My tour of Hakka places continues. This time it was Szechuan Spice. I noticed this place when I was at Golden Pocket Pita. They are next door to each other. Again as usual, my first meal at a Hakka food place is the Chilli Chicken and Hot and Sour soup.
The H&S soup was decent in flavour and I liked it as it was not your standard brown glutoneous liquid with a few veggie floaters. The soup really looked appetizing, however, it was a little better than luke warm - which throws off the flavour. The server accidentally brought me the chicken corn soup and then promptly replaced it with my order. What I think is happening is they pre-fill bowls of soup and leave it out for quicker service. Really...how much effort is it to ladle out a bowl each time?
The Chilli Chicken lacked heat and I found that they really over fried the protein. Also the pieces of chicken itself was lost in the batter, as it was smaller chunks than other places. It was quite hard and difficult to chew. The gravy was mostly oily and was missing the green chilli peppers. This is their version of the food, and unfortunately, it didn't meet my expectations.
They do run a very busy shop and the staff is friendly. Good to see that, what I am assuming is a family business, is doing well. I for one will probably not frequent the place. Sorry.