Yuan LIU
Google
I had high hopes for Spicy King but sadly, it is all show, no substance. (With one exception.) If you want tasty Chinese food, do not bother.
Let's start with show. If I remember correctly, Spicy King entered San Francisco less than 10 years ago. Even though its street address is on Waverley, at the corner of Clay with a large sign, it is easily visible from Grant (53m/174ft), Stockton (91m/300ft),Sacramento (97m/317ft), and Washington (101m/332ft). The front windows feature several very large graphic panels depicting the presumed chef owner and awards he won in China. Its Chinese name, 麻辣一品 ("hot and numbing first class"), portrays a lot more premium than its English name. As a bonus, no obnoxious self-promotion is found inside, unlike another bad restaurant I reviewed. But wait till I taste their food.
The advertised flavor is Chongqing, the spicier brother among the Sichuan family. To test this out, we ordered three dishes: Mouth Watering Chicken (口水鸡), Bean Jello in Red Chili Sauce (川北凉粉), and Flaming Spicy Kidney (火爆腰花). Of these, flaming spicy kidney is a common Sichuan dish; bean jello is a Chongqing classic that we use to test authenticity of Chongqing places; and mouth watering chicken is another classic that is closer to Chongqing flavor.
The chicken came first. Taste was very good. Portion was descent, too. This raised our hopes. The bean jello, on the other hand, came as a bad shock. It did not have the definitive flavor. The black fermented beans in the sauce does not stick to the jello. The sauce was simply wrong, with so much oil the jelly was not even flavorful. Then, the spicy kidney also lacked flavor despite lots of spicy ingredients. The sauce was applied wrong. The onion slices were raw, which was not only wrong for this dish, it is wrong for any Chinese stir fry. (If you want authenticity, no. Onion or shallot is not a traditional ingredient in this dish - not in most Szechuan dishes.)
In short, it is a shame that a restaurant founded by a Chongqing chef - an award-winning one nonetheless, cannot even do Chongqing's signature bean jello right. And they butchered (not in the good sense) the really common flaming spicy kidney. Only mouth watering chicken was correctly made. One out of three is better than zero the other all-show-no-substance restaurant did. But I will still give them a failing grade. To be sure, influx of Sichuan-rooted chefs in the past decade have brought these dishes to the San Francisco Bay Area in their full flavor. Why would I want to return to this poor execution?
The restaurant has some elaborate decorations near the entrance. Other than that, the interior is relatively simple, keeping a premium look without being wasteful. Seating is spacier than typical Chinatown joints.