Restaurant review: My Sichuan

I believe it's possible to eat a meal at My Sichuan which doesn't contain either offal or vast quantities of chillis. But you don't want to read about that, do you? You want me to tell you about the intestines, the frogs' legs, the deep blood red of the chillis and the tingling numbing freshness of the sichuan peppercorns.

It strikes me that Chinese regional cuisine - by which I mostly mean Sichuan, because that's mostly what we've got in this country so far - has become the new macho eating out experience. Now that it's no longer socially acceptable to pop into your local Bangladeshi restaurant and order the vindaloo, checking first that it really is "the hottest dish on the menu", the adventurous middle class foodie needs an alternative outlet for their arcane knowledge and desperate need to impress all those around them. See: John Lanchester in the Guardian, drooling over his own "near-psychotic" consumption of chillis at this very restaurant.

But I'll tell you all the same, because this is good food, really really good food, and anyone who cares about flavour, texture, smell, hot, sour, sweet, salty, savoury, and all the rest needs to try this food. There's a good reason to eat this food, like there's a good reason to order a vindaloo (because garlic and vinegar are brilliant ways of cutting through and enhancing the unctuous fat of a pork shoulder), and that's because it will provide you with different experiences to those you can get anywhere else.

Let's start with the "weird" things anyway, to get them out of the way. Dry fried intestines were excellent, as ever (I've ordered them every time I've been here): you could fool yourself into thinking you were eating squid rings if you wanted, although there's a slight farmyard undertone that hangs around even after you've finished eating, a slight reminder that you are eating an animal, not an anonymous chunk of protein. Coated in cornflour and fried ("dry" fried they're not; there's been plenty of hot oil near these babies) till crisp, then mixed with plenty of dried chillis, they are aromatic without being excessively spicy.

The salt and pepper frogs' legs were, for me, probably the disappointment of the meal. Other diners claimed to be able to taste something of the sea in them; to me, they were just slightly watery faux chicken wings. The batter was fine but, for once, the dish was under-spiced, with just a tiny sprinkle of garlic, sichuan peppercorns, and spring onions on top.

The sichuan beef was at the other end of the scale: deeply, warmingly rich with chilli, fermented bean paste and five spice. It's described somewhat obliquely on the menu, but what you get is a bowl of thin, soft slices of beef, with beansprouts and slices of onion, in a broth, with a thick slick of bright chilli oil on top. A slow-burning dish.

I've had it many times elsewhere, and even made it at home, but I'd somehow never ordered the ma po tofu here before. I'm so pleased that has changed: this dish has a spikier heat than the sichuan beef, but some of the same depth of flavour in the sauce. We were unable to convert the tofu-hater at the table, despite our best efforts ("it's like pannacotta, but savoury and covered in chilli oil"), but this is honestly very good tofu, utterly lacking in structural integrity but a brilliant carrier of, and foil to, the spicy sauce.

We ordered two dishes for the non-chilli-fiends at the table, but that's not to say these were mild in flavour terms. The cumin lamb was spectacular (lamb and cumin are both used extensively in the predominantly Muslim north-west of China, where the cuisine is influenced as much by the Indian sub-continent or the middle east as it is by Cantonese traditions), full of dusty citrus notes and the slight smoke of the wok. The other dish was the gong bao chicken, otherwise translated as kung po chicken. This is a sweet dish, the closest to those you might get in normal Chinese restaurants, but it's well executed here, with fragrant dried chillis, beautifully soft cubes of chicken, and plenty of crunchy peanuts.

I'd normally always order at least one vegetable dish when eating out at a Chinese, although I'm aware that's not the norm. Those who don't are missing out on the amazing dry fried green beans, stir-fried till browned but still crunchy, with masses of sichuan peppercorns and little nubbles of minced pork. These are easily the best green beans in the world. We also had the brocolli in garlic, which did exactly what it said on the tin, and was also refreshingly non-oily, a pleasant comparison to some of the other dishes we ordered. I was dining with my partner, but those who are not should perhaps avoid this dish. Or eat it anyway, and just avoid your partner for the next few days.

The decor's not much; half the staff don't speak English; on a quiet night the atmosphere is grimly silent. In conclusion, if you give a damn about good food, you must eat here.

Massive thanks to my dining companions Robin (who recommended the frogs' legs and the ma po tofu), Peter, Jillian, Colin, Helen (who doesn't like spicy food, but loved the intestines) and Michael (who wasn't convinced about eating offal, but loved the spice), and to Chris, whose birthday it was and who brought together such a great bunch of people to eat this food.

Restaurant Review: The Magdalen Arms

One of the (many) things which drives me irrationally mad is that class of features in food magazines generally titled "Girls' Night In". Generally starting with a thrilling low-fat, low-sugar cocktail, they recommend progressing to a salad, perhaps with some raw fish on top, followed by a low-fat, low-sugar, yet still "naughty" dessert. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong, but the only girls' night in I regularly attend involves massive quantities of wine, loaves and loaves of bread, and half the contents of a cheese shop.

That's not to say, though, that I can't acknowledge some difference between the types of food my male and female friends prefer to eat when they're out. There does tend to need to be a greater supply of vegetarian dishes, of salads or fish dishes, for a restaurant to attract a group of female friends. Hence, despite loving the food on previous occasions, I had never considered that the Magdalen Arms might be an appropriate venue. Fortunately, I have friends who are less narrow minded, and so I found myself there with a group of four other females.

Well, eventually I did. As I've found on previous visits, the service at the Magdalen Arms always leaves a little to be desired. This time, the staff sent half the group through to the restaurant; when the other half arrived, they told them that no-one else was yet there, and seated them in the bar area. Thus the first 15 minutes of the evening were spent in two separate groups, each waiting for the other to arrive. We eventually found each other and settled down to study the menu.

It's worth saying that my general feeling about the food here stands: it's big portions of heavy food, with limited concessions to smaller appetites or lighter tastes. That's shown partly in the fact that two pairs of us went for the same options (two mushroom tagliatelles, and two partridges). One of the best suggestions came from the friend who sensibly chose to order a starter plus a side salad, in this case, the cheese souffle. I've had this before as a starter and it is delicious; I can just about squeeze it in as part of a three-course meal but it sits much more happily as a main on its own.

The mushroom tagliatelle was the only vegetarian dish on the menu. This does seem to be generally the case, and I've heard that it's not uncommon for the restaurant to have run out of this single option halfway through the evening. Luckily, we nabbed two potions of it: slippery, wafer-thin homemade egg pasta, rich in flavour but not weight, with mushrooms (sauce would not be the word here: a little seasoned butter, maybe) and a very generous dose of parmesan.

Finally, two of us went for the partridge, including me. To be honest, as my sister recently married someone with the surname Partridge, I always feel compelled to order it on menus, simply so that I can text her and suggest I am consuming her/her husband. It's funny, honest. But I probably would have chosen it in any case, accompanied as it was by choucroute and sausage. That sausage was superb, and, as expected, it appeared in generous quantities, oozing unctuous fatty juices all over the place. The choucroute was slightly underflavoured, but provided a nice enough background winey note. I was disgruntled to find the bird itself a little overcooked, but - *female friendly klaxon* - my pregnant friend was delighted not to have to worry about the dangers of underdone meat.

To finish where we started, it took an age to drag the bill out of a waitress seemingly reluctant to accept our money: again, a small example of how slightly shoddy service can let down a whole evening. But - and I suspect the Magdalen Arms knows this, and focusses its attentions accordingly - the food is good enough that the service doesn't matter. Like the vast majority of their clientele, I'll be back. I might even take some women.