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| - Don't come here for lunch -- terrible!
When this restaurant opened, I used to come here fairly often for dinner. I like spicy Sichuan food. But after three bad meals in a row and indifferent service (bordering on hostile), I decided that there were much better options in Squirrel Hill, and haven't been back for a couple of years.
Today I happened to be in that area at lunchtime. Other places were looking busy/slow, so I decided to give Sichuan Gourmet another chance. Big mistake. They didn't give me the "authentic" menu, and I was in a hurry, so when the waitress reappeared I just ordered the Sichuan Beef lunch special -- asking specifically for "extra spicy" -- with rice and an egg roll. Food came promptly, with the egg roll coming later.
This was the worst Chinese food I've had in years. The small portion of Sichuan beef was just strips of beef in a flavorless brown sauce and a some chunky strips of vegetable, mostly celery. There was no detectable spice, and very little detectable flavor except for the stringy, nearly raw celery. The rice was waterlogged and soggy. The egg roll, when it came, was a thick, doughy, undercooked wrapper, filled with some nondescript mix of vegetables. Overall, very disappointing. I left most of it, paid the check, and went down the street to get a sandwich. The waitress knew better than to ask if everything was OK.
On the plus side, nothing was rotten and it didn't make me sick.
This place does seem to be popular with Chinese students, and I saw some decent-looking dishes going by. Maybe you get different food if you order in Chinese. But I won't be going there again, and certainly can't recommend it to anyone else.
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