Szechuan Restaurants near Palo Alto, CA

“Cute hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant with great (and remarkably entertaining) service, tasty food, and a huge selection of vegetarian options. I visited Da Sichuan with a fairly large group, made up of about half vegetarian (or almost vegetarian) folks and half meat-eaters. At our server’s recommendation, we collected all our plant-based folks on one half of the table and our less plant-based folks on the other to make it easier to share. They have an entire page of their menu dedicated to vegetarian options, all of which are delicious and do not leave you missing the meat at all. We ordered a smattering of dishes, including the garlic eggplant, stir-fried green beans, gobi Manchurian, egg rolls, chicken Manchurian, vegetarian twice-cooked pork, normal twice-cooked pork, and spicy fish fillet. Everything was outstanding, but my favorites were the eggplant, gobi Manchurian (which is, quite entertainingly, a Chinese reinterpretation of an Indian reinterpretation of Chinese food), and spicy fish fillet. I will note that if you’re looking for truly authentic Sichuan cuisine, this isn’t the first place I’d point to. However, if you’re looking for tasty Chinese food in general (that may or may not reflect a specific region’s cuisine), then this is a great spot.

My favorite part of this dinner, though, was the service. Our server was hilarious; she poked fun at the Asian folks in our party for our lackluster Mandarin skills, praised the non-Asian folks for their superior Mandarin, and went above and beyond to serve everyone. We ordered the gobi Manchurian at her strong recommendation, and when it came out, she was extremely adamant about making sure we all tried a bite. She individually served everyone a piece of cauliflower, including two folks who joined us late / after the gobi Manchurian was originally served. She also singled out one person in our group to “teach how to eat the twice cooked pork,” which really just involved loading up a bit of every ingredient onto a spoon and then putting the spoon into one’s mouth. She co-opted the dish’s serving spoon to demonstrate this, even though he was doing just fine with the chopsticks. All around an entertaining meal with tasty food and great vibes — certainly not one I’ll forget anytime soon.“

“Food is wounderful and not that expensive… worth it….😃“

“One of my best food experiences! Service was extremely fast (<5 mins for 5 different food items), waiters were very kind, and best of all, the food itself was top notch. Would absolutely go back again. Bonus is you get to see them made the noodles through the side window“

“We arrived for an early dinner at 5:45 PM with easy seating and parking available. Was seated quickly and ordered via QR code. We ordered the Large Old Pot Sauerkraut Fish ($27), which came quickly and was piping hot. Fish was tender, vegetables and other ingredients cooked well, very flavorful. They have varying levels of spice for different palates, but the single chili pepper soup was just right for us. Pretty reasonable price for two people in the Bay Area.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Would recommend!

Wheelchair accessibility: Someone with a wheelchair should be able to get in. There are no stairs required.“

“The price is low, the food is tasty and the portion is large. We ordered a few and none is very spicy. The whole fish, black bass is very fresh and cooked with flavor. Smoked pork has strong smoke flavor. The husband-wife team is from Sichuan. The chef cooks slowly with care. Our cold beef mixture dish came out last after 40 minutes.“

“Service was good and ambiance is good. Food was really delicious and highly recommend their egg fried rice (spicy), spring rolls, Mapo Tofu, sichuan eggplant, pepper tofu. All of them were really good. Kung Pao tofu was sweet and could have been spicier. Scallion pancakes were lacking scallions and could be better“

“The service was great, the lady serving us helped give us good vegetarian suggestions and even accommodated to give us veg steamed dumplings with chili oil as we really wanted to try it. But by far, the mapo tofu was our favorite. It was the perfect amount of spice. Recommend this place to vegetarians - for the really good food and great service!“

“Great Sichuan food and great atmosphere. I got five dishes and I recommend all of them:

- Tender Beef in Spicy Sauce
- Kung Pao Chicken
- Pork Fried Rice
- Dandan Noodles
- Dry Cooked String Beans

If you’re not a fan of spicy, feel free to omit the Tender Beef in Spicy Sauce, but you are truly missing out.

Service was also great! Very attentive and kind :)“

“Authentic home-style northern Chinese food. It’s best if you go for the dishes that don’t require pan-frying, such as the buns, the pumpkin porridge, or the cabbage tofu stew.
I chatted with the owner, she is very passionate about not using additives, and fresh small-batch oil everyday; her own grandchildren eat here. I have a sensitive stomach and this is indeed one of the only places I can constantly order from.
Overall, this is a restaurant that preserves ingredients’ original flavors like your grandma’s kitchen. The atmosphere is likewise — nothing fancy.“

“I recently went to the restaurant. I had pan fried chicken noodles and eggplant dish. The fried noodle dish was mouth watering! Crispy and full of flavors. I really enjoyed the flavors in the eggplant dish as well.

Walking into the restaurant really surprised me by their cleanliness! The whole place was spotless!! Hygienic clean. Not a dust in sight. Even the counter space was organized and clean with sanitizer. This really impressed me.

I really appreciated that the owner took time to prepare the meals. I had to wait some time as there was a large order before me but I noticed that she didn’t rush any orders even the small orders.“

“Shang Cafe has been keeping up to their high standard, which speaks for itself. The food is delicious and portion is good. They are moderate in terms of seasoning and salts. But still manage to make the dishes delicious. They keep pushing new creations, which are usually good! Good job all these years!“

“The soup dumplings rock! Love the orange chicken and Mongolian need as well“

“We came here on a Saturday night around 6 pm. There was no wait, but when we left there was a line outside the door. We ordered the House special and Lazy Guy. I liked the House Special better, because there was no pig intestine. We also ordered the fish soup with pickled mustard greens and the si gua with salted egg. One small of the dry pot can feed two people. Portions are big here. I want to try their stinky tofu and crawfish next time!“