Z & Y Restaurant

photo - foodhoe's foraging (foodhoe) / CC BY-ND 3.0

Z & Y Restaurant, Dinner, Chinatown 

P&J:
Scallion Pancake
Spicy Numbing Beef Tender
Chicken with Explosive Chili Pepper
Tan Tan Noodle
Peking Duck


Notes:
After a string of somewhat disappointing experiences, we decided it was time to take things in a different direction with a visit to Chinatown.  We headed to a Szechuan place I had visited only once before, knowing we get great food without emptying our wallets.

This place is popular, highly rated, and there's always a 30-45 minute wait.  By the time we were seated, we were ready to eat.  It took a while before anyone approached the table, so once our server came around we just rattled off a list of things from the menu; we stopped after picking five, but could've kept going.

The scallion pancakes arrived well before everything else, these were nicely layered, delicately flaky and piping hot, but ached for some sauce.  Next came the Spicy Numbing Beef Tender: thinly sliced beef tendon dripping with chili oil and seasoned heavily with Szechuan peppercorns and five spice powder.  This dish is a favorite of mine, the tendon has the texture of (very) al dente pasta, and the fiery sauce makes your lips numb and tingly.  If only we hadn't inhaled those scallion pancakes, they would have been perfect for mopping up that sauce.  The chicken dish, another must have in my opinion, arrives as a (very) large pile of wok fried dried chilies on a round platter.  Scattered within that pile of chilies are bite size pieces of lightly fried chicken thigh exploding with flavor, and surprisingly not very spicy.  It's like digging for treasure - delicious, delicious treasure.  The tan tan noodles are a simple dish of springy egg noodles and pork in more of the same fiery, numbing sauce, but this with a deeper flavor, likely gaining richness from the ground meat.  Finally, the Peking Duck, carved tableside, is served with paper thin pancakes, sliced scallion and hoisin sauce.  The crispy sweet-glazed skin was (and always is) the best part of this dish, though this was my least favorite overall; the meat was dry and the subtle flavors couldn't compete with the rest of the food at the table.


We had a great time at Z & Y, and didn't break the bank doing it.  We'd go back.