Kin and Alina were kind enough to take my in laws and myself out to Sichuan food. My FIL’s favorite food (other than Cantonese food) is Sichuan. K&A took us here a few times before and the hubs and I really loved the food. It was scary at first since I’m not a huge spicy fan but don’t let the bright red foods scare you. Each dish (that was spicy) was a different kind of spicy: some spicy hot, numbing, tangy… and so on. It was delicious and I wish I could name everything we ate for you but I don’t know Chinese so I guess I’ll tell you starting from the top row L-R.

Row 1: Noodles in a peanut sauce with cucumbers, Veggie in peanut sauce
Row 2: Fish in spicy oil, thinly sliced beef, skewers (tripe and mushrooms… I think other things too, I forgot!)
Row 3: Potatoes, lotus roots + veggies with frog legs,  I think quail eggs? (They were delicious!)
Row 4: Fuzzy melon stuffed with something delicious, tofu with pork belly

If you’re a fan of spicy food, I strongly suggest you go here. It’s located in Infinity Mall (Which is across the street from Time Square Mall). It’s served family style so gather your friends and go together so you can try more dishes. The price is quite affordable and it’s a nice place. Then you can go shopping afterwards if you want… which, I didn’t because I was too full to walk around. 

Larsho Restaurant 
Infinity Mall: 138 Huai Hai Middle Road, 4th Floor 

[揽香川菜馆(无限度店)]淮海中路138号无限度广场4楼(近普安路) Ph: 63756771

I am the worst Korean ever. Why, you ask? Well, I can barely handle the spiciness of my own culture’s food and I do get made fun of endlessly because of it. I’m not going to lie though, I love spicy food and although at times I can’t handle it… I crave it!

Kin took us to a place that serves Sichuan food: 揽香 (lan xiang) at 无限度广场 (wu xian du guang chang). If  you are wondering where that is, I can only tell you it’s in Huangpu and near the Apple store on Huaihai. I literally copied and pasted the Chinese from Kin’s text.

We had dinner with Kin, his friend Jonathan who we had pizza and karaoke with when we first got to Shanghai. It was a lot of fun and since Kin is the expert on Shanghai, we had him order!

I wish I could tell you exactly what we ate so bear with me since my husband isn’t beside me to tell me. This was a delicious, non-spicy dish with green beans and it looks salty but it wasn’t at all.

I love this dish so much, it’s stuffed fuzzy melon which is a very popular Cantonese dish too. I love fuzzy melon, which is also called jeet-gwah (in Cantonese), my MIL used to make a lot of fuzzy melon dishes when she stayed with us. Oh, how I miss her so much.

Does this look spicy? HA! Yes it is. It was tender beef slices with flat mung bean noodles that were so delicious. This was spicy and tangy, it kind of numbed my mouth a bit and I had to take it slow and eat it with a lot of rice. Kin was saying it wasn’t even that spicy compared to how Sichuan food really is.

You may recognize this dish, it’s called Mabo Tofu. It has the silkiest, softest tofu in a delicious spicy bean sauce and it’s probably one of my favorite Chinese dishes of all time. I’m used to eating the Japanese or Cantonese version and this one tasted a bit different from the ones I used to order. It was spicier and it had more depth in flavor. I ate half the bowl myself haha.

Ok, this is real Kung Pao chicken. Whatever you have been eating at take out is not legit. I remember my FIL ordered Kung Pao chicken when he was visiting us before we moved here and he was so disappointed in it. It wasn’t even spicy! This one was not only spicy but a bit sweet and it had a nice glaze on it from what I assume must be honey or another sweetener. 

Grilled shrimp on a skewer is one of the most delicious things on the face of this planet. I can imagine that it is quite a pain for some people to peel but I ate some of the peel as it was so tender. I don’t mind peeling anything… lobster, shrimp, crabs… as long as it’s delicious. This was just a hint of spicy and it was meaty. 

It’s kind of funny that all these dishes look the same. RED. But the flavors are all different and even the kind of spicy is different. This dish was frog legs and it was so good. Frog legs tastes like the most tender chicken. This wasn’t too spicy despite it being completely red and it was more a hint of pepper than anything.

If you can read Chinese, this is what we ate and their official names. W is at work and normally I would just ask him what the names were but since he’s not here, I can’t. I have a feeling most of my friends wouldn’t care about the name, I’ll leave it at this!