken noodle, since I couldn’t finish all of it. The lady gave me a very small box. I requested a bigger and she quite rudely stuffed all of my food into that little box.
A good restaurant but poor customer service.

Here is a Place that has Spicy Chinese food !! It is Pretty good !! The beef and Broccoli is Good and the Spicy fish is Tasty but they don’t give you to much fish it is a small fish in a big plate with Potato and Spicy hot peppers but it Tastes Very good !! If you want A live fish it will cost you extra something like 2 Dollars !! But overall experience was good and I will for sure return!

As others have pointed out the service in Szechuan Chef (and often in many Chinese restaurants) isn’t the best nor is it particularly great, but I’ve kind of come to expect that from the culture. I’m willing to forgive that because, man, the food is delicious; it’s kind of like the same idea as the soup nazi on Seinfeld. Their spicy boiled fish is incredible – the broth is rich and not overly spicy, wonderfully complementing the rice, and their stir-​fried cabbage with pork belly bits is incredibly savory and rich.

The service isn’t great, which is not surprising at a Chinese restaurant, but I didn’t think it was egregiously bad. The food was pretty good, and it was pretty good portions for the price. Even my parents thought that the prices were reasonable for the amount of food we got. We ordered the onion pancake with braised beef, an eggplant dish, a spicy fish dish, and a pork dish. They were all spicy as expected, but still with good flavor. The total came out to about 40 dollars including tip, which was not bad for four dishes and rice.

Food was good. There are a lot of dishes that looked good and I’d like to try. So definitely will be back.

My significant other and I dined here one weekday evening. The décor is elegant and it was quite that evening. My significant other ordered chicken fried rice and I ordered a chicken entrée. The dinner was appetizing. We shared the entrees and was pleased with our meal and the portion size. We needed to-​go containers. We were not too happy about our service. When I asked the server a question there was a small language barrier, in addition the servers didn’t check on us to see how we were enjoying our meal. We had to flag down a server in order to get a second glass of water. Also, when I asked for a spoon the server stated they did not have any spoons. I am curious how does a full functioning restaurant do not supply any serving spoons. I do recommend trying their food, but I would get it to go.

It has been awhile and we decided to come back give this place another try. Apperantly they make their progress. Food is less spicy and delicious. Services are definitely improving. We never mind the wait. If it is busy we will be more happy for the business. In the first place, this restaurant has beautiful décor. It is very spacious and doesn’t make you feel scramping sitting inside even when it is crowded. 5 stars this time and I will recommend this place to my family and friends.

Location:
It’s in the same complex as Roadem BBQ.
Décor:
Has nice white tablecloth and the classic metal looking plastic chairs. Also with the spinning center piece for those larger groups.
Food & Drinks:
We had a variety of dishes ranging from eggplant in brown sauce to a whole fish fried and doused with sauce. The service was actually really great this time. The food tasted great. The only thing I find wrong with this place is that it’s a little too oily and the flavors are very similar for the spicy dishes. The other dishes we got had other flavors to balance it out, but just the shear amount of oil is no joke. If they would cut back on the oil I think this would be a great place to go to.
Happy Spicy Oil eating my friends!

Hands down, the Best Chinese Food I have ever had. Dumplings with greens in them, fish was off the hook and chicken was wowzer.
Whenever I visit San Diego next time, I will make sure to come here to have a meal or two.
Entrees are huge, two are enough for four people.
The best part is that they are not concentrating on the size of the entrees but the quality, size is just added perk.
Thanks and kudos to the chef.

Love this place… I’ll give it a 4.5. You’ve got to try the stir fried calamari with peppers, beef roll, steam fish with black bean sauce. Try it, don’t wait!!! I will definitely go back. If you don’t eat spicy, this not the place for you though. Most of their dishes are spicy spicy spicy good.

Thinking about what I ordered here is making me drool a bit right now.
During my visit SD, my friend friend took me here knowing that I LOVE spicy food. We were both starving after SD zoo. My choice was squid with hot chili and he chose fried pork ribs (?). The portions were definitely worth the price — the portions were huge! We shared the entrees w/​rice and were both stuffed. The pork was good, but the squid was delicioussss — just enough heat and numbness!
The service wasn’t so bad, but not spectacular — not memorable. Just give me my squid and I will shut up until I’m done eating lol

I would stay away. Dangerous place! Very questionable service! I went for dinner yesterday. Picture frame on the wall came crashing down onto a nearby table during our stay and NO ONE cared for 30 minutes. (See uploaded picture) I mean, no one even walked over to check the damage or say, «I’m sorry for this. We will clean it right up.» Granted the table was emptied, or else there would be some serious body injuries. I’m talking about a picture frame crashing onto your head. There were broken tea cups on the floor. For at least 30 minutes! A couple new incomers did step on the hazards. Imagine wearing sandals. This is unbelievable, strange bad service. If something even as little as a cup is broken at other places, most people would sweep it right up. (P.S. If you do come here anyway, don’t sit near the wall.)
Plus the fact that the service is seriously rude. An older lady was taking my order. She couldn’t hear my order so she barked at me, «WHAT?». You don’t do that to customers, even for Chinese eateries which are generally not best known for customer services.
Pros: Decent food. Good beef roll. Great atmosphere (compared to Spicy City, which is a bit cramped). Which got me coming for the second time. But I WON’T BE BACK!