'There really aren't any good Chinese restaurants in Winter Park," Joyce Cai said to me last March as rationale to bring her Sichuan restaurant, Chuan Fu, into the Ravaudage complex. The provocative declaration was made in a swaggering, shot-calling sort of moment, but seven months later, the undaunted restaurateur lent the city a stylish, modern counterpart to Mills 50's Chuan Lu Garden. There are now Japandi flourishes here and splashes of Hollywood Regency there in the old Orlando Meats space, but the dishes at Chuan Fu (translation: "Sichuan House") are pure glam.
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In my half-dozen or so visits to this licker-tickling mecca for peppercorn junkies, I've joyfully burned through my wallet and a good portion of my intestines gorging on Sichuan classics like liang fen ($8.99), jelly noodle blocks made from mung bean starch slathered in chili sauce, and sliced beef and ox tongue ($12.99), a dish that's served cold but is hot to its core.
"This must be what eating firecrackers is like," says a woman to her companion within earshot of my table. She's apprehensively chop-sticking la zi chicken ($16.99), the classic from Chongqing that's sometimes referred to as "firecracker chicken," into her gob. The brazen tossing of dried red chilies, aromatics, peanuts and, of course, Sichuan peppercorns is identical to the version served at Chuan Lu Garden and is a must-order for the initiated and uninitiated alike. Another Chongqing specialty, fried wheat noodles gleaming in chili oil and stained with a powder of crushed peppercorns and a soy-based sauce ($15.99; $11.99 lunch portion), is often eaten for breakfast in the city of 30 million people. For me, it's become a lunchtime favorite.
"All the sauces are house-made 'special sauces,'" Cai says. "The way to make each sauce is not fixed but is left to the preference of each chef, who can use up to 20 ingredients to produce the sauces. Chefs love to show their creative side by making their sauces unique."
This approach, evidently, also applies to Chuan Fu's broths. I've had an igniting bowl of shuizhu beef with hot chili oil at Chuan Lu Garden, and a bowl of shuizhu fish with hot chili oil ($21.99) at Chuan Fu. The differences aren't stark — the deep-crimson broth appeared a bit thicker at Chuan Fu than at Chuan Lu, but I'm ordering both every time no matter what. Plus, it's ideal for sharing, which is something I didn't do when burying my face in a bowl of "rattan pepper sliced fatty beef" ($22.99). The pliant chew of the boiled beef was a bit of a revelation, but the lake of fire in this bowl burned in the most wicked way. Tien tsin peppers and chopped jalapeños lit the flame, while rattan pepper — which are green Sichuan peppercorns — stoked it. The wee little mines have an even greater tongue-numbing effect than their mature counterparts. When I finished the soupy dish all in one sitting, I felt like I had just licked a frozen pole.
But to reduce Sichuan cuisine solely to its infernal, numbing, mala-induced effects would be to undervalue one of China's great cuisines. Chuan Fu's crispy, marrow-filled pork knuckle ($26.99) and crispy duck ($28.99), for example, embody the very essence of xian, the Chinese equivalent of umami. And while both knuck and duck were served with sweet chili sauce and crushed red pepper, neither were necessary for a proper enjoyable gnaw. The broth in the stewed beef brisket with tomato ($18.99) elicited the sort of grunts and whoops anyone conjugated for more than 10 years would appreciate. A tableside serving of sizzling beef ($18.99) came with a sauce that leaned toward the sweet (in a good way), while the lemon chicken ($16.99) came with a sauce that leaned toward the sweet (in a bad way) — this thing was like chicken candy, with a funnel cake vibe.
At times, Chuan Fu can seem as harried and frenzied as the state fair, but servers pick up the pace and maintain their composure through it all. You may even have four people tending to your needs, as we did one evening. The server clearing our table suggested we end with "Sichuan brown sugar glutinous rice cake" ($9.99) before heading out. It was every bit the filling ending we'd thought it be and, yeah, we polished off all 10 sugary pieces to our surprise.
No good Chinese restaurants in Winter Park? Well, not anymore.
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