Albert T.
Yelp
We had a reservation at Tyger Tyger before a show in the area. I can't say that many restaurants in Queen Anne interest us too much, but Tyger Tyger seemed like a good choice, with a menu filled with dishes that look nice on paper.
The atmosphere feels more like a dim sports bar-type establishment rather than a modern Chinese restaurant, complete with live sports on the two TVs and hard angular surfaces bouncing around the overly loud music to a level almost deafening. It's also cramped enough that it's very easy to bump into neighboring tables.
We ordered three dishes, anticipating each to be rather small, given the pictures on Yelp. The dishes are actually larger than they appear in photos. Each dish comes with a large serving spoons making the pictures deceiving due to the size of the spoon against the size of the serving vessels.
Garlic Three Way Fried Rice ($18) - I was confused when this dish arrived given the copious amount of items piled on top and mixed into the dish. The balance is totally wrong, with probably 2/3 of the dish being a combination of small egg shreds, fried chicken, roasted garlic, sliced and fried garlic, crunchy yet tender garlic confit, large scallion (almost negi-size), and even mustard greens. The top is sprinkled with what seems to be bits of crunchy fried red chili, yet is not spicy at all. The chicken is interesting and doesn't really feel like it belongs in the dish. It's boneless thigh meat, covered in a cornstarch based batter and fried, very similar to the base fried chicken used in a bunch of American-Chinese dishes (e.g. Orange Chicken, etc). It's tender and moist, although not sauced at all. By itself, I think the chicken is quite good. Otherwise, though, the dish isn't cohesive or balanced, like someone dumped a bunch of random ingredients (not necessarily a bad thing for fried rice) together in way too large of a quantity, mixed into rice and then topped it with more random things. Remove the chicken, add two or three times the amount of rice, stir fry together, and I can see this being a good dish. (2/5)
Today's Greens ($13) - The veggie of the day was gai choy. There's a bit of smokiness in this dish, which I could not detect in the fried rice. The leaves are cooked until tender, while the stems still have a bit of a crunch. It's cooked with plenty of sliced garlic (some pieces hard, some soft), and is very spicy, probably comparable to 2 or 3 pepper spiciness at many restaurants. There's only a very mild mala quality, far overshadowed by the direct heat. The flavor profile is exceptionally green and bitter. It's a taste that requires some adjusting to, which is why I'm surprised they chose mustard greens rather than a milder veggie. The flavor on the exterior of the veggies is extremely inconsistent - some pieces spicy, some gingery, some bland. It feels like they stir fried the greens, then lackadaisically mixed the rest in later. (2/5)
Thrice Cooked Pork Belly ($22) - This is a flavorful dish, filled with umami and saltiness from several types of doubanjiang. They add a bit of Sichuan peppercorn, giving the numbing feeling that eclipses the other two dishes. Overall a very blunt concentrated flavor making it very salty, but it doesn't feel blended/layered well. This is not an issue at most Chinese restaurants because there's always white rice as the base to help balance out the really bold flavors. Tyger Tyger, though? There's no plain rice on the menu, and the carb choices are all heavily spiced. I keep mentioning flavor balance. This dish is acceptable, as long as there is some kind of milder carb to eat it with, whether plain noodle, rice, or bao. But at this place, those choices literally don't exist.
In terms of ingredients, the pork is pretty good. It's cooked until tender, rendering the fat soft and easy to eat. It's also fried, which creates a a crunchy skin layer over the fat that doesn't soften from the sauce. The dish also includes plenty of multi-colored sweet peppers, imparting a fragrance of pepper, but not heat. Some softened red and green onion, along with garlic and ginger help flavor the sauce with further aromatic compounds. There are Chinese celery ribs with a barely cooked bite that help to balance out some of the porky fattiness. As with the other dishes, construction is strange. It seems like the ingredients are cooked entirely separately and assembled in layers on the plate, making it lack cohesion. It's a decent dish, but really begs for rice to be eaten with. (3/5)
I don't know the culinary background of the chef, but as a personal opinion, this feels like non-Chinese cooking for non-Chinese clientele. They call themselves a "Sichuan spot" and I'm not sure that's an apt descriptor, but neither would I say that it's Asian fusion. It's maybe good for people who are Chinese food curious and want to advance beyond Chinese-American but don't want to venture too far into unfamiliar territory.
Bathrooms - Two unisex rooms