Gourmet Paradise Sichuan Style

I’ve been here several times, done takeout before, but this time it was a BIG mistake! 3 p.m. on a weekend isn’t typically a busy time for any kitchen, but the place was half full and they were NOT handling it well… It took over an hour for our takeout order, by which time half the food was cooked and cooled, before we were able to leave with the order. Not even much of an effort at an apology for the wait Sad to say, will NOT be back…
Dishes, predictably, tasted less than okay by the time we got home with them, with only one still hot and the rest almost cold.

enjoyed our meal here tonight with our table of 8 as we tried many dishes. Really enjoyed the smoked tea duck and spicy whole fish. Also tried some pig head slides, rather chewy at certain bites. Another meat slice dish with green peppers was nice. Mediocre dishes were the Kung pao chicken, green onion pancakes, whole plate of cabagge, shrimp with asparagus, potato strings. Avoid the green roll with meat filling, looks like a slug and almost tastes like one too. They gave us free dessert, rice squares with peanut dusting coating and drizzle sweet sauce, but it wasn’t quite sweet enough to qualify as a dessert. Very friendly service, but no liquor license which was a shame, as a beer would’ve been nice to wash down all that spicy food.

Visited here for the first time on a lunch outing from work last week — and I was very pleased. The menu is both extensive and beautiful, and the waitress was exceedingly helpful, though there were some minor language challenges. The whole fried shrimp in preserved salty egg yolk was the most memorable dish we had (and the one that came last), but others were great hits too, including the smoked duck, double cooked pork, dan dan mien, and green beans with ground pork. Can’t wait to return and check out more of the menu. I’d say an easy four stars, largely on the strength of the duck and shrimp. Gourmet Paradise may just edge nearby Bashu out as top Sichuan in my book, though I will admit that double cooked pork is a bit better at Bashu.

I thought this restaurant was quite good and well priced compared to other Szechuan restaurants I’ve been to.
To start with, the menu is awesome. It’s this huge book of photos that could practically be a coffee table display book. There’s both English and Chinese on the menu, thank goodness for me.
The spicy sizzling fish was really spicy but in a way that you could still taste the flavours. But seriously, if you don’t normally eat spicy food, you will be hurting! The handmade noodles were really interesting too, they were almost like sheets of dough. The texture and flavour were great though!
We did have one tiny problem with our meal… we went for lunch and spent two hours there — not cool if you have to get back to work! I think they might have forgot the handmade noodles we ordered, because I had to remind the server about them and then it still took awhile or them to come after that. She was super nice and apologetic about it though and gave us free black rice soup for dessert, which was delicious (it might be called something else on the menu but that’s what was in it).
It ended up costing $ 35 for 3 people, and we had a ton of leftovers. I would definitely go back!

I was super excited to try this restaurant because it was near my house and it would’ve been another dinner option for me. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy this restaurant as much as I had hoped.
We ordered the spicy cold chicken. It had just the right amount of heat to it and it was quite tasty at first bite. Although it was very flavorful and I enjoyed the cucumbers and peanuts in the dish, I didn’t appreciate that the chicken had bones in it. I also thought that it was overly salty after a few more bites and the flavor became overwhelming.
The second dish we tried was the sesame pancake with beef. I personally really enjoyed this dish but my parents didn’t like it. It was average and I supposed I really enjoyed this dish because the other three dishes were not amazing. The beef was cold (which was intentional, I think) and the pastry part was not hot enough. I’ve definitely had a better version of this pancake at other restaurants.
The third item was leek and pork dumpling served on a plastic dish. These dumplings are boiled as opposed to steamed. It was again, average.
The final dish was the intestine noodle in soup. They gave us very little intestine and the noodle was not the chewy consistency that I expected it to be. I would say that the spicy level of this dish is slightly higher than the spicy cold chicken.
If you do want to try this restaurant, I would come here soon since there’s a 12% grand opening special! Then you can decide for yourself if it’s worth coming back a second time!

Gourmet Paradise Sichuan Style has one of the most elaborate and colourful menu I have seen in town. Just looking at the photos made me want to order everything off the menu…
The Chef used to be worked at Jin Jiang Hotel in Chengdu, a 5 star hotel. I would say the presentation here for the dishes we ordered were very good.
Don’t be fooled by all these red coloured chili oil from the photos, they were in fact not as spicy as you think, at least from what I had tasted in Toronto. The spiciness here is more rounded and balanced!
We shared:
Homemade Noodle with Pork Intestine in Hot Soup ($ 7.99) 肥肠普盖面
— the intestine has this nice smokey flavour, nice and fatty!
— The noodle is doughy and filling, a little different from what I expect. The chef came out and explain to me that’s how they do it in Chengdu
Spicy Cold Chicken ($ 8.99) 重慶口水鸡
— Love the cucumber that lined the bottom of the chicken, refreshing and spicy at the same time!
Gourmet Paradise is worth coming for some authentic and well prepared Sichuan and Chongqing food.
Grand Opening Special 12% off