Spicy House
281 A Dalhousie St., 613-695-8889
Open: Monday to Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday noon to 9 p.m.
Prices: up to $13.99 for large plates and soups
Access: steps to front door and to main dining area and washrooms
There’s a new restaurant in the ByWard Market whose very name will discourage some people from giving it a try, while others will fist-pump in anticipation of eating there.
It’s called Spicy House and to give potential customers even more fair warning or inducement, on its windows facing Dalhousie Street are photos of some ominously garnished soups, appetizers and main courses.
Inside, the month-old, cheap-and-cheerful eatery serves from a laminated, picture-enhanced menu of about 10 appetizers and a dozen larger dishes served across the expanse of China, plus one Taiwanese dish and a Korean-style treatment of tofu. Clean and new, but frill-free in terms of ambience, the dining room is so scantily decorated that the only eye-catcher is a flat-screen TV that seems only to display images of a Sichuanese hot pot and of chili- and cumin-flecked lamb skewers. In all, the eatery’s a far and welcome cry from the fast-food sub place that was once at this address.
In the mood for a little mouth-searing, I ate lunch at Spicy House twice in the last week and was glad that I did. Not only was the food sufficiently, if not debilitatingly, spicy, it was consistently and quickly made and the flavour profiles seemed on-point to me and to my dining companion who has had similar fare in China.
Spicy House, however, did not strike us as the spiciest game in town. I ate with two friends with freakish appetites for chilies who wanted off-the-chart heat from dishes that they ordered extra-spicy, and they were underwhelmed. That said, a heaping bowl of vermicelli with beef in hot and sour soup left another friend a sweaty mess — he might as well have emerged from a sauna. My response was somewhere in the middle — I experienced the mouth-warming endorphin rush of chili-laced dining, drank lots of water, and thought most dishes delivered tastiness beyond heat.
A final caveat before I go dish-by-dish: there’s a lot of offal on Spicy House’s menu. One of those friends who wanted to tear his head off with spiciness was absolutely innards-averse, and would have none of Spicy House’s beef liver, tripe or pork intestines. “Why not call this place Offal House?” he suggested. Let’s just say that at Spicy House, you can chose from two ways of eating adventurously.
Among the appetizers, quite pleasant was the dish of sour and spicy shredded potato, in which the lightly pickled tuber made us think we were eating daikon. Mildly, but discernibly spicy and sour, the dish was a nice, palate-cleansing contrast between bites and slurps of other spicier fare.
Sour and spicy potato appetizer at Spicy House
Also easy to eat was the bon bon chicken, which mixed shredded meat with vegetables and a peanut-y sauce. We had hoped to also try spicy marinated duck wings (although I now wonder if they would have been braised rather than crisply deep-fried) and Korean shredded bean curd, but the kitchen had run out of vital ingredients.
Bon bon chicken at Spicy House
We tried two hearty beef noodle soups, each with its own level of heat and amount of offal. “Noodles with Taiwanese spicy beef sirloin” seemed to come with chunks of tender brisket and slabs of chewy tendon, in a star anise-spiked broth offset by a handful of daunting but chili condiment — an add-on that appeared on many an item. “Noodles with spicy beef niu-za” contained beef liver and tripe, plus chili oil that added not only a layer of heat, but also a slick mouth-feel that my friend more off-putting than the offal in her bowl.
Taiwanese beef noodle soup with a dollop of chili condiment at Spicy House
More plain was a bowl of Chongqing noodles, a Spartan dish that needed its chili topping to be swirled among its noodles to become interesting.
Chongqing noodles in the foreground and sour and spicy potato in the background at Spicy House
Among the meat-and-rice dishes, “spicy beef sirloin on rice with egg” satisfied its description and was, to the relief of my friend, offal-free. In a similar dish, chunks of spicy pork intestine “were rich and buttery,” said the connoisseur of “guts” who ordered them, omitting to mention their funky tang.
Spicy beef and egg on rice at Spicy House
Spicy pork intestines and egg on rice at Spicy House
Three dishes on Spicy House’s menu have “ma la” in their name, meaning that tingle-inducing Sichuan peppercorns should figure into their makeup. We tried the filling Ma La Ban stir-fry and enjoyed the range of ingredients — from spongy fish balls to chunks of gluten and potatoes to slices of sausage to slippery potato starch noodles to various mushrooms. I did want more numbing, floral Sichuan peppercorns, though.
Ma la ban stir-fry at Spicy House
At both of my visits, the lamb skewers, originally from northwestern China, were the last to land at our table. Their morsels of meat were small, tender and sometimes fatty, and were liberally seasoned with chilies and cumin. Requested extra-spicy, the skewers seemed to have been dusted with something like cayenne pepper. The heat-seekers were not impressed.
lamb skewers at Spicy House
Extra-spicy lamb skewers at Spicy House
The restaurant is not licensed, and it serves no desserts. There are of course, sweet options galore nearby, from the tiramisu and biscotti at Il Perugino, the Italian café next to Spicy House, to croissants and pastries at the French Baker around the corner on Murray Street, or even the Hong Kong-style ice cream-loaded bubble waffles at Golden Bubbles on William Street.
It is perhaps wrongheaded to think that that latter sweet indulgence would help some Spicy House fare go down, but it did work for me.
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