Red Chilli Sichuan Restaurant

7.5 Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  7      Service  7      Value  8     

We strolled in off the street Saturday night without a booking and were greeted courteously despite not having a reservation.

The food is Sichuan style and presented beautifully. The stewed pork with brown sauce was so tender it was falling apart for 16.70, the Sichuan style cooked beef was delicious 17.50 and the green beans in pork mince 14.80 were unusual.
A little more expensive than your average Sichuan restaurant but the quality and presentation are worth it. I recommend Red Chilli Chatswood.

Apr 27, 2012 

4 Below Average

Food  6      Ambience  4      Service  1      Value  5     

The most disappointing thing about this place is the service. I mean, there's bad and there's just plain hopeless. This is one of the mostly disorganised restaurants I've seen in a long time. Having people queue up to wait for seats is obviously every restaurant's dream. But how you manage this popularity is very important.

Despite our booking for 2 at 7.30pm on a Friday night, we had to wait more than half an hour before we were seated. The wait staff here is truly appalling. There is no one in charge of seating the guests and no one in charge of even greeting the new arrivals. We had to go and chase them down to ask what's going on. In fact, we were about to leave when we approached them one last time. Luckily someone left.

It's obvious that they overbooked, and gave seats to people who arrived early with no bookings. There is an easy solution to this. Either have two set sessions which you can book for, or just don't have bookings. We would have been happy to wait if someone had informed us what was going on or if the wait was going to be too long, have the choice of going elsewhere.

Food wise - above average Sichuan, but I've had much better in other places in Sydney. We had the chilli beef ribs and deep fried chilli chicken. Both of which were overcooked and dry and under seasoned. Also underwhelming is the deep fried beans.

Value for money wise we spent $87 on the above including corkage and 2 non-alcoholic drinks.

For Chatswood standards this is not bad. But I would not be in a hurry to go back anytime soon, considering I would have been served sooner and much better had I gone to Glebe.

All round a disappointing experience.

Aug 20, 2011 

1.8 Not Recommended

Food  2      Ambience  3      Service  1      Value  1     

First and foremost, the service is absolutely terrible, to the point of rudeness. The wait staff saw that we were ready to order, but proceeded to ignore us and even set the table right next to us whilst refusing to take our order. There would have been about 6 customers in the restaurant at the time so there's no excuse. They did not refill our tea when asked, nor did they clear our dishes at any point.

The food is average at best, and certainly not worth the price. Having eaten in Chengdu and Songpan, I would say it's a poor reflection of Sichuan cuisine. Bitterly disappointing and would not return.

Aug 06, 2011 

8.8 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  9      Service  8      Value  9     

While waiting for seats in the restaurant we were given the option of seating inside of a private room which requires a minimum spend. We were a group of 7 and the minimum spend will require us to spend $50 each so we rejected the offer. 5 minutes later the waiter came back to seat us in the private room without minimum spend so the ambience for us is definitely good. The aircon was really cold though, which later on during the meal we learnt to appreciate.

The food is Delicious! I love chilli and the food is not only chilli but also very aromatic. However, my partner suffered alot because he's not as much of a chilli eater as I am. The munk bean soup and water boiled beef are particularly good.

We used an entertainment book voucher and a full meal only costed us $20 each and the 3 boys had beers. Would definitely go back, probably leave my partner out of it but I sure enjoyed the spice!

Apr 14, 2011 

7 Recommended

Food  7      Ambience  7      Service  7      Value  7     

The food is comparable against other Sichuan restaurants in the city. But for Chatswood, it is quite good. The decorations remind me of being in China. The service is so-so, they need more people who are multi-lingual, or those with slightly better english.

Find out more at: http://happynomnomnom.wordpress.com/2010/11/24/red-chilli-sichuan-restaurant-chatswood-sydney/

Dec 16, 2010 

8 Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  7      Service  8      Value  8     

A friend recommended this place, and luckily we made a reservation. The place was full of people waiting outside for a table, but we were seated nearly straight away after we arrived. great service.

Food was superb, if you like chinese zichuan food (that is, spicy hot food with plenty chinese peppercorn). Loved the menu, very self explanatory and informative, great for western if you dun know what you're ordering. We had kidney with young ginger, kidney cooked just to perfection, no strange smell, crisp and flavoursome. Pork stomach with tongue in chilli oil, yum.. can't even get this quality in some restaurants in China. The signature duck, highly recommended, authentic middle/northern chinese way of cooking poultry.

Overall, highly recommended, you now don't have to go to China for authentic sichuan food.

Sep 06, 2010 

6 Average

Food  6      Ambience  7      Service  5      Value  6     

Great to see an authentic restaurant selling regional food. Hate their menus! They come as a full colour coffe-table sized fully bound book with colour photos of all dishes, meaning there are only about 3-4 dishes shown per page and there are probably 40 pages. Takes half an hour to go through the menu only to realise you've forgotten what you want. I don't need pictures of each dish. I would be happy with a description.

There are no sweet and sours or black beans or chow meins here. It is all regional food and some may not appeal to western tastes. I can't claim to be a fan of pork intestines or duck tongues. We started with sesame coated sweet potato cakes which were a bit gluggy and steamed dumplings that were okay. I then had Stewed Eggplant with King Prawns in Hot Garlic Sauce. It was quite hot and plenty of prawns but didn't inspire me. The Pork in Pancakes was probably the best pick. The Spinach in Garlic was garlicky. The Pork with Sizzling Crust turned out to be some rather sweet pork on top of what my wife described as large corn flakes. Too sweet for me.

We may have chosen the wrong dishes. That menu is just too hard to get through, but we didn't leave rapt about the food. Its not cheap compared to cantonese but quite fair and the serves are big. We ordered the same amount we normally would get through and left quite a lot. The place is done up nicely in faux imperial style. Its licensed and BYO.

Service is okay without being great. Give it a try for its amazing choice of specialties and, perhaps, be prepared to be adverturous. I would go back to try again but would not order any of the dishes we had this time.

Aug 25, 2010 

8 Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  8      Service  8      Value  8     

Great Chinese food outside of China! If you like it hot and washing it down with Tsingtao then this is the place. Nice authentic dishes but be prepared to wait to get in, we even had to wait Sunday night. One of the great things about this place is that unlike similar Sichuan restaurants they were very generous with the fish dishes, ate way too much. Will be back.

Aug 14, 2010