Last Saturday accidentally became a day of eating Asian cuisine. For lunch my good friend Qirong (aka Chelsey) took me to Szechuan Garden for a personalized tour of Szechuan cuisine. For dinner I joined two good friends for Vietnamese phở (pronounced fuh) at Phở Tay Ho.

Both restaurants are absolutely delicious and deserving of a review.

Szechuan Garden
1275 E 8600 S
Sandy, UT
801.233.0027
http://the-szechuan-garden.com/

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Chelsey told me that Szechuan cuisine originates from the Sichuan Province in China. They use a lot of chilies in their food because of the extremely humid climate in the area. As found here, chilies are thought to help dry out the body by promoting sweating.

As you may have guessed, Szechuan food is not for the weak of tongue. However, don’t let that scare you from trying Szechuan Garden. They also offer an Americanized menu which has safer and less spicy dishes to try.

Chelsey ordered for us and was kind enough to also provide the Chinese pronunciation for each dish.

Happy Couple (foo chi fay pian) Happy Couple is an appetizer of thinly sliced, cooked beef served cold with a spicy spice mix and chopped nuts. This is a surprisingly refreshing dish and a great way to prep your palate for what is to come.

Braised Beef in Chili Broth (shei chu new roll) This is Chelsey’s favorite dish. Very tender beef served in a spicy chili broth and topped with a generous serving of chili peppers. The broth is not meant to be eaten, but the peppers can be. Although I don’t recommend it as the dish is plenty spicy on it’s own. Dish the beef on to rice and enjoy! One pitfall: Chelsey told me that they put a chemical on the beef to tenderize it so it’s not the healthiest dish you can eat. Correction: As you’ll see from the comment below, this dish is very healthy and is tenderized naturally. Yum!

Chong Qing Spicy Chicken (lar zee gee ding) Given that I typically favor beef, I was surprised to find this was my favorite dish. The batter which the chicken was dredged in is what makes up the unique flavor of the chicken. Of course it is also served with chili peppers. This dish rivals Americanized classics such as Kung Pao or General Tso’s Chicken.

Chinese Loofah & Bamboo Shoots (loo sen chao szi gua) Chinese loofah looks reminiscent of a cucumber but tastes more closely to a zucchini. Add the flavor of the jellied bamboo shoot and the dish tastes like a bowl of broccoli. It was a really pretty dish but tasted a little too green for me. If you tend to favor vegetables more than meat, definitely give this a try.

Phở Tay Ho
1766 South Main St.
Salt Lake City, UT
801.466.3650

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Phở (pronounced fuh) is a beef and noodle soup which is served with condiments of Thai basil, sprouts, lime, jalapeno peppers, cock sauce and hoisin sauce. You add the condiments as you please. I really enjoy a good bowl of phở on cold winter days. I add squeezed lime, a generous serving of basil, jalapeno peppers, cock sauce and hoisin sauce to mine.

I still have several places to try, however Phở Tay Ho is definitely one of the best restaurants in the valley for a bowl. I ordered the phở with rare beef and cooked brisket. The broth was very flavorful, the meat tender, and the noodles cooked perfectly.

In addition to the phở I also decided to try a salty lemonade. I’ve never seen this on a menu at a Vietnamese restaurant and love to try new things. It is lemonade served with a preserved lemon. After a lemon has been preserved it turns salty. So the resulting flavor of this lemonade is both sweet and salty. I tend to favor salty over sweet so I really enjoyed it. It would be particularly refreshing in the summer.