dial chinese, "new york", and spicy

drcpunk and I have been in spicy food withdrawl since Dynasty closed. I mean, sure, there's always Wu Liang Yi, but it's quite expensive, and while they're pleenty spicy, they don't have a lot of the dishes we really miss.

Well, last night, I wanted to websearch for a good Sichuan place, but decided there wasn't enough time for my search to complete before we ate (plus in the past, I've had problems googling for sichuan food, since it's spelled so many different ways), so we (plus Beth) went to the Ollies on 84th, which is owned by the same people who owned Dynasty, but mostly has much tamer food...and ran into a waitress who recognized us from there, and steered us toward the spicier things on their menu. This was quite pleasant, but while we were waiting, google did find me a place that looked promising.

So today, I steered drcpunk toward Grand Sichuan Eastern, between 55th and 56th, on second avenue. It was all it was claimed to be -- very spicy, with hot pepper beef filets and cold ming-bean gelatin noodles just like Dynasty used to make, plus plenty of their own specialties, like the cold spicy chicken and shrimp har gao in hot oil. And the prices were very cheap. Mind, we way over-ordered (paying $35 for 3 appetizers, one main coursse, and a soup, and carrying home plenty of leftovers), but it was well worth the trip.