The 25 Best Chinese Restaurants In NYC - New York - The Infatuation

"You should pocket a handkerchief before going to Szechuan Mountain House, an East Village restaurant with sister locations in Flushing and Midtown, because you might just be in a full-body sweat 10 minutes into your meal. It’s not just the perspiration-inducing sichuan peppercorns that keep us coming back to Mountain House, but the fact that the umami, garlic-heavy dishes aren’t overpowered by them. Somehow, this restaurant finds balance and nuance in a furnace of the reddest mapo tofu. Skip the photo-friendly pork belly on a clothesline-esque swing, and stick to classics like la-zi chicken and the stone pot green pepper fish." - neha talreja, bryan kim, molly fitzpatrick, will hartman, willa moore