Red Chilli Sichuan Restaurant

7.8 Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  6      Service  9      Value  8     

From the outside it looks like an ordinary cheap-and-cheerful Chinese restaurant, but the long queues outside are a giveaway. The food is of great quality and comes in huge serves, so in terms of pricing it's actually quite good value for money. We are relatively unfamiliar with Sichuan food, so really appreciated our waitress being very helpful and willing to give us advice on which dishes would most suit our tastes.

We ended up having the deep friend whole barramundi (1 chilli rating) and the pork with crispy rice cakes (0 chilli rating), both were fantastic. Make sure you book ahead or go really early because they are so popular.

May 27, 2012 

7 Recommended

Food  7     

I'm Chinese and love spicy foods. Just rating the food: Good Chinese (Sichuanese). Was interested in this restaurant as it was the only one in Burwood to be included in the Good Food Guide 2012. Tried the spicy Ma Po Tofu with rice. Delicious and not too sweet. Huge serving! Couldn't finish, asked for takeaway container. Would like to try other dishes and am reading reviews for other recommendations.

Mar 10, 2012 

3.8 Below Average

Food  8      Ambience  3      Service  2      Value  2     

Good food. Compliments to chef. The rest went Down hill with service. May be the staff need Better customer service training. 2 stars.

Feb 11, 2012 

5 Average

Food  7      Ambience  6      Service  1      Value  6     

Food was great. Compliments to chef. Unfortunately, I went recently the staff lack Customer service skills. 1 star for service.
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Feb 11, 2012 

7.5 Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  8      Service  8      Value  6     

The food is excellent and tasty, and meat dishes really have a lot of meat on them. 2-star+ chilli is really chilli so watch out and adjust your orders accordingly.

The waiter in this instance was also willing to give recommendations and seemed genuine about it. So happy to come back if in a mood for chilli.

Jan 11, 2012 

7.8 Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  4      Service  10      Value  8     

I've dined in here and at the sister restaurant at Chatswood and on both occasions, food was outstanding and service was wonderful. Great sized meals and excellent value and quality.

Jul 26, 2011 

6.8 Recommended

Food  7      Ambience  6      Service  6      Value  8     

Looking at the menu, you realize most things are "hot". When the dishes arrive, they definitely look hot with that menacing layer of red chilli oil on top. You put the food in your mouth and everything goes numb. This is normally what you expect from a Sichuan restaurant.

So we headed down to this joint for a spicy experience. We ordered the fish that is cooked in a pool of stock with lots of chillies, shallots and peppercorn. It turned out to be not so hot afterall. Our second dish was the hot and spicy eggplant which in my opinion was too oily and the skin was tough and should have been removed. The only good dish we got was the cold clear noodles served in soy sauce, vinegar and only a small amount of sesame oil.

Overall, the food was on the oily side and it lacks the numbing factor. I expected more hotness and I have experieced it before.

Service is not as good as it can be. Value is average for a Chinese restaurant in the suburbs. Seating is somewhat cramped but it is not a surprise.

May 23, 2011 

7.3 Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  6      Service  8      Value  7     

After reading that some food bloggers were finding even 1 chilli rated food was too much I was a bit scared to try anything spicy here. A bunch of us came and ordered various dishes and everyone was impressed, even my friend Chris who is a harsh critic enjoyed it also. It wasn't as spicy as I thought I tolerated the 1 chilli rated food and I have weak resistance to spicy hot food.

Ambience wise, its a little cramped, they do have a upstairs area but thats small too. Nil issues with service, the waitress was polite and quick to serve us, the food came quicker than expected.

Value wise its ended up to be $22 for each person (7 of us) which is good with the amount of food we ordered though portion sizes are average size, either that or I didn't notice how big the portions were because food didn't last long on the plate! A great experience!

Apr 24, 2011 

9.5 Highly Recommended

Food  10      Ambience  8      Service  10      Value  10     

I went there last night with two of my mates and it was fantastic. The service was pretty good for a Chinese restaurant and the food came out pretty quickly. Like 5 minutes after we ordered! We ordered 3 dishes: the mapo tofu, the lamb hot pot and the kung pao chicken. We also ordered two pots of rice!

The food was delicious! And very cheap and filling too (we were 3 grown men). The price turned out to be $63 which we thought was a bargain. We enjoyed it so much we left a generous tip at the end. Definitely coming back again!

Mar 21, 2011 

2.3 Not Recommended

Food  1      Ambience  3      Service  4      Value  1     

Terrible, terrible food. Went here with my wife and my parents on Saturday night. My wife and I love Sichuan food and we were looking forward to having it again.
We ordered the fried diced chicken with dried chillis (normally our favourite sichuan dish), friend string beans with pork mince, sichuan deep fried barramundi and some fresh tofu dish in a sauce.

The chicken had way too much sichuan pepper. Only one piece was enough to make your entire mouth go numb which meant you couldn't taste anything else. The beans and barramundi would have been nice but they were incredibly salty. The tofu dish was disgusting and nobody in our party ate any of it.

I've had a lot of average food in my time, and I normally eat it anyway with a shrug of the shoulders. But this is truly the only time I can remember in a Chinese restaurant really disliking every single dish that I ordered. Ambience(bright flouro lights, plain furniture etc) and service was fairly standard for a local Chinese restaurant i.e. I go to these restaurants principally for the food experience.

Dec 21, 2010