(shanghai daily)
Updated: 2007-02-16 10:22

It was while sitting looking through a Chinese magazine about hair with my increasingly fractious wife, still no sign of a seat after a 15- minute wait, that I realized just how much I like Yuxin Sichuan restaurant.

The setting falls some way short of charming, the third floor of China Merchants Plaza on the corner of Chengdu and Weihai roads near the Shanghai Television Station building.

Arriving any day between 5pm and 7pm, guests can expect to wait at least 15 minutes. Bookings, so far, as my blossoming Mandarin can ascertain, are not possible. Once finally seated patrons should beware if going to the washroom. Pay close attention to the route otherwise said seat could prove frustratingly elusive on the return leg. Don't for a moment think any of the staff will be able to help. They'll be far too busy.

Labyrinthine and something akin to a transport hub at rush hour, Yuxin is a beast of a restaurant. It seats more than 800 and occupies the entire third floor.

The deep China red above, below and all around augments the devil's cauldron mood.

Importantly, if dining with a group, be sure to establish that all members are okay with hot and spicy. The food at Yuxin is not for the elementary hot food lover, nor for the intermediate - this cuisine is advanced-level spiciness. Some dishes are positively dangerous but in an exciting way. It's cruel but few things entertain like watching a novice who has just chomped on a Sichuan pepper corn. The contortions, the disbelief, the way it just keeps getting worse and just as the hilarity starts dying down the person laughing loudest does the same thing. Oh what fun!

The food at Yuxin inflicts upon the palate a vigorous and unique assault that leaves the diner astonished and exhilarated.

Thus far your intrepid reporter hasn't ventured too far off the beaten path in his culinary explorations of Yuxin. Most Shanghai Daily readers will be familiar with mapo doufu. The English translation of this dish in Yuxin is "Pockmarked grand ma's bean curd," possibly overly graphic. At Yuxin don't even attempt a teaspoon full of this dish unless your glass is fully charged with the delicious cold Harbin beer on offer (10 yuan/US$1.28). Proceed with caution. Some celery and a lily bulb can also provide a useful antidote. The cold heartleaf houttuynia herbs dressed with sauce would probably be enjoyed by deer if not for the "sauce."

The bamboo chicken soup takes the chicken flavor to previously-unscaled heights and can probably cure all manner of ailments but these are not the main draw. The "Spicy thin sheets of bean curd" are in fact not sheets at all but more small planks. These tee up the main attraction nicely hinting at the degrees of taste in store.

Now there are rib fanatics out there but prior to discovering those at Yuxin I didn't class myself as among their order. Ribs are good, yeah, yeah, but the ribs at Yuxin add whole new dimensions to just about everything. Yuxin doesn't do presentation and if it's drizzles of this and swirls of that you're after then this isn't the place.

Eating a rib with chopsticks can be done but really hands are necessary, there are plenty of napkins. Pepper spare ribs, where to start? Well, there are 10, they are juicy and meaty and only a smidgen oily. They're peppery, unsurprisingly, but this is Sichuan peppery as opposed to your common-or-garden black pepper and the difference is manifold.

Strange sweet tastes collide head on with furnace-like heat while a whole other storm of tastes brew and explode: aniseed, cumin and chili. Watch the table go quite as each diner gets stuck in about his or her rib. There won't be any spare, a plate is 48 yuan.

Much like many of the dishes the menu does seem to be a bit of a mine field but it does have English translations. Order carefully or face the likes of turtle.

The service is swift, friendly and unnervingly efficient. Dinner for four with plenty of beer and probably the odd unassailable dish or two will likely leave change out of 400 yuan.

There is a sister Yuxin restaurant to be found near the junction of Jiujiang and Shaanxi roads.

Yuxin Restaurant
Address: 3/F, 333 Chengdu Road N.
Tel: 5298-0438