"Bean Flower" translates into satisfying for all palates

Trying to recapture a Chinese food experience from your past is usually disappointing, but I hit the four-star-hot jackpot at Szechuan Bean Flower.

When I lived in New York, my favorite Chinese takeout dish was Chicken with Little Chinese Peppers from Ollie's restaurant. It consisted of shredded chicken stir-fried with a stunning amount of sliced fresh green chilies.

Szechuan Bean Flower's Chicken in Small Pepper ($8.25) isn't exactly the same, but it's just as good. In fact, it's one of the most spicy and satisfying Chinese dishes I've had in Seattle, right up there with the Chong Gin Hot Chicken at Seven Stars Pepper.

Szechuan Bean Flower sports a full-service Chinese menu, with plenty of standard dishes like Mapo Tofu ($6.95) and Cashew Chicken ($7.50), and many more unusual ones, like Zhang Fei Beef Brisket ($10.25) and Pork with Bitter Melon ($7.95). In other words, it's a good place to take both the Chinese food newbie and the jaded "nothing's too spicy for me" palate.

Szechuan Bean Flower

10005-10007 Aurora Ave. N., Seattle; 206-525-1380

Chinese

$$

Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Sundays.

No liquor license / credit cards: V, MC / no obstacles to access.

Rating: recommended.

"Bean flower," our host explained, is a literal translation of the Chinese word for tofu, and she made sure we ordered a tofu dish. The silky bean curd is made in-house. Service is relatively attentive, but our water glasses occasionally ran dry — hazardous with food this spicy.

Although there's a fish pond at Szechuan Bean Flower, the decor is otherwise perfunctory enough that it could be easily remade as another kind of restaurant overnight. That would be a shame, however, because only a Chinese restaurant would serve Chicken in Small Pepper.

Check please:

Chinese Pan-Fried Cake with Onion: This is an admirable scallion pancake, not as flaky as I'd like but well-browned and packed with scallions. Served with a spicy soy-based dipping sauce.

Szechuan Ravioli in Dry Dish: Despite luxuriating in a bowl of what looked like fiery sauce, these steamed dumplings were impressively bland.

Fish with Bean Curd: Start with smooth tofu in a glass bowl with plenty of brown sauce. Top with tender pieces of whitefish and a layer of peanuts, scallions, ginger and red pepper, and you'll have this extra-saucy but otherwise well-balanced dish.

Chicken in Small Pepper: A stir-fry of sliced chicken and slivered jalapeños, this dish is salty, slightly bitter from green peppers and deadly hot. If you love spicy food, this will leave you mopping your brow with one hand while you spoon more chicken and peppers onto your plate with the other.

Hot Pepper Fried Shredded Potato: In Szechuan cooking, potato is sometimes used as a crunchy vegetable. Here it is slivered and stir-fried briefly with dried red peppers until it picks up just a hint of heat. If you find the thought of raw potato unnerving, pretend it's daikon or jicama, both of which it resembles.

Itemized bill, meal for two

Chinese Pan-Fried Cake with Onion $2.95

Szechuan Ravioli in Dry Dish $4.50

Fish with Bean Curd $10.95

Chicken in Small Pepper $8.25

Hot Pepper Fried Shredded Potato $6.75

Tax $3.11

Total $36.51

Matthew Amster-Burton: matthew.reviews@gmail.com