Syringa 紫丁香月

Love the food at Chuan Ban, but find the environment a little too “authentic” for out-of-town visitors or a date? Syringa may be your best new alternative. The setting is clean, fresh and has a certain rustic-chic meets cliché-contemporary-art charm.
Try the “tingle pepper chicken” (jiaoma ji 椒麻鸡). The shreds of meat doused in a mash of green onion and numbing spice have the light fragrance of ginger and just enough zing on the tongue. Beware of the little bones. The dandan mian (担担面) is chewy, with a thick dark-red sauce that coated the noodles. The dry-fried green beans were salty, blistery and tender-crisp, without the pool of oil at the bottom. The zhong shuijiao (钟水饺) – taut, meaty little dumplings heaped with chilli sauce – are a good mid-meal snack. Both the deep-fried glutinous rice balls filled with duck egg yolk (yipin jinsha qiu 一品金沙球) and the glutinous rice with pork and longan (longyan tianshao bai 龙眼甜烧白) will keep the spice build-up at bay.