Golden Spring Szechuan Restaurant

1) 8 $ for a bucket of rice. are you kidding me? When rice is dirt cheap.
2) Most dishes are around 13 – 17 $ that we ordered, and they were all small portions. like almost fine dinning small portions, totally not worth it it for the price
3) not even spicy at all, not even close

My girlfriend being from Sichuan, we eat here on average twice a month. This restaurant’s food is very delicious. The food and the taste are authentic to Sichuan. If you feel like experiencing the tastes and flavors of China, I would recommend eating here. Yes the food is Spicy, but you’ll love it!
Recommended dishes: Mapo Tofu, Kou Shui Ji (Cold Spicy Chiken — Direct translation: Saliva chicken),

We have been going to this place for several years now. While the food has been fairly good and authentic in the last few years, we noticed that the level of spiciness have changed. «Mildly Spice» used to equal very spicy at most places. But now the levels seems to have «recalibrate» to adjust to mainstream tastes. While this in itself may not be a big deal, the prices on some dished have gone through the roof. $ 59 for a frog leg dish? C’mon, it’s not abalone or fins. We would probably still go back when we crave some authentic Szechuan spice while in Richmond, but will watch the price increases and ask for «very spicy».

On a cold Tuesday night we brave Unilocalers gathered here as we await our fates on this epic eating conquest under the leadership of our chairman Larry…
Okay I do apologize for the lame dramatic opening. This totally sounds like an adventure comedy/​satirical movie (aka Your Highness). Anyway, I believe the drama is real. I was ready to spend the night on my porcelain throne after the dinner and perhaps even roll around on the floor with convulsion in my voice, but thank goodness, my concerns were merely imaginary.
Tonight’s themed UYE, yes, you guessed it, is ChongChing style.
There were about 11 of us ready for some fire and heat. Because we couldn’t fit everyone on one table, we had to split up: 7 people on one and 4 on the other.
My partner and I were on the larger table. We order two appetizers: crispy black fungus and thinly sliced beef slices with tripe with minced peanuts and cilantro. Aside from ordering a bucket of white rice and stir-​fry pea shoots, we ordered a chicken dish where chicken chunks were immersed in red/​orangey spicy sauce, spicy sliced fillet fish in chili pepper & chili oil in a metal pot, and a spicy beef. All the dishes were delectable. However I do have my likes.
My personal two favorites are the black fungus and the sliced fish in metal pot. Be very careful when you eat the latter. If you chewed on Chinese pepper corn by accident, do prepare to down a lot of water. Chinese pepper corn are known to numb your mouth. Eat with caution.
The dinner was an adventure. Sharing food amongst my fellow Unilocalers with discussions on anything from «what do you think about this dish»? to sports, politics, social issues is definitely time well spent.
I guess I really over prepared myself. Again, there was not a glitch of pain the night or the morning after the dinner. The spiciness was manageable and I find it just right for me. I think if the food was any hotter I wouldn’t be able to taste anything. There were minor shortfalls like Meana K.‘s comment on the lukewarm rice and Edward L.‘s comment on spotty service. Regardless, I had a great time.
A big thank you to Larry L. for organizing this UYE.

Some of the best Szechuan food I’ve had in a seriously long time.
Parking is available here in their woefully inadequate parking lot. There’s an attendant here so don’t try to park in someone else’s spot.
The inside is pretty clean and somewhat upscale. Looks like they may have renovated.
Service is a bit spotty as the place was quite busy, but the food came quickly.
Yan Jing beers here are $ 3.
Spicy free range chicken — served cold. Covered in a great mix of spices and chili oil/​sauce.
Beef and beef tripe with spices and cilantro — served cold but not frozen. Peanut bits really add a nice touch to the flavour.
Black fungi in garlic sauce — probably the best black fungi dish I’ve ever had. Most places make this dish very bland, but this one was covered in flavour.
Spicy fish hot pot — probably my favourite dish out of the bunch. Giant pieces of fish, and just the right amount of spices and peppercorns. They didn’t pad the bottom with filler (aka vegetables), but used some clear noodles instead. Nice and elasticy.
Stir-​fried bean sprouts — the chef made ours «clear-​style» as the original dish was meant to be spicy. Good flavour.
Szechuan-​style beef — served in a giant bowl, that unfortunately wasn’t boiling, which was a bit of a disappointment. Couldn’t really tell which part of the cow was used. It wasn’t tendon (pieces are way too big to be tendon), but the texture was similar.
Credit cards are accepted if you go over $ 60.
I’m not sure if it was because I was extremely hungry, but I felt that every single dish on the list was VERY good. They didn’t go crazy on the oil, but everything had a unique flavour and nice kick. As a result, this place gets 5 stars. Highly recommended. Yum.

Aiiiiyaiii yaii yahhhh!!!

First off — nothing I had was spicy. However, I know plenty of people who might think otherwise. But, if you’re really a spice fiend, be sure to ask for your food hot because the standard way it comes from the kitchen definitely lacks heat. Actually, that goes not just for the spicIness, but the temperature as well. The bucket of rice was lukewarm at best. Of the dishes, only one was actually hot while the rest were warm or barely above room temperature. That was a bit of a turnoff for me. I would really have loved my rice to not be cold.
Still, I want to try this place again. I’m not sure if/​when I’ll venture all the way back to Richmond to do so, but if I do… I plan to try the steamed dumplings, the roasted duck, the spicy lamb, and maybe the spicy crab.
Tonight I joined a UYE and had dinner with several other Unilocalers. In order of favorite to least memorable, here’s what we had:
Pea Sprouts. YUM. Lightly flavored and super fresh. Not spicy at all. I could just eat this whole plate with a bucket of rice. And some chili sauce.
Boiling Fish Stew. This was also a light dish with some translucent flat noodles and vegetables. Not spicy at all.
Sliced Beef with Tripe with Special Spicy Sauce. Liked this a lot, but can’t say it was spicy. It’s heavy on the cilantro which I felt added a great flavor.
Black Fungus. I liked the flavors and textures of this dish. Not spicy at all.
Spicy Beef Stew. This was okay. This was the spiciest thing we got, but also had a lot of oil so it felt very rich and greasy. Flavors were pretty nice and you got a fair amount of both chili peppers and the Szechuan pepper. Although it was the spiciest item, I would MAYBE rank this as Medium Hot, personally.
Organic Free Range Chicken. Not spicy at all. On the bone but sliced into smaller pieces, so every bite had bone in it. Also, every bite had boiled skin which wasn’t very appealing. It’s not that I didn’t like the flavor, but it just wasn’t easy to eat.
$ 139 for the above 6 dishes, 1 bucket of rice, 5 beers, and 1 soda. Service was sort of non-​existent but not bad considering what you’d expect from a place like this. Other people handled all the ordering and did so in Mandarin so I really had no direct interaction with the servers at all. Just a note, they do not take credit/​debit under $ 50 so keep that in mind.
Overall, pretty good food but I’ll ask for it spicy next time.