Drive to the busy intersection of Valley Boulevard and Garfield Avenue looking for the Szechuan restaurant called Luyixian, and chances are good you’ll think you have the address wrong.
It’s 2 East Valley Blvd., which is home to a mall of sorts called Valley Court, occupied by a salon, a CPA, a law office, an investment firm and a photo studio. But when it comes to Luyixian, it seems to be missing in action.
Or at least it is until you drive into the interior parking area, and find a handful of outdoor tables, and one of the smallest Chinese restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley – a land where many restaurants range from big to bigger, including banquet halls holding several hundred hungry locals.
In the case of Luyixian, what we have is small and smaller, occupying the space that, for many years, was home to the Taiwanese cult favorite called Old Country Café. Simply speaking, the cooking at Luyixian couldn’t be more different. Or any spicier. This is a celebration of the peppers of Szechuan, in some 60 dishes that may well glow in the dark.
The cooking of Szechuan (and Guizhou and Hunan) have long been a mark of culinary courage for those who like to eat around in the SG Valley. There’s an old Chinese saying: “Guizhou people worship spiciness, Sichuan people fear no spiciness, Hunan people fear if there’s no spiciness.”
One of the hottest of the peppers translates as “numbing spice” – and the phrase can be painfully true.
Years ago, at one of our local hot dish emporiums, I ordered a creation called “Viceroy Chicken.” It was basically a platter of red peppers, with some chicken chunks to break up the landscape. I took a bite, and almost immediately my mouth went totally numb. It stayed that way for several days. I thought my career as an eater was finished. But it certainly didn’t stop me from going for the hot. Life is too short for bland cooking.
And indeed, at Luyixian, nothing is bland. This is a small space serving some very large flavors. Because you tend to sit close to those around you, every dish that emerges from the kitchen is seen, smelled and viewed with both scrutiny and envy.
If you’re like me, you’ll order too much, simply because everything looks so good. And it certainly smells that way; this is not a cuisine given to understatement or excessive subtlety. This is cooking that declares itself with a megaphone.
A pretty great meal can be assembled without going much past the first pages of the menu. It begins with a page of “appetizers” and “snacks” – and no, I have no notion why they’re divided into two different worlds. The nine appetizers include garlic cucumber, crispy peanuts, house special peanuts, garlic seaweed “knots,” sweet & sour jellyfish and shredded tofu skin with cilantro. The four snacks run to red oil dumplings, celery pork dumplings, red oil wontons, and “shepherd’s purse” dumplings. The snacks seem like appetizers, and vice versa. And much pleasure is to be found in both.
Move forward a couple of pages, and we land in the land of noodles and more noodles – and rice, too. The noodles are cooked to a soul-satisfying tenderness; they’re not al dente, but they’re not mushy either. They’re just kind of…perfect.
There are two versions of braised beef noodles, a most wondrous creation of braised pork rib noodles, remarkable braised chicken leg noodles, braised beef brisket noodles and our old friend Szechuan dan dan noodles. This is comfort food incarnate. And they’re the milder of the noodle options.
There’s a page as well of both rice and rice-noodles with chopped chili peppers. The presence of the peppers changes these noodles from a comfort dish, to a challenge to your ability to come face to face with numbing spice.
The presence of the chopped peppers is not for the faint of palate. It’s actually very thoughtful of Luyixian to serve the noodles with and without them. The peppers do tend to obscure whatever it is that you’re eating. And for those in need for more, you can order the chopped peppers in a separate bowl for $2.49, which definitely pushes the edge.
There’s more: a sizable page of Szechuan-style braised animal parts – duck wings, duck heart, duck neck, duck head, pig’s ears, pig’s mouth, pork trotters. Less challenging are fried vegetables – water spinach, mushrooms, Napa cabbage, shredded potatoes. And the classic stir-fry dishes, including kung pao chicken and sweet & sour pork ribs. There’s lots of garlic in the stir-fries. And of course, you can crank up the volume with a bowl of chopped peppers. Though the occasional break from all that numbing never hurts.
Merrill Shindler is a Los Angeles-based freelance dining critic. Email mreats@aol.com.
Luyixian
- Rating: 2.5 stars
- Address: 2 E. Valley Blvd., Alhambra
- Information: 626-766-1568, www.luyixianalhambra.com
- Cuisine: Northern Chinese
- When: Lunch and dinner, every day
- Details: Tea and soft drinks; reservations helpful
- Atmosphere: Hidden off a parking lot entered through the back of a building, this may be the smallest Chinese restaurant in the San Gabriel Valley. It’s a tiny room with a handful of outdoor tables – and dishes that can light up your mouth with a single bite!
- Prices: About $18 per person
- Suggested dishes: 13 Appetizers ($6.99-$12.99), 7 House Special Rice ($13.99-$15.99), 8 House Special Noodles ($11.99-$15.99), 7 Classic Stir-fry Dishes ($14.99-$19.99), 4 Fried Vegetables ($10.99-$11.99), 13 Signature Rice/Rice-Noodles with Chopped Chili Peppers ($13.99-$16.99), 15 Szechuan-style Braised Dishes ($11.99-$18.99)
- Credit cards: MC, V
- What the stars mean: 4 (World class! Worth a trip from anywhere!), 3 (Most excellent, even exceptional. Worth a trip from anywhere in Southern California.), 2 (A good place to go for a meal. Worth a trip from anywhere in the neighborhood.) 1 (If you’re hungry, and it’s nearby, but don’t get stuck in traffic going.) 0 (Honestly, not worth writing about.)
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