Spices 3 辣妹子
The wings arrive under a mountain of dried chilies, the fat noodles come Shanghai style, and there is hot pot, on 12th Street downtown.
Why go
The kitchen states its own case and nobody else has. It cooks Sichuan and says it does not soften it: the tingling numbness of Szechuan peppercorns, the fiery kiss of explosive chili peppers.
1 The dishes it puts forward are the wings buried under dried chilies, the Shanghai fat noodles, ma-po tofu, and salt and pepper chicken with fresh basil and jalapeno.1 There is hot pot too.1 Delivery runs out across Chinatown, Lake Merritt, Temescal, Rockridge, Fruitvale, Alameda, Berkeley and Emeryville.1 Nobody with a byline has written about the cooking, so I have no outside judgment to give you on it.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the spicy chicken wings, the dish the kitchen leads with.1
- Order: the ma-po tofu or the Shanghai fat noodles.1
- Avoid: bringing people who will not eat chili. This is the kitchen's whole argument.1
Good to know
- Ordering: online for pickup or delivery through the venue's own site.1
Verdict
could-visit — Everything I can tell you about this kitchen comes from the kitchen, which is a real limit and the reason it sits where it does. What it says about itself is specific enough to be useful: it cooks for Sichuan peppercorn numbness and dried chili heat, and it says so in writing. Wings buried under chilies, ma-po tofu, hot pot. That is a plan for a cheap table of four downtown. It moves up the moment a critic or a local editor writes about the food.