Little Szechuan

My hot-​spot for Chinese food. I wasn’t crazy about Sichuan food until I came here for the first time. Food is authentic and the kitchen is more than happy to accommodate foods to your preferences.

Little Szechuan was recommended to me by my kids, friends…- good reputation, I get it. 3 weeks ago I finally went there for the first time and got take out. I didn’t look at the menu — just asked for recommendations. It was fantastic. I have been there weekly since I ate there the first time and have never been disappointed. Easily the best asian food in town.

Fabulous food in downtown State College! Have dined in and done take out repeatedly since moving back to Centre County. I’ve eaten at a lot of Chinese places in large cities and this place is easily in league with the places in Philly or NYC. Mix of American style Chinese food and more traditional Asian style (tasty chicken feet and crunchy pig ears come to mind). The pork dumplings in chilli oil are to die for. Place is frequently packed during the semester, so be prepared to wait a while if dining in. Service has always been friendly and quick, if a bit uncoordinated at times. Take outs have been right on time. Delivery to downtown area available via order-​up.

I absolutely love this place. I probably come here about once a week. Best Chinese food in State College, hands down. Just do it.
Get the Pork Dumplings in Hot Chili Oil. Use that leftover chili oil on everything else. Drink it through a straw, I don’t care.
They’ve got great lunch specials (soup/​egg roll, fried rice, entrée for $ 7.41 after tax). My fave is the Pork with Spicy Green Peppers.
If you want spicy Sichuan, they have it. If you want bland Chinese-​American lo mein, they have it. If you want to see sad fish swimming around while you eat, they have that too.
FYI, they renovated the place and there is much more seating, but if you show up around 12pm at any time of day, expect to wait 10 – 20 minutes for a table. They are packed a lot of the time with a lot of Asian folks, for good reason.

Based on one meal. I regularly daydream about the fish hot pot from 150 miles away. My dinner companion nixed the cucumber appetizer, saying I would have it all to myself if I ordered it, but once it came, we both chowed down. Friendly service. Worth the minimal wait on. Saturday night. I wish we had their cooking in Washington, DC. If anyone has found a place in DC that cooks like this, please let me know! Seriously.

My friend and I tried this place for the first time a few days ago, and we were very impressed!
We ordered takeout directly through their website. It let us choose when we wanted our order to be ready (earliest was 20 min, so fast!) and gave us the option to pay with a credit card or in the restaurant. Very convenient.
We ordered an egg roll, a spring roll, crab rangoon, chicken & broccoli (which came with white rice), and pork lo mein. A few minutes after placing our order, the restaurant called to let us know they were out of spring rolls and asked if another egg roll would be an okay substitute. We were fine with that and appreciated that they double checked.
When we got to the restaurant (6pm on Friday), it was packed and lots of people were waiting outside. Despite this, our order was ready immediately. The interior of the restaurant looked nice; I’ll have to eat inside sometime when it’s not as busy.
All of the food was hot and delicious! Both entrees had lots of meat, and the portions were so large that my friend and I each had a ton of leftovers.
Everything was reasonably priced, especially considering how much food we got and how good it was. Our order cost about $ 25.
I’d definitely recommend this restaurant. Try the chicken & broccoli; it was the bomb!
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Edit on ³⁄₂₁ — I ordered delivery tonight. My food arrived quickly, but unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly as good as what I ordered when I got takeout. I got sesame chicken (which came with white rice), and it was rather bland. Disappointing for $ 15 (which included the delivery fee). Docked a star from my review.

Great menu and service. It was full of people when I went on a Wednesday night, and service was great. I ordered seafood lo mein and they accidentally brought out vegetable lo mein. I didn’t even realize it until the waitress came over and said it was the wrong order. The upshot was that she told me to eat the vegetable lo mein anyway, and a few seconds later the seafood version came out too. The person I was with had sesame chicken and it too was good. They had a lot of things on the menu that I wasn’t adventurous enough to try but I think anything you would order here would be done well. Great service & very large portions.

Food — Not super tasty! Most of the food we ordered is filled with excess oil. That was little irritating!
Pros: Served hot, not bad taste and huge quantities.
Cons: Excess oil, not authentic and they took a lot of time just to take our order though they didn’t seem to be too busy.
Place is not too big, infact pretty small compared to other regular ones. Not bad maintenance though!

Excellent fresh and delicious food! The delivery takes a little bit of time but well worth it and not too long, just over a half an hour. The spicy beef soup sounds ordinary but it’s really spicy and complex and my new favourite in town.

This place is quite mediocre compared to the great reviews. Sure, its good for state college but not that great in general. I ordered delivery which took an expected 45mins but the quality of the food was sub par. The wonton soup I orderes had 2 little wontons without any meat in them. The shrimp lo mein was hot and pretty good except for the shrimp which were some of the most pathetic undercooked and undersized shrimp ive ever had. the pork dumplings were delicious and i have no complaints about them. They almost have it right here but I would be cautious of the reviews that say this place is amazing.

Black pepper in an abundance. Seriously, its the main flavor. Soup that is more of a gel consistency. Long waits to be seated make you think this is the best. Go to Big Bowl down the street near McClanahans!

There are a lot of Chinese food in state college. However, this is the most real or authentic Chinese food in state college. The food tastes good, good size, and good price. It might not be good if you eat alone (even though they have a lunch special), but if you love to share your food this is a good place to be. They have a pretty wide variety of foods, and there are a lot of leftovers. They have a lot of spicy foods and their spicy foods are good.
However, if you do not like a spicy foods, don’t worry they have a lot of non-​spicy foods. (And their General Tso’s Chicken is so gooooood).
The restaurant has a good food, décor, people, and they just upgraded the restaurant (bigger, and better).
Luscious!

Had the Dan Dan Warm Noodles and they were great, just the right amount of spicy, and not at all greasy. In my opinion you should mix the noodles and pork together thoroughly to best enjoy it.
And hey, did you know MSG isn’t bad for you? Unless you are actually allergic to glutamate. Read

I’ve tried a lot of Chinese places in SC over my four years at PSU. The lo mein I got was fine. It was good, actually.
A staple to any good Chinese food is the cheese rangoons. Theirs were too sweet for me.
Also, this place is averagely priced but was a little pricer than some others. I only went here once.

Wouldnt say this place is the best chinese ever or even close but its probably top 3 if not the best in state college.
Food:
Beef Noodle Soup in Hot and Sour Broth: Dont get this… just get the beef noodle soup in spicy broth or mild broth… i thought hot and sour broth would be hot and sour soup… it was just the spicy broth with a vinegary taste. The broth was pretty gross. Besides that the noodles were good and the beef is actually correct for beef noodle soup.
Chicken Curry w/​potatoes: Hits the spot if u miss chinese yellow chicken curry. The potatoes were straight up fries… probably from a bag of frozen fries… they straight up were square with ridges on them… kinda minus pts in authenticity for this…
Lamb Chili Hotpot: Not that spicy actually. Taste was decent and mainly drenched in spicy oil. I prefer the CUMIN LAMB.
Pepper Beef Ribs: This is like the korean beef ribs in like this black pepper gravy i guess. Not bad but you dont get very many ribs. Even tho it was decent, i wouldnt get it again just because i think a krn restaurant would do it better.
Dan Dan Noodles: Not the noodles im used to, but not bad. Its also drenched in spicy oil and ground pork. I would probably get it again if the craving suited me.
Overall, most of the stuff was pretty good. Not very many misses so I would def come when i need to hit those asian cravings.

Tasty food, good service. The portions were just right, the staff was attentive.
The appetizer we ordered (Dan Dan warm noodles) was a big bowl that would be good to share.
I will definitely go back

There’s a Chinese girl in my class. I asked her how does she like state college and she answered great because now she found a typical restaurant with real Chinese food. So, I asked where and I went there. I was so nervous that I was gonna love it so much that I would come back every time to the same place. In fact, I will come back, but I will find a balance with for my Unilocalers.
The food was absolutely authentic. The waiters do not speak great english but you can, at least, understand them. The bowls of food are large. You can share between 3 people the big bowl of soup.
The plates such as broccoli, chicken, duck, and others, are perfectly shareable too. They serve huge amounts of food.

Some of the best CHINESE cuisine I’ve ever had — and I grew up just outside NYC where we hit Chinatown and other top CHINESE spots all the time.
Very novel offerings and unusual tastes — flavored & prepared beautifully — each meal leaves you with a great memory of yet another incredible eating experience.
Fair prices, very varied menu selections. Nice atmosphere, terrific service.
You can’t lose here. Get some!

I’ve had my fair share of Szechuan food from Boston to New York and I can say Little Szechuan falls short, way short.
The chengdu cold noodles seriously tasted like linguine pasta. It was like eating italian food with asian flavoring.
The dan dan warm noodles could use more pork toppings. the meat to carb ratio was way off. The dishes weren’t very spicy but I started feeling the effects of MSG when I left.
It’s upsetting how far this place is from being authentic. Not to mention, it was weird that the servers here greet the customers differently based on their ethnicity. I noticed when asian customers came in they would greet to them in mandarin. If anyone who wasn’t asian they would speak english. I found this to be slightly racist because they’re making prejudgements on a person based on their appearance.
What if the asian looking person didn’t speak mandarin? Why are they treating people differently based on how they look? Why isn’t everyone spoken to in the same language?
Sad to report that this place is one of those American Chinese take out spots that have sold out on true authenticity the moment it opened its doors.

I came to town for my nephews graduation and was driving around for groceries and convenient stores to buy some beer. They are worst than what WA used to be. You can only by bottled/​canned beer from bars and pubs. You can’t buy more than a 12 pack at a time. So, anyway I get my beer at Champs Sports Grill. I decide to order some wings from here for those in my party wanting wings. I decide to look for some Asian food on Unilocal and come upon this place. I have a drink and decide to order from here based on the pictures I see of the food. I don’t have a menu and decide to order exactly what other people have had here. Best decision I made.
This is the best Szechuan, probably the best Chinese I’ve had in years. I wouldn’t expect to say that since I live in the PNW. I eat at Tacoma Szechuan often and compared to Little Szechuan, TS can’t compete at all.
The Spicy Brisket soup, Five Spice Beef, and a pork dish that I ordered all tasted so good. Before I leave here next week I will go back.
The lady that took my order was so helpful when I placed my order with no menu to help me. They even let me try some of the seaweed soup they were eating when I arrived to pick up my order. State College is so lucky to have this place. It is the best restaurant in State College.