Sichuan MaoCai from Chengdu Restaurant

When I stepped outside tonight, I was actually trying to satiate a craving for steak frites. But the first bus coming down the street was headed to Tiong Bahru instead, so I figured that this might be a good chance to check out some of those Sichuan places that seemed to have been popping up on Outram.

I passed by the first two shops and landed at this one (243 Outram Road, 6222-5335), mainly because they had this strange maocai thing that I'd never seen before. It turned out that it was basically like a cross of mala xiang guo and shui zhu yu: you pick your ingredients, but then it goes into that greasy salty spicy elixir instead of staying dry. And how spicy it was indeed. I merely got the regular version and I was sneezing every minute or so thanks to those tongue-numbing peppercorns. The runny nose and occasional cough further drove the heartburn home, although at least I kept from breaking a sweat.

Either way, all of the salt and grease in this thing was a heart attack waiting to happen, so this can't be a place that I can come back to very often. One might argue that steak frites would have been the healthier choice given the red wine and salad accompanying that! If I do go back there though, I have to remember to get these little boiled dumplings on the side again, as those were fun to eat.