Chinatown Crawl Part 2 - Sichuan Cuisine, Jungle Cafe

After soup dumplings and other dishes at three restaurants, the Chinatown crawl was beginning to slow to a crawl. We needed a lift.

Chinatown coffee

Somehow, we stumbled into a gourmet food store that sold vacuum-packed duck tongue. They also had this coffee-making contraption:

The proprietor explained that she about to open a coffee store on the south side of Bellaire. Her coffee had steeped overnight. She gave us free (!) samples.

It was amazing. A simple cold, espresso-sized cup of coffee held some of the richest and smoothest coffee I have ever tasted. It was a strong, concentrated coffee without any acidity or bitterness.

I can't wait for her new cold-press coffee store when it opens in Chinatown.

Feasting at Sichuan Cuisine

After our pause from eating, and a little lift, we were ready for more food. When Jenny took us to Sichuan Cuisine, we lost our dumpling focus. We had to try some of the famously spicy food.

Jenny procured us a few plates of cold appetizers. These included sliced beef and mow, pork nose and pork ear:

The nose had been smoked, presumably in something like hickory wood. It had a nice, barbecue flavor. The ear was a little stranger, with a rubbery texture and an odd flavor. Even an adventurous eater as She eats could not handle it. I could stomach it, but I much preferred the snout.

Soon, we had a spicy plate of kung pao duck tongue with green onions and jalapenos:

I was surprised that duck tongue contains such a large bone. But the little tongues were delicious and spicy.

At that point, the dishes started flying out of the kitchen and spinning around our lazy susan:

We had boiled sliced fish in spicy sauce, congquin chicken, fried tofu, double-cooked pork, green beans with ground pork, and tea-smoked duck.

Many of the dish involved sichuan peppercorns. To my tongue, these are not so much spicy as taste-bud deadening. By the time I finally tried a soup dumpling, my taste buds were toast. My guess is that these soup dumplings would come in a close second to Fu Fu.

From pig nose to duck tongue to wierd peppercorns, Sichuan Cuisine is one of the strangest wonders of the Houston food scene. I need to go back to fully appreciate it.

On this Sunday, after three previous restaurants, it was a blur -- much like the 16th wine you try at a wine tasting. I had lost all discernment.

Cake at Jungle Cafe

Just as Charlie Bucket and his father surreptitiously left Willy Wonka and the group to try fizzy lifting drinks, Anonymous Child and I wandered away from the rest of the group to try Jungle Cafe, which Misha recently reviewed.

Jungle serves perhaps the prettiest and most artistic little cakes in Houston. This is the lemon/chocolate cake that Anonymous Child ordered. She loved it.

I only managed to get a small bite.

But by that point, I could not have eaten even a wafer-thin mint.