Holding court

Mike and I went back to the J&L Mall Food Court in Flushing this weekend, to take another crack at the Szechuan stall near the end of the hallway. We were in between meals, so three of us split two small plates (about $4 each), each of which had two dishes in them.

My girlfriend and I opted for spiced cucumbers and seaweed salad, of which the latter was rather bland, and the former was quite extraordinary.

The cucumbers were lightly bathed in a sweet, slightly vinegary solution that yielded a lighter, less spicy version of the cucumber kimchee that you find in Korean restaurants. It still kept a crispy texture, except for a little bit of tenderness on the edges, and turned out to be a perfect summer treat. The seaweed, alas, was too tough stringy to be satisfying, and finishing it felt like a chore.

Mike opted for a peanut-and-tofu dish with spicy Schezuan peppers that left a pleasantly numbing tingling on the tongue. The tofu almost had the texture of chicken.

The other dish was somewhat of a mystery, with the texture of a lotus root or a stem-y shoot vegetable. Most of the flavor came from the Szechuan peppercorns anyhow, and the inclusion of peanuts in the other dish left us a bit more satisfied.