My Life in Meals

Grand Sichuan St. Marks

I have been frequenting Grand Sichuan on St. Marks since my freshman year of college at NYU. It’s definitely one of the most authentic sichuanese style restaurant you’ll find without having to make the trip down to Chinatown. What first brought me to this place was trying to find somewhere closer then Joe’s Shanghai for one of my favorite things in the world - soup dumplings! A simple google search popped up Grand Sichuan as one of the only contenders in NYC that serve this delicious dish.

This weekend when I was down in that neighborhood, my boyfriend and I wanted something warm and spicy to take reprieve from the cold, so of course I recommended we go back to my old haunt.

First, we started with the Cold Cucumber in Scallion Sauce (excuse the photo, I forgot to take the picture until we were midway through!). When I told my boyfriend we should order this cucumber dish, he looked at me kind of funny and asked if I was sure since it sounded way to healthy for something I would normally order. I had tried this dish the last time I had came here with friends, and one bite of this cold and refreshing salad made me remember that sometimes things that are good for you can taste good too - who would have thought! The scallion sauce completely makes this dish, it’s like nothing I have ever had before. It’s so good that you can just scoop up some of the electric green sauce and enjoy it on some plain white rice (which I did!).

Next came the never disappointing Pork Soup Dumplings. They arrive at the table in a piping hot bamboo steamer, along side a rice vinegar ginger sauce and hot chili oil (the chili oil by request of course). These little pockets of heaven are filled with pork and a meaty and delicious broth. You can also get the crab/pork mixed variation. These little suckers can prove very hard to eat however - only after years of practice have I finally gotten the method down pat.

How to eat a soup dumpling:

Place the soup dumpling on a soup spoon and hold it there with your chopsticks
Spoon on accompanying sauces
Bite off a little piece of the doughy wrapper
Drip the broth into the soup spoon or suck the broth with a “slurp”
Eat the rest in one bite!

Next came the killer - Sliced fish with Spicy Sauce Soup and white rice. This is a classic sichuanese hotpot containing slices of fish, at least 20-30 dried chillies, quite a bit of sichuanese peppercorns, and sprigs of fresh coriander. The peppercorns prove to be tingly and tongue numbing after only the first few bites. As you can tell from the photo, this dish is not for the faint of heart. Luckily, the remainders of the Cold Cucumber in Scallion Sauce proved to have excellent heat quelling properties and was a great accompaniment alongside this dish.