I’ve always liked Chinese food. And I thought I tasted most if not all of things that China has to offer. Boy, was I wrong. During a business trip to Shenzhen, I was able to get a taste to what real Chinese food is. Believe me, it is really different from the Chinese food most of us are familiar with (unless you’re Chinese, of course).
Most of the Chinese cuisine exported from China are cuisine from Guangdong 广东. As there were a lot of immigrants from that region of China. The immigrants then brought their cuisine to the rest of the world, Asia, America and Europe. These came to be known to the world as Chinese food. But little to we know that there were still Chinese cuisines virtually unknown to the rest of the world. Hey, China is a huge country, a billion people couldn’t possibly be all eating the same food everywhere.
Anyway, in that trip, I found out that Shenzhen is an immigrant city. Which means most of the inhabitants come from elsewhere. And just like how the Cantonese from Guangdong brought their food to the rest of the world, so do the Chinese people from the other parts of Chinese do to Shenzhen. The variety of Chinese food there is stunning. I got to sample a lot of different types of Chinese food: food from the Chinese provinces of Sichuan 四川, Hunan 湖南, Xi’an 西安 and even relatively remote provinces of Xinjiang 新疆 and Heilongjiang 黑龙江.
So which one did I like the best? I would have to say I absolutely adored the Sichuan food. Previously, whenever I hear Sichuan, I would think spicy, like Thai food, that’s it. But i had no idea it was so good. Ok, it is not exactly the healthiest thing around. But I don’t get to eat these kind of stuff everyday, so I might as well indulge myself.
Imagine my delight when one of my Chinese co-workers, and fellow foodie, mentioned that there was a new Sichuan restaurant in Chinatown in Singapore. One night, as I was wandering around Chinatown to find something to eat, I accidentally stumbled upon the very store that she mentioned! The name of the store is Hometown Sichuan Restaurant 故乡川菜酒楼. It looked like a simple shop, but it served Sichuan food, I needed to try it.
It did not disappoint at all. Aside from being spicy, Sichuan also uses a special kind of peppercorn or prickly ash 花椒, it looks like a normal peppercorn but it is red. When mixed during various stages of cooking, it produces a wonderful fragrance and a numbing sensation when you (accidentally) eat it. Some people dislike the sensation, but I really don’t mind it. Think of it as numbing your mouth to help you eat more spicy food. But if you don’t like it, you need to carefully pick the peppercorn from the food (they put a lot of them). I’ve known some (foolish) people too lazy to pick the peppercorn and just wolfed down the food, along with the peppercorn. Minutes later they would complain about how numb their mouth is. Oh well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Going back to Hometown, the restaurant is operated by a very friendly Chinese couple, who can speak English. But even when they are not around, the menu has English descriptions so anyone should be able to pick whatever they want. Lately, more and more of their staff are speaking English, so it should be much better for the Chinese language challenged. They just moved from a couple of stores down.
Whenever I’m there, I make sure to always eat their Mapo Tofu 麻婆豆腐. This probably is the one singular dish that epitomizes what Sichuan food is. Spicy, salty, blood red, and numbing because of all the peppercorn. Other dishes of note are the Twice-cooked pork 回锅肉, think of this as spicy and oily bacon. Chongqing style spicy chicken 辣子鸡, this is diced chicken with heaps of dried chili and peppercorn. Dry-fried four season beans 干遍四季豆, this is something like french beans fried until it is all dried and puckered up with Sichuan spices.
If I’m alone I would just have a bowl of their delicious Dan-dan noodles 旦旦面 in all its spicy, number and oily glory. Of course they also have more Sichuan food offerings, like the water boiled fish 水煮鱼, which not really true to its name. This awesome dish is served in a huge basin filled with, not water, but oil. The oil is cooked with dried chili and peppercorn giving anything inside the oil a wonderful flavor and fragrance. It is actually quite intimidating when it first comes, especially with that layer of dried chili floating on top. Thankfully, the waiter would proceed to scoop out the chili from the oil, allowing us to gorge on the fish buried underneath. Note that you are not expected to consume the oil, it is just for cooking. This however, is a little more expensive as the basin is really huge. Other dishes are Braised pork with Salter Vegetables 梅菜扣肉 and Crispy duck 香酥鸭 which are equally good. Note that the these last two dishes are not spicy at all.
Needless to say, I became a regular customer of theirs, as I would drop by every few weeks. If it weren’t so oily, I would go there every week. I heartily recommend this to anyone who can take spicy food. Remember though that they would adjust the cooking depending of what they think you should be taking. For example, foreigners are expected not to be able to take spicy food, so it is toned down a little. So if you do drop by and want the real thing, make sure you ask them to cook it the original way, better yet, speak in Chinese so they won’t adjust it at all.
Hometown Sichuan Restaurant is at 25 Smith St. in Chinatown Singapore.
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