Sichuan Village in Chantilly
Since Andrew was out sick today, I was on my own for lunch today and decided to go try out Sichuan Village in Chantilly. I’ve recently seen both good and bad things about it on chowhound, but I figured it had to be better than your average Chinese takeout. The guys on chowhound that are big China Star fans seem to dislike anything that’s not insanely hot, so I figured even if they thought it was mediocre, then I might like it quite a bit.
However, I think I kind of missed the boat, since I accidently ended up getting the buffet. I walked in and the guy immediately told me it was going to be $8ish and took my money. I’m guessing almost all their lunch traffic is buffet, since they have a pretty large one, so I just went with that. This turns out to be a good thing if you just want to get the buffet though, since your drink and free refills are included in the price, and you can just leave whenever you’re done, without having to wait for a check.
The food on the buffet all looked ok, but was mostly Americanized, not really authentic Sichuan . From what I gathered on chowhound’s that when you go in the evening there is a split menu like at China Star, where half the menu is American Chinese food and the other half is authentic Chinese food.
On the way out, I picked up their delivery menu which is not split like the dining-in menu is supposed to be. The one thing I particularly liked off the buffet was called something like “Spicy Cumin Chicken” which was somewhat hot, but not “ohmygodpleasegivemewaternow” hot, like a lot of 1-star China Star dishes are. On the Sichuan Village delivery menu they rate spicyness as one or two pepper. There were only 2-3 2-pepper dishes that I saw, and the dish I liked off the buffet was one of them, so that’s a bit disappointing. I’m not sure I’d go back again for the buffet, unless I was with someone who didn’t really care for spicy food. Otherwise I think I’ll try to go by in the evening one day and check out the real menu.
