Trip Report: Cupertino Village - Szechuan Era

I was recently in the Bay area for a week, so I’ll be spending a few posts talking about the great Chinese food I had in the Bay Area. Cupertino has a high Asian population, so naturally, it houses a lot of good Chinese restaurants (not to mention great supermarkets and gift shops!).

Cupertino Village is a small shopping area that consists entirely of Asian restaurants, stores, and markets. We ate several good meals in the area.

Szechuan Era is relatively new, but serves up excellent Sichuan food.

This was an incredible deal – for $6, you could choose three “small eats.” We got two plates of these. On one plate (pictured above), we got spicy pig ears (pictured), spicy beef tendon, and spicy beef.

In another plate we got marinated bamboo shoots, tofu noodles, and marinated cucumber.

We also got deep fried stinky tofu! To read more about stinky tofu, click here:

No Sichuan meal is complete without the dish that literally translates to “water cooked fish” or “water cooked beef.” The anomalous name actually refers to a fiery hot soup-like dish generously seasoned with Sichuan peppers and peppercorns. In Boston, you can get an excellent version of this dish, called “sliced fish, Szechuan style” at Gourmet Dumpling House in Chinatown.

Tea Smoked Duck

Beef stir fried with peppers (notice the common fiery theme?)

Ahh – finally, some relief for the tongue! Si gua (A Chinese water gourd) stir fried with shrimp.

Can you believe this is their beef noodle soup? Look at how red it is! It was really delicious.

This exotic Sichuan hot pot included interesting items such as pork blood cakes!

The fish dish pictured below was one of my favorite dishes of the evening. Deep fried, spicy slices of oh-so-soft white fish. The fish seemed to melt in your mouth while the fried crispy exterior released a deep, fragrant mix of Sichuan spices, salt, and other very glutamic (i.e. umami) flavors. Excellent, excellent dish. This came at the end of a long banquet, so I was stuffed. Nevertheless, I still inhaled multiple pieces anyway. Oh it was so good.

If you are in the Bay area, this place is definitely work checking out!