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Sichuan without the spice

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I HAD seen ads on the MTR for Yunyan Szechuan in which they declared the chefs were all from Sichuan province and it had been on my 'try' list for a long time.

So on a cold Kowloon evening I called some friends friends and gave it a shot. Park Lane Square is opposite the Miramar Hotel. You enter from Kimberly Road, go one flight up the escalator and take the elevators to the fourth floor and the restaurants. There's a pub, a Shanghainese place and the Yunyan.

It has the bland interior that resembles every other run-of-the-mill Chinese restaurant in Hong Kong. Less than 24 hours later I was unable to remember the colour of the wallpaper or anything striking, so I guess I can't recommend the place for the atmosphere.

However, manager Ken Wong was a fountain of information and recommendations. All the spices and many of the key ingredients come from Sichuan and the chefs were all recruited from the fine Renmin Bingyuan (People's Guest House) in Chongqing.

Unfortunately, they were still in Sichuan for the Lunar New Year so we got the second-division team instead of the Premier League one - and it showed. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't bad by any means, but I will go back in March to see if the Chongqing gang makes a difference.

The menu had pretty well all the famous Sichuan dishes and manager Wong said the Yunyan is one of the few establishments in town to offer the authentic huo guo (hot pot). If you are a spice fanatic and brag about your cast-iron stomach, this is something which should humble you.

We started with three appetisers, two from the English/Chinese menu and one from the all Chinese version. Sliced pork with garlic and chilli sauce ($50) looked, on the surface, like a rather dull dish. Deli-thin slices of pork (still with the obligatory fat) arrived on a plate looking as plain as can be. But with it came a small bowl of magical ma la sauce, the main ingredients of which are the seedlike huajiao peppers and bajiao (also known as star anise). Sichuan cooks also go heavy on the lajiao (dried red peppers) and other spices but it is the huajiao that provides the famous kick. The sauce with the pork was authentic as anything you'll ever find in Sichuan and turned a rather banal looking dish into a little slice of heaven.

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