Sichuan cuisine is the one of the eight Chinese cooking styles. The dishes of Sichuan cuisine are famous for their hot and spicy flavor, and come out soaked in blood red chili oil offset with green chopped scallions are thrown on for garnish. All of the food looks festive. Nowadays, it is the most popular Chinese food in the world.
Hip Hot is a modern and new restaurant that had its grand opening recently at 500 N Atlantic Blvd. Monterey Park, in San Gabriel Valley. Hip Hot offers delicious, flavorful, spicy Sichuan food. The decoration is modern and a bit whimsical as they use Chinese gaming tables as dining tables, some adorned inside the glassed sections with decorative items such as a Chinese chess sets and Majiang. Clientele here tends to be on the younger side. The windows are covered by cityscape blinds with different lights. It looks amazing. The glass beer crock changes to different colors inside and has dry ice mist that is extremely attractive. In the background, you can see a big photo of the crab on the wall.
There is a cold steel table where you can pick out pig ears, tofu noodles and seaweed strips before plunging into the main course of thin slices of pork belly glistening with chili oil and peppercorn heavy fish and noodles.
The house special, Dungeness Crab stir-fry in chili sauce, is the most famous dish in the restaurant. Ninety percent of the customers order this dish. It is made with fried whole crab, but cut into bite-sized pieces and sautéed with a bucket of chili. The meat is tender and has a sweet flavor. It has been crushed and just needs a bit of effort to pull the meat out.
Also the water-boiled fish is popular. Swimming in a deep vat of chili oil, the boneless white fish is sliced into accessible, flaky pieces. The accoutrements are simple: more chili sauce on top, a bed of bean sprouts and Chinese cabbage on the bottom and a lot of cilantro on top. It looks and tastes fantastic. Moreover, the house special day pot was a delicious dish of beef or chicken cubes, potatoes and yam beans.
The pineapple drink is made with real fruit inside. The taste is sweet and refreshing. The rich cake with brown sauce is sweet and delicious.
Service here is good, but the staff needs a little more experience to provide better follow-up with customers during the middle of service.
Hip Hot also offers a variety of daily seasonal specials that depend on market price. The food here is slightly higher in cost than most other Sichuan restaurants, but they justify the higher price with excellent food. Lunch specials average out to be less than $10, but you have to bring enough money for dinner because ordering a la carte and one plate can be over $10. Average for dinner is $40. Nice new addition to the growing number of Sichuan restaurant in Los Angeles area.
