Ba Ren Szechuan

Came here about 6 months ago with a large group for a friends birthday dinner. I don’t exactly remember what was ordered, but i do remember the spicy fish was really spicy, but i loved it because it was so exciting to eat. It tastes so good, but it just lights your mouth on fire! The hot and sour soup was mediocre. Chicken was really good, as well as the lamb.
Customer service was pretty good, the waiters always refilled our water pretty quick. A lot of chinese people go here, so it means this place is pretty legit when everyone around you is speaking chinese.

I was here a couple of times and loved the food. The service was a bit slow but the food made up for it and more. However, I’m super sad they closed and the owners moved out of state. Why!!! =*(
OK so for everyone who had the privilege of eating here and experiencing real Szechuan cuisine …
Does anyone know of a similar place here in San Diego? I’m very open to trying new places but I’m looking for a Szechuan place with the same spiciness like Ba Ren Szechuan.

This place is closing at the end of the month (we later found out they are moving out of state), so we had to go here one last time. The cold noodles may be my favorite because it is cold, but really spicy and hella flavorful! The «Saliva chicken» is a popular dish, but I think it’s alright. Green beans were typical, but the boiled fish (looks like a soup) was really good! Everything except the green beans set my mouth on fire.
I have enjoyed the food here on two occasions and I have to say that I will miss having this place around. Any suggestions, fellow Unilocalers?!

This is my go to place for super spicy chinese food or when you feel like punishing your friends! Just don’t expect great service. It’s so-​so at best.
Since this is schezsuan style, pretty much everything has chili peppers/​oil so be careful when ordering and to not to go overboard on the spicy levels.
The boiled fish stew is my favorite here and I have to get it everytime. Also, don’t forget about the cold dishes which are available in the front. You need to walk up to the table and choose them yourself. In true drug dealer fashion: «The first taste is always free».

I go here pretty regularly with a set of friends. We always get the fish fillets in boiled chili. They ask you if you want «low, medium or high» in terms of how much you want to be hurting the morning after on your trip to the toilet. It’s only because it’s really spicy and if you want high and eat the chili flakes/​peppers and not to used to that much spicy it can hurt. But it tastes so good. There is also a tofu/​chicken dish in chili as well. Still yummy and the sliced white chicken pieces are delicious.
Now, the scallops are DELICIOUS but also can hurt if you drown the batter of the scallops in the chili oil. It’s addicting to do that but it will make you pay the morning after. I wish the scallop pieces were a little bigger but still so tasty and we still get it. Oh and one last thing, don’t forget to get your one cold dish before your meal starts. Take your pick. The cart thingy is at the front of the restaurant when you first enter on your left.
Service is okay. You have like one server for an entire restaurant and it can be slow. Getting your check is kinda slow as well so you might as well go up to their cashier to get it. Yes, I’ll keep coming back here despite the so-​so service. One of the few Asian restaurants where I’m left pretty satisfied.

I would give the food 5 stars but the service is painfully slow… especially if you are starving!
This place is Szechuan!
My girlfriend found it in the Westways (AAA) Magazine last year and I’ve been hooked.
The food is spicy, duh. Szechuan, but its not a lingering hot. Its a nice sting.
Everything is a la carte. Rice does not come with your order except at dinner.
Anyway, on to the food.
#277 Hot and sour soup… best I have had, Spicy, sour, super yummy and filled with veggies.
#272 Scallion Crispy Pancake… Must Order. Weird consistency but a total must when eating something spicy.
#132 Dry Cooked Lamb… The lamb is amazingly tender, the mushrooms are crack, lots of red bell pepper, jalapenos, Szechuan peppercorns (my friend calls «balls of fiery death»), and red chile’s…so good
#190 Fried Spare Rib with Roasted Salt pepper. oh my god yummy, tender, juicy, crispy swine!
#230 Hot Pepper Prawns… I am an idiot, or just can’t read. This was really good but almost killed me. I can eat really hot stuff. Imagine a heaping plate full of red chili peppers, seriously full, and fried prawns buried in the fiery heap. Death on a plate but oh so good!
#310 Fried Wanton kind of fishy. I think they were crab. just ok. wouldn’t order again.
#102 Smoked Duck… Incredible! I will crave this duck. Insanely awesome!
#120 Double cooked beef with chili sauce… the beef was really dry but had great flavor
#200 Stir-​fried shredded pork with green chili pepper… tons of sauteed jalapenos but not too spicy. really really good!
Everything here is really, really good. The service is slow so be prepared to wait.

I really really liked the food here, but the ambiance and service leave something to be left desired.
Went on a slow weeknight so it was pretty empty. The service could used an improvement. It was hotter inside than outside (during a hot summer night). Spicy food and hot tea didn’t help.
Teppan yaki chicken and fried short ribs were great, but chow mein was greasy (but tasty).
I will come back, but maybe for take out.

Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a King with a Queen who turned into an octopus every full moon night. But I digress. Ba Ren Szechuan is an interesting experiment in the collective Chinese consciousness of SoCal, a schizophrenic Chinese anomaly, utterly confused about its identity. Allow me to explain.
The name, in English, means Barren. And that is how you will find its interiors. Sparse. Hospital-​like. Sterile. White tubelights. Cheap posters of random bucolic Chinese scenery. If you search for Ba Ren on Google Maps, El Goog will gladly give you directions to the legendary Ba Ren CORPORATION, the secret Yakuza organization that assassinates people by feeding them too much soup. One is confused. Confusion is good. Welcome to Ba Ren Szechuan.
Monday happened. I was alone that evening. Hungry also. Ba Ren beckoned and I went. A loquacious, energetic, tiny Chinese lady leaped out of a counter and pointed me to the menu. Professing a unique ability to digest only vegetables, I explained that I would need to dine on something that didn’t have blood when it was alive. «Okay!» she said, laughing. «Tofu and soup? Okay?» I pondered at that. «Tofu and soup?» I asked. «Okay,» she said and disappeared, apparently assuming that that was my order. Meanwhile, a distinguished Chinese gentleman, elegantly dressed in a white vest and trousers, absently scratched his bald pâté and stared at the ceiling.
First, came my tofu. The sight of those floating tiny pearl islands in an ocean of hot sauce momentarily fuzzed my brains. Then stereo vision returned and I realized that it had been served to be me in a plate approximately the size of a regular birdbath. I looked at the lady, eyes agog. «This much?» I asked. «Lunch,» she said. «You take lunch.» And she disappeared. «Fuck it!» I thought. «I am going to polish this baby for sure.» After exactly six pokes with the chopsticks, I got the fork and started wolfing it down. Sweet Ba Ren of Bahrain (in Hermes Conrad’s voice)! The food was to die for, reincarnate and then die again. Excellent, it was, for exactly 2 minutes.
Then came the soup. I do not know how to exaggerate the size of soup bowl without exaggerating enough, but suffice to say that positively either two tiny wild boar piglets or an acne filled teenage panda bear could have fit inside it. The soup, perhaps, could have fed an entire migratory flock of snow geese on their way to the Arctic. Or, easily, started a revolution in Zaïre if given to exactly one tribe. Etc. The soup was enormous in quantity, taste and deliciousness. But mainly, quantity.
In the end, I was upset that I had to pack my food and take it home in a bag. I don’t do that unless tiny leaping Chinese ladies threaten me to take it all and eat it as lunch or else… The food was great, for sure, but the quantity can be toned down. In essence, Ba Ren is the Chinese version of Hash House A Go Go. I slept that night, cold, alone, curled up in my bed, scared that Ba Ren Corporation knew what I was going to have for lunch the next day.

I really wanted good Chinese food for the mid-​autumn festival. I found this place on Unilocal and got really excited.
I am on a food high from this place right now. We ordered the double cooked beef, Szechuan cold noodles and a side of greens (the greens were not on the menu).
The beef was very thinly sliced, very tender, and was cooked with huge chunks of ginger, red bell pepper, jalapeño, and a great sauce. It was very unique, spicy, and tasty.
The szechuan noodles were also delicious. They were spicy and had that unique Szechuan flavor (from the reddish Szechuan peppercorns that kind of numb your tongue a little after you eat a lot of it). The noodles had a really strong Szechuan peppercorn flavor, and was awesome.
The side of stir fried greens was kind of a standard Chinese thing but I loved it. I like to have a big plate of greens with my Chinese meals. I don’t know the name of the greens in English but it was stir fried with big slices of garlic. Yum.

When spicy goes wrong…
My family used to own a Mandarin and Szechuan cuisine style restaurant when I was younger and so I figured it would be nice to go out for some Szech food as I was reminiscent of the authentic. (Too much Panda Express lately)
We ordered the Kung Pao Chicken, Beef Teppanyaki, and Hot Pepper Prawns. The Kung Pao Chicken was very flavorful but after five more bites it just tasted overwhelming, like spoonfuls of MSG! (You know that feeling.) The Beef Teppanyaki lacked characteristic… if that makes sense. To me there was nothing to it, just some sizzling beef with too many chili peppers. The Hot Pepper Prawns was by far the most ridiculous chinese dish I’ve had so far. After two bites, I couldn’t feel the sides of my tongue! A combination of super sour and spicy.
People have their preferences and some like it really hot, but sometimes it takes away from the quality of the dish when you can’t taste anything but chili peppers. What about the flavor?

One more reason you can stick PF Chang’s up your… uh…
If you want spicy, delicious Szechuan food, this is on the short list of truly delicious places to get it in San Diego. We shared three dishes: stir-​fried beef with green chili, orange chicken and pepper fried prawns. They were all outstanding.
The atmosphere is comfortable but nothing fancy, but that’s not why you go to places like this. The dining room and restrooms were very clean (even at 3 in the afternoon) and the service was friendly.
This was a reminder that I really do like Chinese food, in fact in some cases I love it, when it doesn’t come in the form of Panda Express, Pick Up Stix, PF Chang’s, etc. I’m relegated to those options where I live, deep in suburbia, where most places have items that are registered trademarks on their menus.

This place has pretty authentic Chinese food, not gonna lie. Love all the dishes my roommates and I tried, and I think the best part was the waitresses were really nice, talked to us in Chinese, and didn’t look down on us because we were students. I will definitely be going back to this place. Try their fish and tofu, it’s so good!
WATCH OUT FOR THOSE DAMN PEPPERCORNS!

The fried rice was good.
The chicken chow mein was primo according to mama.
The twice cooked pork was oily as hell. They had thin cuts of pork which I like, but they had fat still left on them, so if you don’t like that sort of thing stay away. Still the best twice cooked pork I’ve had is from Chin’s. I didn’t like the choice of green peppers as the veggie in this dish.
Another Asian joint that serves Diet Coke in the can. Le Sigh.
I would go back here to try something else if I’m in the neighborhood.

Mmm mmm good. Great little spot. I had the twice cooked beef and crispy rice chicken. And an enormous bowl of rice. The beef reminded me of a mix between prosciutto and jerky which sounds weird but tasted really good. And the crispy rice reminded me of vietnamese chau but with less rice and more vegetables (not bursting with flavor but very tasty nonetheless).
There was tons of stuff on the menu that I wanted to order and while we were there the waitress brought out five dishes that made me go «dang, I shoulda ordered THAT!» A good sign.
I wanna come back with like 6 friends so we can order family style and sample a slew of dishes.
I’ll be back.

We came to Ba Ren after several recommendations from friends who know good Szechuan.
This was our experience:
The service was a little odd. I felt like we were not getting a huge amount of customer service. Maybe it was a tired Monday night but we felt like the people working there were not too engaged.
The chef… on the other hand YAWZA baby. When the food finally arrived it was awesome, the dried chili shrimp was deep fried and was carefully nested in a bed of hot peppers. The shrimp was large, sweet, delicious and spicy with that awesome Szechuan style lip numbing delight.
The twice cooked pork was lovely with fermented beans that really made the dish sing. We also had the sauteed beans, garlic laden and tasty.
This would have been a perfect dining experience if the service did not seem… well just kind of irritated at our presence.
I will go back on another night, because the food was so tasty

When the KMLB did the UYE here I just HAD to join in. I’ve always wanted to try more things on Ba Ren’s menu and what better way to do it than with a large group.
Everyone ordered a dish and we passed things around and sampled everything. I’d been here before and tried a few things — and believe it or not, no one ordered those items so I’ve managed to try even more things this time.
La Zi Ji: this was #101 if I recall correctly and it is a very famous Sichuan dish — chunks of chicken battered and fried with lots of chilis! It was quite good here, but the best I’ve had was in Las Vegas.
Taro duck: this isn’t like the Cantonese version of taro duck in that no chunks of taro was detected. Melody and I were scooping everything in there and couldn’t find any. We then concluded that it was probably in the sauce. It was tasty but not what I had expected.
Frog: can’t remember how this dish was prepared. I like frog’s legs and this was good except for the seriously bony morsels. Lots of spitting involved and I don’t recommend this if you’re not used to eating bones.
Mandarin fish: not something I would have ordered because I haven’t had it before where I liked it, but it was absolutely delicious here! I’ve a renewed love for this dish.
Tea smoked duck: an absolute MUST! This was so good! The skin was crispy and it wasn’t fatty. The flavor was nicely infused into the duck. Very nice!
Shrimp: can’t remember what the name of this dish was except it was battered, fried and lots of chilis, which I’m guessing is done the same way as #101’s chicken dish. Very good! Shrimp were plump and very fresh.
The lamb dish was also lovely. I couldn’t remember which one was ordered, but it had scallions, garlic and chilis in it. Not gamey and seared well.
There were more dishes which I’ve missed out but all in all, it was a really great meal! Hopefully we can do this again with a big group! I’d definitely make the drive again! Thanks Warren for organizing!

KMLB !!! Yep the Kearny Mesa Lunch Bunch did it again. Came her with a group of 13 of the coolest Unilocalers, and we all shared each others dishes. We just kept passing them around and I tried everything. The frog, duck, beef, pork, shrimp and the tofu were all excellent.
Great food, great people and no drama is an awesome way to spend lunch with friends!!!
This place is best to come with a large group because variety is the spice of life :)

Ayyyyy carrrumba. This place was soo spicy.
I’m probably not a good judge of how great this place can be because I don’t eat spicy food. I only went there last week for a birthday party.
I know that we ordered a bunch of dishes, one of them was a like a soup with fish, bamboo, some veggies and probably more than a dozen hot chilis. The soup was just red and watching everyone at the table eat it. they were sweating so profusely. People had to order milk!
We got the green beans. which weren’t green at all, more brownish color. I wish they would have been a tad fresher because it probably would have made them more crunchy.
The sizzling rice dish was also not spicy and it was pretty good. They take friend rice and pour some sauce over it that had chicken, fish, musrooms, and veggies.
Most people really enjoyed the hot pepper chicken, and the spicy fried pork that really taste like coco puffs.
Just remember. what goes in must go out. and boy were there some people feeling it hot on the other end the next day

Ba Ren’s impressive line-​up of 203 items continues to be a hit-​or-​miss gauntlet of spicy excitement. Although it can be interesting for diners to peruse their menu of authentic Chinese food, it must be a nightmare for the kitchen staff to memorize all the recipes.
Our hero went recently to Ba Ren for a birthday dinner where the birthday girl made reservations for over 20 guests. For all 20 people, they had one waitress who was about 50 or 60 years old and didn’t speak much English.
Having such a large group, our hero tried several of the dishes. The dry-​cooked lamb here looked nice and was mixed well with an assortment of sprouts and peppers; however the lamb meat itself was drained of its natural flavor and lacked the appropriate texture. Their vegetarian ma po tofu definitely tasted strange without any pork in it and could have had more of a kick. The green beans and mixed vegetables here were also fairly mediocre and nothing to rave about. Ba Ren’s take on Japanese tepanyaki was surprisingly good and came out hot and sizzling to the table’s delight.
A notable Sichuan dish not found at many places was the fish in sour vegetable soup. The serving size was huge and fed about 8 people as a side soup. Fish fillet, pickled vegetables, and mushrooms together made for a very interesting sour soup.
There are definitely two standout noodle dishes here: the Sichuan cold noodles, and the braised beef noodle soup. The Sichuan noodles are served cold and act as an excellent source of coolness to balance out the rest of the super spicy dishes. The spicy beef noodle soup (or niu rou mien) here has a broth that is very spicy and salty without being oily. The chunks of braised beef were delectably soft, but a bit sparingly spread out in the bowl. Ba Ren pulls off a simple but effective bowl of niu rou mien, which is cheap, filling, and filled with quality braised beef. Somewhat disappointing were their dan dan noodles, which came with the sauce on the bottom and noodles on top and were mixed on the spot by the server.
Instead of their usual complimentary rice porridge dessert, our hero got fortune cookies. Seriously? Is that from the «American Favorites» section of the menu…
PROS:
— Pretty reasonably priced when you eat family style. Plus, they recently slashed prices on several of their menu items by $ 1-​$ 3, which makes it even less of a hit when dining in a big group.
— Awesomely spicy.
— Huge menu.
CONS:
— It’s not really as good as the Unilocal hype would have you believe. The quality of the food really ranges from dish to dish, although nothing on the menu is «horrible» to say the least. A drawback to having such a huge selection of courses is that they don’t really master many of them.
— Service is still slow and rough around the edges.

I’m convinced SD Unilocalers just do not know real Chinese food because here we are with places like Noble Chef (I KEEP WRITING «NOBEL CHIEF» WTF) are getting 4 stars, while Ba Ren is getting the same rating when it is is bigger, cleaner, more authentic, and not that much pricier.
Honestly? I can’t stand spicy food, but I have been absolutely desperate in trying to find a good Chinese restaurant in San Diego so I went here on a friend’s recommendation… and oh my goodness, the pain was worth it. Sure, I couldn’t feel the entire lower half of my face about 30 seconds into it, but it was wonderful. This is the real deal. Succulent frog legs? Check. Mapo dofu? Check. The classic Szechuan hotpot where you are eating from a sea of spice? Check. Shuizhu? Check. Dan dan mein? Check. Free sweet bean soup dessert? Check. Be wary, this place is not for the faint of heart, tongue, or stomach, but if you know you like this kind of stuff, you don’t need to go anywhere else.
Oh, and the service here was pretty authentic too. The lady working there yelled at us for not rearranging our dishes in an efficient manner that would allow for more dishes to be placed on the table, would gruffly demand that we return the menus, and would dissuade us from ordering something that didn’t go well with the other dishes we had ordered. Always made sure we had enough tea and water and as if by legal binding, made sure it would take at least an hour after our meal was finished for us to leave. Just like visiting an old family friend. It was so ridiculous, I loved it.