Grand Szechuan Restaurant
| Address: | 10602 France Ave S, Bloomington, MN 55437, USA |
| Phone: | +1 952-888-6507 |
| Site: | grandszechuanmn.com |
| Rating: | 4 |
| Working: | 11AM–3PM 11AM–3PM 11AM–3PM 11AM–3PM 11AM–10PM 11:30AM–10PM 11:30AM–9PM |
Location
Photos 100
Reviews 5
A
A Private User
As a Twin Cities foodie, I have tried MANY restaurants. I have sampled and have enjoyed many different kinds of Asian food, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Mongolian, and Malaysian (to name a few). My favorite, would have to be Chinese. I absolutely love great Chinese food, and am a huge fan of great Mandarin, Hunan, Cantonese, and Szechuan Chinese food (my favorite). To give you some background, I am 41yrs old and my first love for Szechuan Chinese food happened when I was 6 or 7 yrs old. Ive had TONS of experience eating (and even preparing) Chinese food. Its been a love affair and addiction my entire life. Ive tried the Mandarin Yen, The Yangtze, The Tea House, Tian Jin, Great Mandarin, Grand Szechuan, and countless others. I now have a favorite that I cannot stay away from. Grand Szechuan is my absolute favorite. Its so delicious, that I purposely order more than I can eat just so Ill get to have leftovers so that I can have their food for days and days. Some of my favorite menu items include: Hot and Sour Soup (best in town), Szechuan Spicy Wings (dont be afraid to have them kick up the heat and spice), Sweet & Spicy Noodles, Chung King Chili Chicken (MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE -some restaurants name it Chongqing after the city in China), Kung Pao Chicken, Kung Pao Potato (for Vegans), and Chung King Chili Beef (also excellent). The service has always been very good. When we walk in the front door or leave after another great meal, were always greeted with friendly smiles either welcoming us or thanking us. Decor-wise, its clean and tastefully decorated with rich looking Cherrywood and shades of Burgandy. Price-wise, most entrees are priced about $11 and are VERY generous sized portions. The entrees come with white rice and can EASILY feed two hungry people. We always order two for variety, and usually soup or spicy noodles to start. Our average meal is less than $30 and we frequently check to see if they forgot to charge us enough. Thats a rarity, fantastic food at a very fair price. Weve been to this restaurant probably 20 times now, and the only thing Id change is its location. I wish it was closer to us for convenience. NOTE: You might need to request a fork, this is authentic at its best, and many that visit Grand Szechuan use chopsticks. We do and later switch to our backup fork. ;) Enjoy, I know you will.
BE
Benjamin Vanden Belt
The third time was NOT the charm! My first two visits to Grand Szechuan had me thinking Id finally found some solid Chinese food in the Twin Cities. Todays visit was an utter disappointment. The service was terrible. The waiters were incredibly pushy, rushed (when they werent standing idly talking with one another), inattentive, and unhelpful. The food was even worse than the service. My cashew chicken combo came out barely warm and consisted of fatty, gristle-laden, borderline undercooked chicken. Its texture was revolting. The fried rice was lukewarm and flavorless. The waiter brought our soup and salad midway through the meal after having forgotten to serve them prior to the arrival of our main course. I sent back the cashew chicken and asked for chicken with broccoli instead (thinking it would be white meat rather than the dark meat in the cashew chicken -- and I actually prefer dark meat). The waiter seemed annoyed that I sent the meal back and somewhat reluctantly took my new order. The chicken with broccoli had a very odd, fishy taste, was not hot, and contained white meat chicken that was so soft and mushy that it was inedible. I ate the broccoli and carrot with my bland, cold fried rice, leaving the chicken behind. The waiter never checked back with us and then was shockingly pushy about collecting payment. He dropped the check before we were done eating and raced by repeatedly, picking up the check presenter and then dropping it back on the table after seeing that we hadnt put our credit cards inside. The service has always been sub-par at Grand Szechuan, but the food made up for it. After today, I have no interest in returning because both were miserable. I was not able to locate anyone who appeared to be managing, so I wasnt able to let them know of my disappointment in person.
SY
Sycil Mathai
Ugh...I really wish I could post an excellent review. Grand Szechuan was my last hope for the Twin Cities version of authentic Szechuan food. Being from New York City, and having lived in Hong Kong and traveled all over Asia Ive developed a keen palate for this cuisine. The fact that the restaurant does not use Szechuan peppercorns (very little, if at all) is a huge letdown. Unfortunately, this is NOT authentic Szechuan food. If you like this restaurant, please continue your patronage. Good service, fairly fresh ingredients, and an overall a average experience compared to your typical junkfood Chinese restaurant in America. Let me explicitly state: this is not authentic Szechuan food, but it is an okay restaurant. Chances are likely that the restaurant has slightly watered down the food for its Twin Cities customers. I tried about seven dishes and only found that the heavy use of chili oil was their signature ingredient. Authentic Szechuan food will leave your body feeling light and energized. This restaurants food does not do that at all. Disclaimer: my wife is Chinese. Disclaimer 2: That Zagat rated this restaurant lower than one of the best Szechuan restaurants in New York City (Legend in Chelsea) is a testament to the fact that the standards of food ratings are not as high in the Twin Cities. Sorry, while I have enjoyed your city, the standards are simply not as competitive as they are in NYC. I can assure you that if you ever visit a truly authentic Szechuan restaurant you will be in for a treat.
JO
Joshua Olson
I went there for the first time with family and while they enjoyed their meals I had a bad experience on every level. I ordered vegetable egg foo young and was given a plate of egg foo young with what looked like every meat possible in it (chicken, shrimp, pork, etc.). Obviously an unfortunate development because I do not eat meat but not the end of the world. This is actually an opportunity for the restaurant to show off great service. So I was finally able to flag our waiter down and explained the situation. They were busy but his first mistake was not checking up on our table after delivering everyones food. It took far too long to flag him down. I am unsure if he had any intention of checking up on us. In any event, he took the food away and return with a new plate. Except it was obvious the new plate contained the same egg patties (because I had broken into one earlier) with the meat picked out of the sauce and broccoli on top. Re-using the same egg patties was not a huge deal except by now they were no longer hot and worse yet they were not even thorough enough to replace the sauce on the plate because they missed picking out several pieces of pork from it. So they did not redeem themselves in any way with the "replacement" dish. And frankly, their egg foo young is average at best. To top it all off, it is the only place that still charged me for my meal after hosing up my order.
A
A Private User
We went there for a very first time on a busy night. We were thoroughly impressed with the size of the place and decoration. People lined up going to this place, so it must be a good place to dine. After waiting for merely for 15 minutes, we were seated. We then placed our order and waited, and waited... About 45 minutes later, our food finally arrived, and they certainly looked good. We ate many Szechuan places before, so we know what looks good. Then we realized that the rice is missing, so we asked our waiter. To our surprise, he said that theyre out of rice and in process of making some more; he said it should be ready for 5 minutes. Ten minutes later, the rice still didnt arrive, so we tagged another waiter and he said they just started making a new batch. We know that it will take at least 45 minutes to cook rice, so we asked to talk to the manager while our food was on the table getting cold. The manager came and was very apologetic and admitted that the kitchen was having problems handling orders because it was a very busy night. He offered us discounts on our meal. The rice came about 15 minutes after our food came to the table. It wasnt a good ending on such a promising dining experience. I hope this is just an isolated incident, but it will be a while before Im coming to this place again as there are many Szechuan restaurants in the Twin Cities.
