Szechuan House

I’m surprise how good the Chinese food taste (base ton take out standard). I’m happy that I give it a try.

I’ve ordered for both delivery and carry out. I tried other Chinese restaurants on The Hill or in The Front but these establishments couldn’t match up in terms of the quality of food or the efficiency in service.
I’m basing my opinion on my favorite dish which I ordered at many Chinese restaurants in the area. By far the Chicken Curry is the best here. Also, try the hot and sour soup. I’ve ordered Kung Pao chicken in the past and its delicious as well. There are numerous options for diverse palletes so give them a chance. You won’t be disappointed.

Best Chinese on The Hill — more vibrant flavors, not overcooked.

There are two things I’d like to review.
1. The gentleman who answered the phone and took my order was WONDERFUL. He explained my options, helped with my modifications, and clarified things for me before I even thought to ask them. He was kinda and helpful.
2. Sadly, the food is awful. I’m sorry. I really wanted to like it because he was awesome. I had hot and sour soup and cashew chicken. They were both bland and greasy. I couldn’t have more than a handful of bites of each.

Best Chinese delivery option in Capitol Hill by far. Much better than Annie’s or Hunan Dysentery, sorry … meant to say Hunan Dynasty. The portions are smaller, which is great because most Chinese delivery restaurants serve way too much. The prices are also a lot more reasonable. The fave on the menu is the mapu tofu, which is much better than any other I’ve had in the area. The service is friendly and the delivery is very quick. If you want plasticware, hot oil, plates, napkins, etc … make sure to ask for it or all you get is just the food and a few soys.

Best place to order from!!! I highly recommend the shrimp fried rice and general tso shrimp!!!

Timely delivery. 24 minutes! I ordered the Szechuan shrimp. All very high quality and huge portions. So great!

good standard chinese food, large servings so plenty of leftovers

Definitely some of the best fried rice I’ve had in a while. It is not easy to do good fried rice. I’ve cooked in a Chinese restaurant before and to cook on the wok definitely requires skill and timing. Too easy to burn and over cook. The rice needs to be soft and dry.

Extremely fast delivery at lunch time ! Ordered at 12:05 and had it to my door in roughly 20 minutes. Food is pretty well priced for the area so that’s a plus! I recommend the fried rice and Hunan chicken

Mediocre. Have had better crab rangoons and dumplings elsewhere at other places. I also asked for extra spicey and it wasn’t spicey at all. Price does not equal the quality.

This is a pure takeout place upstairs from the main street. For a place that holds itself out as being a «Szechuan House», I think it’s fair to expect the szechuan tofu to be good. But it wasn’t special, not appreciably spicy at all (boo!), and a tad more costly that I’d expect for takeout. The traces of broccoli florets and some but of unidentified crunchy black debris did not inspire much confidence in the preparation either.
Also, they managed to leave me without utensils, which is really the opposite of serendipity, because I’ve got way too many plastic forks and knives from takeout that I just took home, but this time I actually needed them. What’s the point of stapling your takeout bag shut if you have to open it and check things like this before you leave?
There aren’t really a ton of Chinese options in this part of DC, but I wouldn’t really recommend this one. No one’s expecting the moon from cheap takeout, but I’ve had better.

Crappiest place ever. Ordered delivery. 70 minutes later the dude arrives. Really? I can go to the store, fire up the grill and sear some serious steaks in this amount of time. I live in Chinatown I’m right down the street. Why does it take 70 minutes to deliver food??? Fortunately, eat24 credited my $ 60 back. what a waste of time. 70 minutes to deliver food when I live in the neighborhood. Pathetic.

Ordered delivery and was pleased with the outcome. This will likely become my go to for Chinese. Had Hunan Chicken and Chicken Curry along with some egg rolls and crab rangoon. All good. Will be ordering again.

I’ve been a fairly regular customer of this place since I live and work in the area. However I’m downgrading 2 stars because every time I order, I give my preference to be extra spicy the way Szechuan food is supposed to be, however they don’t seem to give a damn about the preference I always request for. I can tell because the food always taste the same — never extra spicy. They insist to cook their food the way they prefer. It’s a big NO for me to order my food again.

Came back again! Decided to order carry out and they were quick with the food! No hassle or problems. The Crispy Shredder Beef was delicious! Will order more often!

Ordered delivery and it arrived within 30 minutes. The Kung Pao Tofu was amazing, seriously. Can’t wait to try the other vegetarian options. The veggie egg roll was solid. The chicken satay was not worth ordering again.

You can skip this place. When it comes to Chinese restaurants the reviews can be very mixed. iIthink it’s because of the expectations of the reviewer. Is the reviewer looking for American Chinese or more authentic Chinese. I was looking for authentic spicy Szechuan. I asked the sever which noodle soup I should get. She told me the beef noodle soup Szechuan style was spicy. It came. No Szechuan spice or flavor. Instrad it seemed to be a more americanized noodle soup with lo mein noodles. When I mentioned that I wanted Szechuan spicy, I was given a dish of chili sauce. It didn’t help. I thought the service was poor. It was 3p and the serving staff was more interested in playing on their smart phones. If you are looking for authentic Szechuan cuisine, this is not the place.

Pretty good neighborhood Chinese place that also delivers to the SW which is key. I found the dumplings to be great but my general tso’s chicken was just average. It was worth switching up my usual delivery place to try SH out last week though.

I love their shrimp fried BROWN rice. It’s the best thing ever.

Although I was given a delivery time of a hour and a half during heavy snow, my food was actually delivered to my hotel room in a hour and was still hot. Customer service was great! I ordered the sweet and sour chicken with fried rice (add. $ 2.50) and crab ragoons. Although I’m from the South and used to sticky sweet and sour sauce, the food was great! Best fried rice I’ve had in a long time. I even had enough to eat for lunch the next day. During my next visit I will order from here again.

SO GLAD they’re back!!! They were my go-​to chinese place before they tried to tart themselves up to become that fusion place that did them in. They are currently above their old location (which is now Medium Rare) and I’m so happy. Now they’re primarily for take out (if you’re really in a pinch, there are 4 chairs and one table there) but when you walk in you’re right in the thick of it. They are madly and quickly cooking up your food in front of you.
The prices are still reasonable/​their phone number was what it was before –my only complaint is that I think the rice had a weird mothball smell that I am pretty sure was from the take out container.

Ordered take out because what else do you do when your significant other is away and there is a CSI marathon on TV? Right.
Generally I opt for sushi but tonight I was craving sweet and sour chicken. Surprisingly I’ve lived on the hill for three years and made it this far without a go to Chinese delivery location. After searching around on Unilocal and Grub Hub I decided to take a chance on Szechuan House. None of the Chinese restaurants in the area boast more than 3 stars and the reviews were 50 – 50. You can order online and that pretty much sold me because I hate placing orders over the phone.
I was quoted 55 – 65 minutes for delivery so I settled in to wait it out with another CSI episode. To my surprise my door bell rang after only 30 minutes. Super quick delivery and it was very much appreciated.
They have a $ 15 minimum delivery order but only charge $ 1 for the actual delivery. I had to stack on a few things to get to $ 15 because their prices are so reasonable but I’m more than okay with having Chinese leftovers in the fridge.
I ordered the sweet and sour chicken, fried rice and tacked on an egg roll and spring roll to make the $ 15 minimum. The sweet and sour chicken was perfect. Warm, crispy and just the perfect amount of sweet and sour. I ordered the small order but it was more than enough food for me. Fried rice was also on point.
The only complaints I have about the food are the spring roll and egg roll. The spring roll was crispy on the outside but cold inside. It also had shrimp in it, which I thought was a bit odd. Same thing with the egg roll, it was a little warmer on the inside but it also had shrimp in it. I gave the egg roll to my dog. She seemed to enjoy it.
Overall the food was good and the delivery time was quick. I would definitely order again, but maybe next time I’ll try dumplings instead.

We were hungry and Chinese food sounded great. Ordered lemon chicken (flat out terrible), hunan beef (very good), a pork dish which was just okay, and an order of white rice.
When we picked it up the delivery bag was stapled so I specifically went down the list asking them if each item was in the bag. They assured me that everything was in the bag including the hot mustard.
We drove back 15 minutes to our apartment only to find out they forgot the RICE! Come on man! How the F do you forget the rice? Inexcusable!

**** 3.5 stars ****
What would you do on the first weekend your partner leaves for a 6 month deployment? If your answer isn’t order a bunch of takeout and sit around in your underwear then you didn’t spend much time at my house this weekend. I’m not sure why this business is listed as closed, maybe because of its affiliation with the Fusion Grille space below it that did close, but I most definitely just ordered from them this weekend and proceeded to get a solid 4 meals out of 3 dinner entrée items.
This was one of the few instances where shoving those annoying takeout menus into every home’s mailbox (
) actually worked. I guess I hadn’t heard of this place, and thought for some reason that it was a new business, and after our recent disappointing experience getting delivery from Young Chow I was desperate to find decent mock Chinese food in the area for my regular cravings.
I was fooled by the name, which alludes to the Szechuan style of cooking, prominently featuring their namesake peppercorn which tingle the senses and amplify accessory heat, but unfortunately these dishes lacked that completely. Perhaps I’m spoiled by formerly living virtually across the street from Great Wall Szechuan House, or working right by Sichuan Pavilion, two of the better iterations of this style in the city. This food was replete of any spice sensations though, despite two of the dishes I ordered indicating they were spicy on the menu. I should have known any place that features Orange Chicken as a «Chef’s Specialty» would be just another Americanized Chinese food place, but you never know when you can be surprised. It didn’t help that Unilocal lists both this business and Fusion Grille (whose reviews contain several references to Szechuan House) as closed, which causes them not to come up as search results… otherwise I probably would have read Venu N.‘s review and just avoided ordering from here.
Having said that, ignoring the spice element the items I ordered (mixed combo lo mein, kung pao chicken, and double cooked pork) were all absolutely loaded with meat and decent flavor that didn’t leave you with that feeling of impending death like so many other versions of this food do. The lo mein was definitely the best dish, and I could easily see myself ordering it again should the craving arise. The double cooked pork was the most disappointing… I’m beginning to think I’ll never find a version I like aside from Great Wall’s legendary preparation. They’re all way too heavy on the accompanying vegetables and none seem to replicate the signature paper thin slices of crispy pork quite the same.
Of all the mediocre Chinese delivery places in the Capitol Hill /​H Street area, so far this one has been the most satisfying. That’s not saying a lot, but it’s better than nothing.