China Star
China Star, web site, 9600 Main Street (Route 236), Fairfax, VA, 703-323-8822 (in the same shopping center as Kinko’s and Cinema Arts Theatre) [Washingtonian | WaPo | City Paper | Don Rockwell | openlist | Citysearch]
Superb Szechuan if you know how to order properly. Get the spicy dishes and the specialties of the house. The Szechuan chili chicken has to be seen to be believed. Get the sea bass with pine nuts and the crystal shrimp. The dried fried green beans. The Szechuan preserved fish. The Szechuan scallion fried fish, which goes well with the chicken with leeks. Don’t forget the salt and pepper eggplant. Get the dishes you have never heard of. Watch what everyone else is eating. The daily specials usually are amazing. The ordinary “Chinese” dishes here are quite unexceptional, avoid them. This can blow the roof off your mouth, they have four categories: normal, spicy, very spicy, and numbing. That should be all you need to know. For a fresh look at Chinese food, visit this place. I go back, and back, and back. Right now it is my favorite restaurant, period.
Szechuan chili chicken (with bone left in)
Szechuan scallion fried fish
ma pao tofu