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Good Chinese food found amidst horrifying peppers

September 17, 2010

by Duncan Robertson and David Sigal

 

The name Lucky Strike is appropriate for the bizarrely decorated, intensely flavorful Sichuan restaurant that has latched parasitically onto the westernmost edge of the Hawthorne Theater. To say that the food is spicy is a misnomer; more appropriately, the spicy is food, really good food.

Our experience with the wait staff was peculiar; having seen us, they opted out of actually seating us for ten-odd minutes in favor of wandering past us towards the kitchen. We killed the time by attending to Lucky Strike’s full bar, which was really fantastic in the way full bars usually are.

Eventually we were approached by a waitress who eyed us as though we might be there to deliver a package. We communicated to her the need for a table and chairs and eventually food, to which she responded enthusiastically.

At this point, I want to make it clear that one of the two of us suffers from the unfortunate condition of being from California, and has, consequentially, claimed expertise in the following fields: Mexican food (as if California is the only part of the country with Mexican-Americans, something a lot of Californians actually seem to believe), and Chinese food (because of San Francisco’s fortress-esque Chinatown and his own abroad experience).

The Californian ordered in broken Chinese while the waitress replied unblinkingly in English but he knew what was for eating.

We devoured the food family style. The climax of the meal arrived as the Hot Pepper Chicken Bath, a dish that consisted of tender morsels of chicken buried in a sea of merciless deviant chilies.

The dish was a kind of amazing treasure hunt, where we took turns flipping through the menagerie of deep reds so as to uncover tiny, juicy slivers of meat. Also excellent was the Twice Cooked Pork Belly, an uncompromising and salty treat that, according to the Californian, “is exactly how they cooked it in Sichuan.”

All the dishes were brought at different times, so as to be served piping hot and so that one would hit the table the moment its predecessor had expired.

The Kung Pao Chicken, which we were hesitant to order—being familiar only with the overly starchy, gluten-soaked, food-court variety—was amazing. Kung Pao Chicken is actually a traditional Sichuan dish, and when done right is a delicate and palatable entrée.

Lucky Strike is also traditional in its use of Sichuan peppercorns, a spice rarely utilized outside of the Sichuan and Hunan provinces. It appears, for all intents and purposes, to be a tiny kernel of red chili. Instead of a burst of flavor or heat, the peppercorn numbs your tongue, allowing you to consume brutally spicy cuisine.

As bizarre as it sounds, the peppers add a new dimension to your food, not by dancing across your taste buds, but by suffocating the nerve endings in your mouth. As unappealing as that description looks on paper, the reality is exquisite.

Dinner came to ten dollars a head plus drinks, a fair price when taking into consideration that Lucky Strike is some of the most authentic and brightly flavored Chinese food Portland has to offer. We took in dinner with a couple of friends, and I’d say that’s how Lucky Strike is meant to be enjoyed: food arriving in fantastic surges of flavor, coupled with good beer and good company.