Shuwei / Spicy Legend Authentic Szechuan Cuisine
709 Somerset St. W, 613-695-6668, shuwei.ca
Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. daily
Prices: main dishes $8.95 to $12.95, $39.99 for spicy roasted fish special
Access: restaurant is downstairs
“Look for the symbol of the three fish,” I told the friends that we’d planned to meet at one of Chinatown’s newest restaurants.
Take the stairs to the left of the sign to get to Shuwei on Somerset Street West.
Out of necessity, the advice continued. The three-month-old restaurant’s name, which is Shuwei, isn’t visible outside — at least not in English, I warned. There is a sign, but it mostly shows Chinese characters,plus the words “authentic Szechuan cuisine.” Another reason to keep eyes peeled: the restaurant, a basement-level business, is down some stairs to the left of the sign.
From the get-go, Shuwei is an intriguing, hard-to-find eatery. Indeed, three visits later, I still grapple with getting my bearings there food-wise. For this curious culinary adventurer, Shuwei’s uniqueness and foreignness have made it both rewarding and bemusing. And as I discovered at my last visit, the place is still somewhat in flux. But more on that later.
The red seats can get a little lumpy at Shuwei.
During my visits, the restaurant, which seats about 50 and is decorated extensively with woody trappings and Beijing opera masks, has been crowded with Chinese expats dining family-style on Shuwei’s specialty.
They were crowded around chafing dishes that sat above flaming cans of cooking fuel, and in each of those dishes was one or more whole fish, soaking with assorted vegetables, exotic mushrooms, noodles, tofu products and more in a chili-oil bath.
I’ve had the spicy fish — tilapia, we were told — twice. Each time it was rubbed with cumin and cooked, and then nestled in the oily bath with its accompaniments before everything was brought to a boil at the table.
This being a Szechuan dish, we got to designate its spiciness. The medium spicy version pleased everyone who tried it.
Tilapia fish hot pot, with raw ingredients on top, at Shuwei Authentic Sichuan Cuisine
Tilapia fish hot pot, after some time cooking, at Shuwei
The most spicy rendition, formidably blanketed with minced chilis, was harder to eat, although it was the à la carte accompaniments that struck me as painfully pungent while the fish, still moist and tasty, stood up to the scathing heat.
Spiciest fish, for chili-heads only, at Shuwei.
Each time that we ate Shuwei’s spicy fish, we enjoyed the distinctive folksy conviviality of the meal. To enjoy this dish, you have to be OK with rolling up your sleeves, rending that fish with your chopsticks and digging in. Best not to worry overly about the mess on the plastic-covered tables.
But there’s more to Shuwei than the fish. Sampling other dishes from the concise menu, I’ve had two kinds of experiences, which we’ll respectively call A. spicy and exotic, and B. more approachable, but less interesting.
In the first category were three cold appetizers. We overcame any offal-phobia and enjoyed meaty slices of pork lung — quite like beef tongue, actually — paired with beef tripe, lightly chilied and topped with crushed peanuts. “Smashed” cucumbers seemed lightly pickled and were refreshing. Least interesting was a plate of shredded chicken with julienned vegetables and sesame seeds.
Pork lung appetizer at Shuwei
Shredded chicken with pickled vegetables at Shuwei
Smashed cucumbers appetizer at Shuwei
My first meal at Shuwei left two of us with a warm feeling thanks to two category-A dishes. We shared a huge portion of ma po tofu — that homey, comforting, vibrantly spicy dish of bean curd, intensely salty ground pork, a piquant and even tingle-inducing sauce and green onions.
Ma Po tofu at Shuwei
Cumin lamb, a Northern Chinese dish, consisted of spiced, fatty-in-a-good-way meat that had a crisp, likely flash-fried exterior offset by an abundance of sweet onions.
Cumin lamb at Shuwei
My most recent visit to Shuwei was the most surprising because, apart from the ever-constant signature fish dish, the rest of the menu had changed, taking a turn for the more familiar. We tried the General Tao’s chicken, which was texturally fine, but otherwise very tame.
General Tao’s Chicken at Shuwei
Double-cooked pork consisted of strips of pork belly and very ordinary vegetables in an unexciting brown sauce. A dish of potato and eggplant was at best inoffensive.
Double cooked pork belly at Shuwei
Eggplant and potato dish at Shuwei
Most notable and quite tasty was a helping of fried rice studded with softshell crab and pork sausage.
Soft shell crab and pork sausage fried rice at Shuwei
For dessert, we had banana fritters, unsauced and alone, on the house.
Banana fritters, on the house, at Shuwei.
Also, little tubes of candies labeled Haw Flakes had been on our table since we first arrived. The dark pink sweet made from the fruit of Chinese hawthorn is an acquired taste.
Haw Flakes, at Shuwei.
Service, including calls to make reservations, was hampered occasionally by a server’s halting English (or our non-existent Mandarin). But there were bilingual staff to pitch in and, even with linguistic obstructions, the general feeling of the place was warm and pleasant.
When my last visit ended, the cashier handed me business cards that showed off the restaurant’s rebranded English name — “Spicy Legend.” I guess that for some, this is more memorable than Shuwei, although it doesn’t jibe with the new menu that seemed to offer less spicy, less truly Szechuan dishes.
The cashier also asked me for any feedback. I told him I wanted the ma po tofu and cumin lamb back on the menu. To those, I’d add the Szechuan green beans and Chongqing chicken that I never got to try. My fingers are crossed that Shuwei will become a spicy legend, as promised.
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