★★ 龙抄手 (LongChaoShou) - Chengdu

LongChaoShou is a famous Sichuan local cuisine restaurant in Chengdu, they focus on a variety of popular dishes such as the 龙抄手 (long chao shou) spicy wontons, 钟水饺 (zhong sui jiao) boiled dumplings, and noodle dishes as well. During my first trip I tried their 担担面 (dan dan mian) dan-dan noodles.

The Sauce - is a mixture of chili oil, sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic, peppers and a large variety of exotic Sichuan spices. Dan-dan noodles are suppose to be spicy and filled with the aroma from the different spices, but here the sauce is a little too salty.

The Noodles - are thin straight noodles cooked soft. Hardly any texture to these noodles, maybe this is the standard for Sichuan noodles but I didn't enjoy these soft noodles much.

The Toppings - are some dried fried pork and a few leaves of spinach. The pork adds a lot of flavor to the noodles when you mix it well with everything but doesn't add any texture to the dish.

Overall - the sauce and noodles were dissapointing. The famous dan-dan noodle combination of aroma and spiciness just didn't quite hit the mark, while the noodles were too soggy for my preference. LongChauShou does have a lot of other authentic dishes for you to try out and is worth coming for their wontons and dumplings.

LongChauShou's has many chain stores all over Chengdu, though the store I visited is their original store which is located on Southern entrance to the ChunXi road shopping district.