Chilli Cool

Monday, December 14, 2009 - We started with the gong pau chicken which was sweet and salty at the same time and satisfyingly crunchy thanks to all the peanuts in it. This was probably my favourite dish of the night but unfortunately I can't say that the gong pau chicken delivered the chilli hit we were expecting. It was the same story with the dan dan noodles, slinky coils of noodles flavoured with pork and preserved vegetables. Tasty yes, hot no...I thought Chilli Cool was great value for money but I was a bit disappointed in the heat factor.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009 - The winner of the night was a dish recommended as 'must order' by Mr. Noodles, listed as 'sliced beef Szechuan style' on the menu. It's a classic Sichuan preparation of protein swimming in chili oil and Sichuan peppercorns. The beef was remarkably tender. My one complaint: seriously not spicy. Mapo tofu and dry-fried beans rounded up our order of all the Sichuan classics. They were fine, but without much spiciness, they were even less interesting than our gong pao chicken and dan dan noodles.

Saturday, May 09, 2009 - The menu is excitingly offal-heavy. Along with Szechuan classics like "man and wife offal slices" and "devil-exploded kidneys" were a range of dishes involving every part of pig and cow, charmingly literally translated with no concessions to delicate English ears. By far my favourite plate of food was a superb "hot and crispy pigs intestines", which instead of gloopy chitterlings was in fact varying in texture between moist parcels of pork fat encased in crispy membrane, to crunchy nuggets of pork scratching, all doused in a fiery pepper and chilli sauce.

Friday, April 10, 2009 - The restaurant is narrow but deep (as I entered, I could see all the way down to the far end), and at 7pm on a Monday, it wasn’t very busy. The interior is simple and plain, but it was clean, more importantly… The menu looked good and there were various dishes I wanted to try, such as double cooked pork, vermicelli with minced pork and the fish hot pot (with fresh chilli and chilli powder & including four rounds of vegetables). There were also things I would return to have at lunch, such as dan dan mian, braised beef noodles and minced pork dumplings with chilli oil. I cursed myself for not having worked harder on my Chinese, as there was a ’specials’ menu, in Chinese only.