I was too tired to cook today, so I called up Zach to see if he wanted to go to Sichuanese Cuisine. Once we got there, we debated ordering the hot-pot, but in the end ordered Dried-Cooked Chicken and Chinese Stir-Fried Greens, which we had the last time we were here. The chicken, as usual, was so good it made me want to cry. Crisp, yet tender and wonderfully flavored with fermented black beans. The greens were also delicious—buttery and garlicky, ladled with a rich broth.

We tried two new things as well, the Eggplant with Pork and Ants on a Tree. The eggplant was a shockingly gorgeous, shimmering purple. It wasn’t quite what we were expecting (the “pork” in this dish was microscopic), but the eggplant was great—cooked until it had a creamy consistency, with a prominent eggplant flavor laced with a slightly spicy chili sauce.

The ants on a tree, on the other hand, tasted like… uh, nothing. It looked like it would be good, with a bright red chili sauce soaking into the translucent glass noodles. The “ant” portion of this dish was supposed to be pork, but we couldn’t see any. I thought maybe they hid it somewhere under the noodles, so I lifted them up, but found nothing. We won’t be ordering this dish again, but we’ll be back as often as possible for the Dried-Cooked Chicken and the Chinese Stir-Fried Greens.