Salt Scrub: Ah, Sichuan - Part 1, The Food!

Sichuan, to many, is famous as the home of the Giant Pandas, but to me, Sichuan spicy food is mystical. I've always been told that Sichuan food was so spicy that it would burn your tongue and could give you numb scalp if you were not careful. Just look at the bunch of red chilly peppers, Sichuan pepper corns, raw garlic and chilly oil they put on the food. Secretly I fantasized Sichuan people must have digestive system made of steel.

While interning in the Silicon Valley, I was properly introduced to some authentic Sichuan dishes in a well-known Sichuan restaurant by my Chinese colleagues, and after many years of sniffling and mouth burning, I finally somewhat acclimated to the spice. I was also exposed to other spicy foods such as Thai, Indian, and hot Mexican salsa.

When Jack was planning a business trip to China and asked me to accompany him, I suggested that to make the 14-hour journey to China worthy, we could visit Guangzhou and Sichuan after his meeting, so that we could try both his favorite dim sum in Guangzhou and Sichuan cuisine in Sichuan!

After Jack's meetings in Shenzhen, we took the train to Guangzhou on Friday afternoon and got together with my relatives. We had a welcome-and-farewell-combined dinner in one of the top two restaurants in Guangzhou. My relatives didn't understand why we would want to go to Sichuan, yet spend only three short days in Guangzhou - the food capital of China. First my cousin said: we have really good Sichuan food here in Guangzhou. Then my uncle suggested that we could go to the Guangzhou Zoo to see the Giant Panda triplets. Seeing that our plans were made, my aunts warned me strenuously about eating Sichuan food. Not only would it give you pimples and red skin, worst of all, it could give you internal heat (the Traditional Chinese Medicine interpretation of inflammation). "Sichuan food is not suitable to a Cantonese girl like you," they said. They gave me many high quality Chinese tea, and made me promise to drink it throughout my trip. My friend also advised me to drink the water in Sichuan which was of cooling element and would help counter the heat in the spicy food.

We flew to Chengdu, Sichuan on Monday afternoon. I was a little baffled that people in Sichuan didn't look much different from other Chinese we saw in Guangzhou or Shenzhen. They were not especially husky or muscular and didn't seem to have super powers. Even the local dialect was so similar to Mandarin which wasn't difficult to figure out. Luckily, my carefully selected first hotel in Chengdu, Buddha Zen Hotel, exceeded my expectation, so I was happy about that. The Buddha Zen Hotel was on a street where a real Buddhist temple was located. It was small and tastefully decorated as a Chinese Inn from ancient times. Even the whole street was a backdrop of an ancient Chinese street with antique stores, art galleries and local eateries. It was decorated with lots of red lanterns from the Chinese New Year celebration in February, which made it especially festive.

The next morning we met our local guide, Victor, at the hotel lobby at 7:30 sharp. We were going to see the Giant Pandas. Everyone told us to be there earliest possible or the Giant Pandas would be gone indoors if it got too hot outside.

We got into Victor's orange BMW sedan, and he carefully drove out of the hotel underground parking structure while talking us through the itinerary of our three-day trip. The way he talked made you think that he was leading a group of 30 people on a bus ... yet there were just the two of us in the car with him.

During our ride, Victor told us many anecdotes about the city, the culture and the food of Sichuan. Victor explained that Chengdu (成都) means: becoming the capital. A long time ago, the capital of Sichuan was at where the airport is some 30 minutes away, but then that area was flooded often because it was at the junction of two rivers, so the officials decided to move the city to where Chengdu is now, and building it up as the capital of the Provence, thus, becoming the capital.

Victor also told us there were four major Chinese cuisines: Shandong, Sichuan, Jiangsu, and of course, Cantonese (Guangdong). He said the key ingredient of Sichuan dishes was the broad bean sauce, and almost every family had its own recipe. I told him in the Bay Area, we had been going to this Sichuan restaurant for many years, but one of my friends who traveled to Hunan and Sichuan once told me the food in this restaurant tasted more like Hunan cuisine. It was something to do with whether you feel the spicy in your mouth or your throat, or something like that. Also, Sichuan food creates this numbing sensation on your tongue because of the Sichuan pepper corns. We were dubious ever since. I asked Victor if Kung Pao Chicken, Ma Po Tofu, and Cold Noodle were authentic Sichuan dishes that he would eat at home, and he said yes. Then I asked if Hot and Sour Soup was a Sichuan dish and he said no. Hot and Sour Soup was a soup from Hunan, which was a big surprise for us. He explained: Sichuan dishes were normally spicy, so they used to eat bland vegetable soup to balance out the spice. I explained that in America, every Chinese restaurant makes Hot and Sour Soup, I just thought that it was an authentic Sichuan dish, because the Sichuan restaurant made it especially spicy and flavorful, comparing to the Cantonese restaurants, for instance. Victor told us the reason why people in Sichuan ate so much spicy food was because the climate was so humid and eating hot peppers help to prevent arthritis. At that moment, the people of Sichuan instantly became more human to me.

I asked Victor if Moms (our favorite spicy sauce, 老干妈) was from Sichuan, and he said no, Moms was from Guizhou (贵州)! This really made me feel let down, because I always thought I was making authentic Sichuan dishes with Moms! Indeed, this kind of spice is different from that kind of spice. When I told Victor about the story of the cooling element of Sichuan water, he laughed. Oh, by the way, we also learned that there was no such thing as spicy Mongolian beef. Beef made in Mongolia is bland with little flavor.

The best part of the day, in addition to watching the pandas, was when Victor took us to the original Chen Ma Po Tofu shop in Chengdu! We tried the original recipe of Ma Po Tofu, and alas, we could take it without having numb scalp or other sufferance! That was one of the most joyous and relief moments of the day, and it was only lunch time! Now we know Little Sichuan in San Mateo did not fail us after over 20 years of patronage. On the other hand the authentic Kung Pao Chicken was a bit of a surprise, because it tasted sweet with lichee flavor, and they seemed to put in way too much peanuts but not much chicken. We preferred our own Kung Pao with lots of veggies. At some point when he was eating some small pickled green chilly pepper, Jack observed: "Hmm, now I feel the spicy in my ear." The cold noodle was gone before we remember to take any pictures.