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Chilli Cool
15 Leigh St, London, WC1H 9EW
Reviews for Chilli Cool
0 found this helpful
Chilli Cool has been on my restaurant 'Want-To-Go' list for ages. I first heard about it from Niamh, who said that she had such a good meal here. I love Sichuanese food, ever since I got Fuschia Dunlop's Sichuan Cookery book. I can't say I remember eating all that much Sichuanese food in Hong Kong, but I didn't quite have the tolerance for chillis as I do now.
6 other friends and I decided it was high time we visited. Places like this require more than solo dining or with just one other, as there were so many dishes you'll want to try and being such big portions, it's a shame to let it go to waste. Incidentally, my mum e-mailed my just after I booked it to let me know about some great Dan Dan Noodles she'd had from "some place on Leigh Street". It was meant to be.
Luckily, we're all pretty adventurous eaters, because there was a lot of offal on the menu. I'd had 'Beef Slices & Ox Tripe in Chilli Oil' (left) before at Leong's Legends, and really enjoyed it so I wanted to order it again. The dish was delicately spicy. The tripe contrasted well in texture with the beef, with the smattering of sesame seeds providing a hint of flavour. The spicy oil the slices were in had pieces of lightly cooked celery which made it all the more delicious. When the rice arrived we spooned the spicy oil from this into our rice bowls, it was so good.
We also ordered 'Hot & Crispy Pigs Intestines. Initially when I made this choice the waitress looked doubtful and told us we wouldn't like it. I'm glad we persevered though, because this was one of the highlights of the evening. The intestines had varying contrasts - some were very very crispy, some only a bit, some fatty and squidgy. What was constant was that each bite of the intestine was intensely porky and rich. Of course, none of us could resist ordering pork belly. This 'Sliced Pork Belly in Mashed Garlic Sauce' was a lot less pungent than I imagined. I have a recipe for this in Dunlop's book and I have been a touch too scared to make it for fear of the backlash. This was not so. The pork belly is sliced very thinly so that it's almost transparent and so there's no danger of being chewy or coming upon thick strips of fat. Instead, this melted in the mouth.
What I didn't get to try at Ba Shan, I certainly did here. These 'Shredded Potato Slivers with Dry Chilli' really delivered a massive hit of Sichuan peppercorn. The mouth suddenly starts to salivate more, the tingle spreads, and a slight metallic taste lingers. It sounds unpleasant but I assure you it's not - it's extremely addictive. I kept on munching. The potato slivers were very uniform; not at all starchy and they didn't stick together at all. I can guarantee you if I attempted this at home, it would be an unmitigated disaster.
Another highlight was the brasied tofu with minced meat. The tofu slices were fried on the outside and soft on the inside, soaking up all the thick gravy. 'Stir-Fried then Stewed Jack Beans' were much better than the name suggests, although veggies should note this also came with minced pork. Not the most veggie-friendly restaurant at all, actually.
We also had the 'Fish & Chilli Hot Pot (large)'. The pot was huge. Brought to the table steaming, we were given a slotted spoon to fish out the pieces of grouper, ginger, tofu, Sichuan peppers, and of course; the abundance of chillis. By this point my mouth was tingling like no one's business and it was making me feel a little giddy. The fish was perfectly cooked, which confused me somewhat that it hadn't carried on cooking more - one finger dipped in the soup by accident and it was HOT. We even, at the end of the meal, had a competition to see who could hold their fingers on the side of the pot longest (it was a very highbrow meal) and it burned.
The fish was fresh and wasn't overtly fishy. Despite appearances, the hot pot was actually very light - the broth was flavoursome and nothing sat heavily on the stomach. It was a perfect end to the meal.
All in all, I loved Chilli Cool and I can't wait to go back. It certainly didn't hold back on the spicing like Ba Shan did and for that, I salute them. The service was a little hard to get the attention of, and one might take umbrage to the waitress being doubtful of our intestine dish choice, but rather than being disparaging I think she was really just concerned for whether we'd enjoy it. Looking around, we were the only (aside from 1 couple) table of English(ish) people. Unfortunately the '4 rounds of vegetables' that was supposed to appear with our hot pot was forgotten, both by the kitchen and ourselves. Oh well, we'll just have to go back...
2 found this helpful
I have been a fan of Szechuan cuisine since my visit to Bar Shu all the way back in March 2007, and yet for some reason hadn't had the opportunity to follow up the experience until a couple of weeks ago. The novelty of the new was enough to make me overlook some of the more lackluster parts of the meal in Soho, but what was good was very good indeed, and the memory of the first hit of those Szechuan peppers will stay with me forever. Chilli Cool (stupid name I know - apparently it sounds a lot nicer in Mandarin) sits just a few doors down from the Black Books bookshop in Bloomsbury, and by all accounts is cheaper, better and more authentic - largely, I'm guessing, because it's not in Soho.
The menu is excitingly offal-heavy. Along with Szechuan classics like "man and wife offal slices" and "devil-exploded kidneys" were a range of dishes involving every part of pig and cow, charmingly literally translated with no concessions to delicate English ears. "Beef slices and ox tripe in chilli oil" was packed full of flavour and with cleverly and tenderly cooked tripe giving a gelatinous contrast to the rougher beef slices. And by far my favourite plate of food was a superb "hot and crispy pigs intestines", which instead of gloopy chitterlings was in fact varying in texture between moist parcels of pork fat encased in crispy membrane, to crunchy nuggets of pork scratching, all doused in a fiery pepper and chilli sauce. You didn't know exactly what kind of meat you'd got until it was in your mouth and it was either crunchily dissolving or melting with fat - great fun.
Along with some raw shredded potato, which were nice enough, arrived a huge hot pot of grouper fish and chilli, the fish being cooked perfectly and the broth spicy and rich. It's not for the faint-hearted, this food - the spicing is aggressive, the flavours occasionally overwhelming and the cuts of meat uncompromisingly bold and unusual. But it is a style of cuisine that we deserve to see a lot more of, because when it's done well, as at Chilli Cool, the results are spectacular. The only thing I can't recommend about Chilli Cool, which won't surprise anyone who's ever eaten at a Chinese restaurant in London, is the service. After repeatedly asking for the bill I resorted to standing over the guys at the till until they typed our menu out and gave me the receipt. It was wrong.
Eventually we did manage to sort out the bill, which came to just less than £20 each with plenty of alcohol - pretty much a bargain. Sloppy service has become just as much of the experience in Chinese restaurants as the old-woman's pock-marked bean curd, so it was hardly commented upon that evening by anyone in our party. Certainly judging by the lack of empty tables and the buzzy atmosphere of a restaurant that is confidently and consistently churning out some of the best Szechuan food in London, nobody else cares either.
6 found this helpful
London is going through a Sichuan discovery phase. There are old faithfuls like Angeles in Kilburn and Sichuan Restaurant in Acton which have been around for years, but recent times has seen a relevant explosion on the restaurant scene with Bar Shu in Soho, Snazz Sichuan in Euston and Red 'n' Hot near Chinatown. The latest addition to this list is Chilli Cool in Bloomsbury.
If you haven't had proper Sichuan food before, let me prepare you, it's hot. Hot hot hot. Sichuan peppercorns have two types of heat, spicy heat and numbing heat. If you're more familiar with cantonese food, this is a completely different experience, offering spicy hot pots and offal a plenty.
We went on a Saturday for a friends birthday, and were seated down the back at a round table which was really sociable and perfect for sharing. The restaurant was full, and the clientele were predominantly Chinese, always a good sign. The restaurant decor is fairly understated, Cool Chilli is all about the food.
We were fortunate that two of our party were from Chengdu in Sichuan, so we were only delighted when he offered to order on our behalf. Before long the table was covered with a variety of dishes, literally, there was hardly room for our bowls. Indeed we had to keep the rice on a nearby shelf!
Favourites for me were the fish hot pot with fresh chilli and dried chilli, a fabulous and enormous hot pot to share with very fresh and light grouper and tofu. It came with four plates of steamed vegetables, including: green beans, cabbage & yam. It was so very good. Bursting with flavour. Another favourite was the whole crayfish, a cold spicy chicken dish in oil, a tofu dish and twice cooked pork belly.
It was all truly excellent. I couldn't criticise it even one little bit and the prices are very fair. The service was very friendly and efficient. I'll be going back, I'd go tonight if I could.
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We had so much food and excluding drinks it came to £15 each. Fantastic price for such quality food.
We had so much food and excluding drinks it came to £15 each. Fantastic price for such quality food.
FoodStories - ditto for you :-)
bron99 - not yet but everyone I know that's been loved it. Red 'n' HOt too, although I believe if you're not Chinese it can be below par. I've read that in a number of reviews.
Is Fuschia Dunlop involved in Chilli Cool? I don't know actually, it's very local and doesn't have any of the bling of Bar Shu. Will look it up - thanks!
Next time I get a cold, I'm eating Sichuan. :-)