Lilian Z.
Yelp
Cold evenings call for hot spicy foods! Located on Geary by Park Presidio, Sichuan Home may look shabby on the outside, but as you walk in, the inside is filled with the smell of the aromatic chillies they're cooking up inside. The restaurant itself is very small inside so the tables are very very close together; the lady at the table behind us slammed her chair into ours from just barely pulling it out to sit in. They also had to set up one of those pull out chair/table things to extend our table space and we only ordered 3 dishes; there just wasn't enough room on their tiny table. The 4 people table is so small/narrow that had two people sat on my side, we would not have fit even though I'm a very petite girl. All this aside, the service is great for the most part and we appreciated the suggestions for what to order. However, I wasn't a fan of the waitress asking us three times if we wanted to "upgrade" our fish stew to live fish for $10. We opted not to. Their prices are a lot steeper than your average Chinese food place, and on top of the small portions, makes it difficult for me to revisit them again soon. We only really ended up here since our usual Taisan Huakee on the other side of Geary was closed on a Tuesday.
-fish and pickled cabbage (5/5): This one was our favorite; a hot fish stew with pickled cabbage, tender pieces of fillet, and bean vermicelli. The closer we got to the bottom, the spicier it got as it's filled with red and green chillies. Portion side, this was the only one that I felt was worth it. This definitely hit the spot especially on tonight!
-chef's special vegetable (5/5): A stir fry with shredded fresh taro, fried taro, and some chives. I've always ordered this one here since they're the only place I've seen it. But because I've been here many times and have ordered this before, I can safely say that the portion is a lot smaller now. There are also very few chives; you could probably count on two hands the pieces of chives in here. In other words, not much vegetable, lots of taro. We didn't mind, as the taro is equally good; still really enjoyed this one!
-bean jelly in chili sauce (1/5): Now this one was disappointing. When I think of liang fen, I think of a cold, tspicy, vinegary, flavorful bean jelly. This one was lukewarm, did not have any flavor, and my lips were coated with oil afterwards. There was no spice to it and we were sorely disappointed about this one. I brought basically the entire thing home, thinking of revamping it with some seasoning and vinegar on my own. For sure will not order this again.
-twice cooked pork (3/5): The waitress suggested we switch the regular pork to their la rou, or their preserved pork. Honestly not sure if this was the move since when it came, I was in shock how small the portion was. Unfortunately I did not grab a pic since this was the one on the foldable chair thing. The plate itself was huge, the pork was not. Blended in on a flowery plate, if you look closely, you'll see that there aren't that many pieces on there. Other than the few measly pieces of pork, it was filled with onions/leeks? Not sure but it was definitely a filler. The flavor was okay on this one and my friend had said hopefully they at least make their preserved pork in house but they didn't announce this when they suggested this to us so I wouldn't count on it. I would not order this again.
Overall, steep prices, small portions, inconvenient seating arrangements; don't think I'll be back in the near future as there are far better places elsewhere.