Review: Red Chili restaurant (Sichuan) on Steeles E, Scarborough

Just wanted to write a quick review about this brand new authentic Sichuan style restaurant that opened up on Steeles East, just west of the Tim Hortons/Wendy's on Midland/Steeles corner. I think the full restaurant name is Red Chili Chinese Restaurant (?416-335-0788).

I couldn't read the menu since I'm a banana, but my wife who's from BJ says that their chef used to work at some high end restaurant before in China.

The place is that modern chinese style decor that you see alot in Shanghai restaurants nowadays. Service is mainly young and cute chinese girls in tight jeans (always a plus).

For the 3 of us, we tried the following dishes:

Full fish topped with tomatoes peppers and chili oil sauce. The fish was really fresh and the sauce was slightly sweet. I had to brush off most of the sauce in order to eat the fish, since it was so spicy.

Cold chicken dish with some peanuts and more hot chili pepper/oil sauce. Probably an appetizer, but the chicken was poor quality since it was mostly bone and not much meat.

Cold clear flat noodle also in hot oil/chili sauce. Refreshing for summer.

Milky white soup with very fatty pork (kinda bland), not spicy at all.

Veggies that I don't know the name of (very thin, string like, similar to chinese "dow choi miu" but the very young kind).

All dishes were mostly of the smaller sized portions. The dishes with hot sauce were deadly by my standards, such that my mouth and lips were burning after a few bites. I had to instantly order the soy bean drink to control the burn, otherwise I wouldn't have tasted anything.

Final bill was $60, no booze.

Another table had a huge metal pot of oil with fish and tofu, that looked reallay good.

We'll probably try the place again, but next time we'll have to ask them to tone down the spice levels.

Compared to other authentic sichuan places like Spicy Mama up on Kennedy & Hwy 7, and Hot Hot Spicy at Finch/Leslie, this one on Steeles seem to be the most refined and cleanest place to bring guests. There was even a large bus load of tourists from mainland China that came in for a meal.

Go try it out and let us know of any good/bad dishes you find there.

I had a really bad experience there. The food was ultra oily and unfresh. The MoaPoa Tofu was disgusting.. there was this strange chemically taste that numbed your tongue. It was not spicy.. it was some strange chemical. The chilii fish we ordered was rotten. We complained, and the owner said it was fresh... that he had bought it from No Frills next door. All the dishes we ordered.. all 12 of them were bad. Everyone agreed at our huge table this place was a joke.

Well... I would not recommend this place, maybe to ppl you don't like.