This is my favorite food in the universe...

This is my favorite food in the universe. It is delicious and spicy and served at a Chinese restaurant near where I used to live in Las Vegas.

I can no longer go to this restaurant to get this delicious food. In lieu of killing myself, I have been attempting to make this meal at home, but to no avail. I am not very good at cooking, and recreating a meal one has eaten strikes me as a very advanced skill, if not outright impossible to do at all.

If anyone has any advice that might help me make this, I would be grateful.

Alternatively, how rude is it to call a restaurant on the phone and ask them to tell you how a dish is made? These guys don't even speak English very well, the only way I think I could get a recipe out of them, assuming they were even willing to provide it, is through an email or a letter written in Chinese, which I would figure out how to translate.

More information forthcoming.

Other urls found in this thread:

chinasichuanfood.com/boiled-fish-sichuan/
youtube.com/watch?v=Djf-sr3G14k
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

On the menu, it is called "水煮魚片" in Chinese, or "Sliced Fish Fillet in Hot Chili Sauce," in English. It seems that this Spicy Boiled Fish is a very popular Sichuan meal, so it should be easy enough, right?

Wrong.

Here is an example of a recipe I have followed in an attempt to build god's favorite boiled fish in my own kitchen:

chinasichuanfood.com/boiled-fish-sichuan/

As you can see, the pictures are not exactly the same, visually. They don't taste the same, either. The dish I am after was, to begin with, much more spicy. I love very spicy food, and this meal came close to satisfying my need for those cathartic, exhilarating scovilles (especially when I would ask them to please make it extra spicy).

Secondly, there was a distinctive flavor that would coat your tongue, make your mouth water. Hard to describe, shit. I'll get back to this if I can come up with a way to describe it.

This meal went great mixed in with white rice, it has a kind of thickness to it that the recipe I linked doesn't, quite. My failed recreation would sort of just... get the rice soggy. Like putting a water on your rice. When mixed with rice, the meal in the OP was sort of like halfway to a curry.

Also, this fish melts in your mouth, and by that I mean it breaks apart very easily.

What restaurant is this? I'm going to Las Vegas soon

Finally, it was absolutely definitely without question, made using this (pictured) ingredient (or, I suppose, something so incredibly similar that there is essentially no difference.) I have noticed that recipes like the one I linked, (and a couple other recipes I have tried, like the one I am about to link) don't seem to use this ingredient.

youtube.com/watch?v=Djf-sr3G14k

This nice woman made a very adorable video which showed me how to make what seems to be a variation on the dish of my dreams.

It was very tasty! I would make it again many times over did it not remind me of The One That Got Away, the fish I see in my dreams who told me she would never leave and then vanished, the one who never calls or texts me anymore, who I sent a quick "hey" to six months ago and still she doesn't respond. I deleted the "hey" because it stayed towards the top of my most recently texted contacts and I kept seeing her name. "水煮魚片." It haunts me.

Oh, sorry. I got distracted. The point of that tangent was, it lacked the qualities I mentioned earlier, just like the previous recipe did.

The restaurant is China Mama. It is near lots of great food!

It is also near Greenland Market and 168 Market, which are the best Asian markets I have ever been to, although I have not been to many.

Since I have given this dish such a glowing recommendation, I think I should point out that I don't know anything about great food and there is a chance you won't like it as much as I do, fair warning. Las Vegas has lots of great food, surely some people like other Chinese Restaurants more than this one. I happened upon it because it is a short walk from my house, I stayed because I fell in love.

I really do love it though.

This is my fear.

when someone mentions a distinctive flavor and sichuan food, i always think of sichuan peppercorns. they have ab extremely numbing flavor. try adding more peppercorns and grinding some up and sprinkling it all over the dish

YEAH, this flavor is likely the sichuan peppercorns, perhaps not coming through quite as well in my attempts. I will try this, thank you.

OH, the dish has whitefish and cabbage. And then whatever else you see floating, little bits from the oil, cilantro on top for some fucking reason, green onions... am I forgetting anything? It has been too long.

But the main ingredients are the fish and the cabbage. This is why I feel like it is somewhat close to the recipes I have found.

I am going to bump this thread twice, (this is the first bump) and then I will kindly fuck off.

Also, since I am bumping a thread which is asking for help, on a board which I do not frequent, I figure I will try to offer something back, which would be a couple of VERY MUCH UNRELATED ingredients/sauces I like. Sorry if these are common knowledge and I'm an idiot for acting like I'm doing anyone a favor for suggesting them, but oh well:

The first thing is Matouk's Hot Pepper sauce. It is spicy (to me, which means to you it is, at the very very least, NOT pussy shit). It is burning my lower lip skin right now, and I am loving it. When googling for images just now, it seems that there is actually a... HOTTER VARIETY? Made with Trinidad Scorpion Peppers? Ordering that shit right now. But the other flavor is very good. Very good for jerk chicken, as well as for burning the shit out of your penis when you touch yourself later.

try using green sichuan peppercorns. they're usually much more pungent than red and are more tingly. you can fry them in oil too to extract all the numbing qualities out and strain and use the oil if you are making chili oil from scratch.

thanks user, you are a cool guy. I will look into this as well.

Also, try to infuse them into the oil, it makes a difference when you add them to water or to hot oil. I think that will really help the flavour.

Ohhh! I made it once with these Maggi chicken stock cubes and it was fucking delicious -- as in one of my favourite dishes I ever cooked.

>I made it once

made what once?

noted! the cute chinese lady in the video did something similar.

OOPS, I posted my image too early.

Another ingredient I really like is this Kikkoman Teriyaki sauce, but NOT the whatever normal kind (it is neither the big 1 gallon bottle of Kikkoman Teriyaki Glaze, which is profoundly disgusting, NOR the regular Kikkoman Teriyaki sauce, which is basically a weird and less good soy sauce). It is from the, uh, "Takumi Collection." I don't know who Takumi is, but he makes a very tasty and thick sauce, which makes a great marinade, as well as a great sauce for cooking in. I wouldn't really put it on my rice or use it as a dipping sauce though, it is very thick and rich.

Last bump. Thank you guys for the advice, although I am not reunited with this beautiful meal quite yet, I will be with her one day, I am sure. Perhaps I will move back to Vegas, so we can finally be together, if only one last time.

The dish OP is talking about. I used a couple chopped up maggi cubes for the chicken stock. I swear it's better than homemade stock sometimes...

Doesnt hurt to try sending them an email.
explain that you moved out of state and cant come get it anymore and that its your favorite dish and you are struggling to replicate it. Pour on some flattery and they might provide it to you

Try doing different simplrle dishes with different ways of preparing the peppercorns to give you an idea on the amounts, oil type (groundnut probably) and types of peppercorn. Frying them with green beans is a quick and tasty meal that'll give you a base to work off.

I am drafting this email as we squeak. The only way I can see to get in contact with them would be to "message this business," on yelp. Their website has no email, only a phone number. And an address...? Mayhaps I should send them a letter through snail mail? Probably not.

Electronic is probably a better bet, just make sure you're using very simple sentences that have very few metaphors or idioms, chances are they're gonna throw it into an online translator.

also, if you're making the oil you should add crushed peppercorns (use a mortar and pestle to make a powder) after making the oil. just sprinkle it on top. it adds more numbness. i also like frying a piece of star anise, some ginger, and about a heaping tablespoon of whole peppercorns in the oil then discarding them before dumping the oil in the chili flakes

for the rice, just use a 2:1 ratio of water to rice. wash it thoroughly and let it rest for a while before making the rice. you should try using jasmine rice, too. you can use stock instead of water. i like to make my own stock from leftovers or buy liquid stock over those cubes since i find them too salty

for the garnish, it seems to be sesame seeds. try adding crushed fried peanuts too

for the fish, make it as fresh as possible. my local sichuan place that serves this is literally beside a chinese supermarket and they barely freeze as far as i know

good news is i live near a fish market that sells very fresh local fish, so the fish i've been using has been very good :D

I had this in Germany. While I'd been to lots of Chinese Restauarants in Germany while living abroad, I never expected that one would actually be spicy.

I couldn't taste anything for 2 days after this dish.

One thing to note OP is with Chinese food there tends to be a lot of variation even in the same province/city. I know you like they way they do it but it may be difficult to perfectly replicate through looking at recipes. Some great suggestions ITT though, I would only suggest try five spice powder if you're not already using it.

seconding this. that's definitely the flavor you're mentioning and boy i hope you can recreate this its very good have fun i love you

OP you are right. Spicy boiled fish is an unbelievably good dish. I get it from a local Sichuan restaurant and they serve it with bok choy underneath. Easily one of my top 5 favorite foods.

Sorry, I can't help you on your quest to re-create it at home. My only suggestion would be to maybe add corn starch to thicken it up, but I don't know that might be wrong.

Have you searched online for a sichuan restaurant near you? I would drive up to 100 miles for this dish, personally.

ayyyy I've been to that restaurant my parents live in Spanish Trail. Great stuff

This. It's likely that it's basically street food anyway. I doubt that they keep the recipe in a vault at Fort Knox. Just ask them.

...

yeah, i was just about to say, have you tried, i dont know, calling them?