Lulu's Kitchen, Szechuan Cuisine in Concord

Been a while since we went to Lulu's in Concord. Our meal in July included a very spicy Pork Leg dish. Above is the pickled cabbage they bring out when you are seated. 

Sizzling Squid, with chiles, scallions, celery, and bamboo shoots.  Perfectly cooked.

We get this Cold Chicken with Chile sauce nearly every time. Chicken is probably poached then cooled. Below the chicken are pieces of cucumber, and the cilantro on top is the ideal accent. 

Bamboo shoot, left foreground. Cut to resemble the Squid tentacles.

Lotus Root. Served hot, very spicy. Plenty of chiles, garlic, szechuan peppers, and ginger. Sublime. Interesting note: they were playing the UT vs. Notre Dame Football game on the big screen. Big crowd of folks from a tour bus showed up just as we were leaving.

 Robin & I went to Lulu's again yesterday (5/6). Here's 3 shots of that Cold Chicken with Chili. Note the cilantro garnish, and the fact there's chunky slices of cucumber below. More of a chili sauce, the chiles balanced in a Chinese sauce. Great balance of flavors and textures.

Sizzling Eggplant. Deep-fried eggplant in a light, airy batter, topped with a sauce that's sweet and sour, but definitely tastes like one they made from scratch, in-house. The eggplant slices really stayed hot.

Pickled cabbage: commonly served gratis with Northern Chinese meals. Sometimes very similar to Kim Chee if a restaurant's regional style is located close to Korea, naturally. I've had enough versions of the pickled cabbage to realize this is as much statement identifying the cuisine as much as any other part of the meal. In other words, I'd never had a version quite like this. Slightly salty, notes of umami.

Pork Leg with Choung Hing Style. Intense and soulful. Those are roasted cloves of garlic floating around. Loaded with spice. If you are scared of spicy food, don't come here--there's a safe American-style Chinese buffet place in the same strip mall. They probably use something on the order of 50-100 Szechuan Peppercorns in this dish, and it seemed perfectly appropriate, and balanced with the rich pork flavor (that skin & fat is for the flavor), other spices and alium. 

I was already won over from our previous visit, but I'm all the more so now. Concord and Contra Costa County is generally a sea of sad mediocrity when it comes to food, so much so one has to wonder what's a place like this doing here and not in SF, Oakland, or Milpitas? The only competition for best restaurant in the county is on the other side of Tilden, Sue's Kitchen in El Sobrante & Chang Thai in San Pablo. 

Plus, this is close to high-end Chinese dining, and yet the prices are amazingly reasonable. Someone's got it out for them, though, if you take Yelp reviews seriously. Go see for yourself:

http://www.lulus-kitchen.com/menu.html

The Pork Leg is chock full of onion, garlic and chinese cabbage. My lips were all numb and buzzing from the medicinal effect of the Szechuan peppercorns, and I was in a world of bliss for hours afterwards. Best part? We got some huge leftover portions we're about to eat now!

Robin & I spotted this place last year next door to the Quickly in the same strip mall where sits the Downtown Concord 99 Ranch. Lulu's, the name doesn't sound like much: it so happens to be one of the best Szechuan restaurants in the Bay Area (a place where there's quite a few great ones).

Robin's been here a few times with her dad who lives not too far away. We ordered a couple of dishes they really like. Maybe next time, we'll get the Duck Gizzards.

This one's a Cold Appetizer: Chicken in Chile Sauce.

The sauce is a Chile Sesame Oil sauce with cucumbers. The Chicken is mainly thigh meat, perfectly done. Note the angled cut on the cukes. There's only one chicken dish I can think of that's this good around here, the Chicken Wings at San Tung on Irving in SF.

Lotus with chiles. If you're the only non-Asian in a restaurant full of happy Asians, it's a good sign.

The Lotus was perfectly cooked, still very crunchy and flavored by an array of 4 kinds of chile peppers. So happy we got leftovers of this dish!

Oh yeah, over there on the right you can see the plum juice I ordered--tastier than what I got at Chengdu Taste, that brilliant Szechuan chain in Los Angeles.

Szechuan Dungeness Crab. Here's what we came for. Red Hot Mama.

Words fail. I'm not sure how to represent how sublime this was. First, the crab was way cheaper than usual, and oh so fresh, bursting with fragrant, juicy meat. While I love the whole Western approach to lobster and crab, just add butter and lemon, this approach--lord have mercy-- with garlic, ginger, & chiles--it's even better. All those strong flavors complement the crab, nothing drowns out the other, and this is lighter, and in my opinion, the optimal way to eat crab. Though I'm sure the Scallion & Ginger version is also great. I just about had a blissed-out version of a conniption fit when we discovered Szechuan-flavored Crab Butter underneath the carapace and Robin said she didn't want any.

Look at how luscious this crab was. We were stuffed!