Szechuan Chef Chinese Restaurant

My Wife & I visited Portland from Seattle and searched for Szechuan food, and this place came up. After reading the reviews, we thought of trying it as we both are huge fans of the cuisine. This restaurant definitely has a good ambiance and comfortable seating. We ordered Hot & Sour Soup, Chopped Pepper Fish, Cumin Lamb & Fish Fillet in Hot & Spicy Gravy. Having tried all of the above at many excellent Szechuan restaurants, we believe everything was excellent except the fish, which was very good but not the best we’ve had. One suggestion which does not affect this review is if they can keep a couple of dessert options on the menu. Overall, worth it!

Second time eating here. I think the specialty items are the best, tbh. We had the home style lamb - came in a little flaming wok! So good! Our other two dishes were mediocre tbh. The dry fried green string beans were good but not impressive. And the Szechuan style tofu wasn’t very hot or flavorful. Not like the lamb dish. That’s great. More of that! Overall, mostly good. I would stick to their special dishes.

Excellent food, good prices. The Pepsi was flat like it was poured from a 2 liter bottle that had been opened a week ago and the condiment containers were not the cleanest, but if you go without expectations of traditional service and cleanliness, you'll enjoy some amazing Chinese food. I had the Hunan beef and hot & sour soup with spring rolls. Loved it all.

A little gem, everything we ordered was excellent. The pan fried sour shredded potato was a surprisingly good complement to spicy dishes. Don't miss out on the dumplings either!

Authentic Szechuan food! Wonderful service! Very friendly and attentive server. I like how they limited to only about 5 tables for dine-in during the pandemic. Using paper cups, plates, and utensils was a good choices. Very clean.

Szechuan Chef seems to have stepped up their game with the food better than I recall it had been a couple years. Not at all greasy, generous portions, and very flavorful. Best of all it was well packed for takeout and the crispy noodles stayed crispy until we were ready to eat. We will be ordering from here again!Food: 4/5

The sauces used in the dishes are top notch. The hot and sour soup is perfectly balanced and hearty. Favorite Chinese cuisine every time I hit PortlandFood: 5/5

I am soooo glad they moved to this new location. Much more accessible for those that are "other abled". Food tasted fantastic. We had dumplings for appetizer. Green beans and chicken... delicious. And szechuan pork ribs medium spicy was spicy enough. Thier tea is super good too. Wheelchair accessibility: Was perfectly placed by the ramp and a short distance from the door.

I love this place! While the setting isn’t fancy the food is the best Szechuan in town. Trust me we’ve tried them all. We generally take out and have never been disappointed.

TL;DR: It's fantastic, authentic and brings family-style back. Bring 6 people you care about. Sit at a big, round table with a lazy susan. If the menu is overwhelming: Order the Moo Shu Pork, Mandarin Crispy Chicken, Shaved Noodles with Beef, Dried Cooked String Bean, side of white rice and 2-3 orders of soup dumplings and just go ahead and thrive. Pro-tip: You will run out of rice pancakes for the Moo Shu Pork and that's okay. Ask for more when you run out, so they can warm them up for you. They will, and warm pancakes are good. We moved to SE Portland from Chinatown, Manhattan NYC 11 years ago and although I have had limited success finding respectable Cantonese cuisine and Dim Sum, I have not had much luck finding authentic Shanghai/Sichuan style that could truly hang with my favorites back in NYC. Today, that changed. My 6 year old daughter really wanted soup dumplings for her birthday, so I widened the search to across the river and I am so very glad I did. The chef here is truly talented. We asked for the beans to not be spicy so my daughters might eat them, and usually what we end up with is beans that make you think they would have been better if they'd been spicy. This was not the case. They were DEVOURED by my family. The beans were so perfectly cooked and seasoned, that my 6 and 8 year olds inhaled them. This tracked through every dish we sampled. Normally, if I see a lot of spicy dishes in the featured, I raise an eyebrow and think "What are you hiding under all those peppers?" but the execution of both spicy and mild flavors were all immaculate. This food was so good it was distracting. This food was so good I forgot we ordered rice. This food was so good that the 30 dumplings we ordered were down to 2 by the time I recovered from the initial shock of how damn good it all was. To be absolutely and undeniably clear, if you love some people, and you want them to feel what it is like to be cooked a meal by someone who obviously loves to cook, bring them here and eat with confidence. Kid-friendliness: Kids chopsticks and water cups with tops and straws FTW Parking: Parking lot.