| rev:text
| - Made my stop at How Lee's on my mission to try all of Pittsburgh's Sichuan restaurants (not that it's that lengthy of a journey). Our party of 4 was seated immediately around 6 on a Sunday night, despite the restaurant being relatively full already upon our arrival. Our server came by to take our orders and drop off our dishware and food, and we didn't see her after that until she delivered our single check for the table. Though I wasn't overly surprised at this level of service, it was a bit minimal even for the typical Pittsburgh Chinese restaurant, and my empty teacup was sad because of it.
We ordered the DAN DAN NOODLES, TOFU VEGETABLE SOUP, BRAISED TOFU, SICHUAN STYLE TOFU WITH MINCED PORK, and CHONGQING FRIED DRIED HOT CHICKEN. Portions were super generous, and this ended up being way too much food for us, as we took most of both tofu dishes home and left the soup on the table.
So, this soup. I wasn't expecting a masterpiece. Typically, I just love having a bowl of soup with pretty much any meal. Super comforting. But this soup was pretty disappointing--literally the blandest bowl of soup I've ever ordered at any restaurant ever. Like, I know it's veggie soup, but I had a veggie broth in a pho just last weekend that pretty much knocked my thigh-highs off, so I definitely don't view meatlessness as an excuse for lack of flavor. This soup was tragically not even seasoned with salt, so I picked some of the veggies out of the (largely portioned, at least) bowl and left all of the sad, sad broth. I hate wasting food, and it's almost unprecedented for me to not take home my leftovers. So today was a sad day in my personal history.
I was really excited to try the braised tofu, and this was the one dish that did not disappoint. The soft and luscious tofu, drenched in a flavorful sauce, reminded me of wonderful braised tofu (dou fu nao) Chinese breakfasts my grandma made me growing up, also this tofu was a bit firmer in comparison (only because legit dou fu nao is like flan consistency). I wish there had been more mushrooms and bamboo slices included, but still, this dish satisfied my expectations.
I feel that any mapo tofu has pretty big shoes to fill, as this is such an iconic dish, and this iteration, while definitely not one of the best I've had, at least somewhat scratched my itch. There was a good amount of "ma," but it could have been vastly improved with a bit more bean paste for funk, as well as a topping of scallions, which usually add such a fresh bite to this dish. There were also literally 3 tiny pieces of leek in there, which, to an allium lover, was such a tease. I don't normally expect leeks in my mapo tofu, but if you're going to do it, do it right, ya know? Same with the minced pork--I actually prefer a vegetarian mapo tofu, but if you're going to make a porky version, be generous with the piggyness.
The chongqing chicken was found to be pretty disappointing by our whole table. For a dish that's as hyped up as it is from this place, it entirely underwhelmed us with its tiny pieces of heavily breaded chicken that tasted mostly (and weirdly) of a fishy flavor. Our 2 fellas at the table picked at it until it was mostly finished (because fried chicken equals man food, apparently, rawr) but it just definitely less awesome than we were expecting. Like, a lot less awesome.
So I probably won't choose to come back to How Lee's, what with better options in Pittsburgh, but I wouldn't cry about it if someone felt the need to drag me back here either. Perhaps they were having an off night, or we just didn't order the right things. However, the options, especially for vegetarians, were simply lacking compared to other Sichuan restos around here. So, my search for the best Sichuan in Pittsburgh continues.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)