Matt and I went to Pacific East Mall so he could make use of the new camera he got for Christmas.  He wants to Photoshop the inside of the mall, adding a monorail.  Lunch first, though, at Great Szechuan (3288 Pierce Street, Richmond) at the back of the mall.  I’ve written about this place before, but let me say again how authentic the food is.  Two dishes of note today:  Szechwan spicy fish ($9.95) and dry cooked chicken wings ($11,95).  The fish entree was generous beyond belief – a large number of deep-fried fillets of moist, white-fleshed fish served on a wooden tray under a mountain of chili peppers, jalapenos and a few red and green bell pepper chunks.  There was chili oil in there, too, and methinks the fish batter was laced with something hot, but this might have been my inability to detect exactly where the heat was coming from once I reached DEFCON 1 on the Scoville scale.  The wings were like salt and pepper wings, but much, much hotter.  Both dishes, though fried, were not greasy.   Both were flaming hot, but complex.  For example, the fish had plenty of whole Sichuan peppercorns on top that provided a nice numbing contrast.  Be sure to order plenty of rice to cut the heat.  If you drink water, it’ll just spread it around your palate.

Matt and I treated ourselves to dim sum today.  Asian Pearl at Pacific East Mall in Richmond, where else?  We seriously over ordered, having circled nine items on the menu and then grabbing two on impulse as they made their way around the dining room.  Here you go:  green tea dumplings; Northern China dumplings; Shanghai dumplings; steamed beef balls; tofu with hoisin sauce; steamed tripe with ginger and scallions; steamed BBQ pork buns; shrimp rice noodles; salt and pepper squid; har gow; shrimp and scallop dumplings.  Matt loves dumplings, so I let him go hog-wild and figured I’d resign myself to eating them, too, though I’m not as fond of them.  Next to us were two big guys unable to defend five small plates while we were stacking steamers just to fit everything we ordered on the table.  They enjoyed Matthew relishing dumpling after dumpling, not missing a beat with the various sauces, and then punctuating his dumpling orgy with a few tripe shards and squid tentacles, happily chatting away.  I defended all three beef balls and quite a bit of the large plate of fried silken tofu.  If you come to this place, give the tofu a try — it is not at all greasy and has a nice crust.  They also serve good XO sauce rice noodles, which are your basic sheet rice noodles with scallions, rolled and then charred in a wok with the XO sauce and, I would guess, a bit of soy sauce, and served dry-style.  After packing up leftovers we broke into the green tea dumplings, with their odd, blackish-green and grainy semi-liquid filling.  Funny what you wind up liking when you try things.

Little Hong Kong in El Cerrito rocks.  Who knew?  Certainly not we two.  Little Hong Kong (10443 San Pablo Avenue) sits on a stretch of San Pablo in El Cerrito with some terrible Chinese restaurants and we assumed the worst.   When I say “terrible” I mean dinosaur American-Cantonese terrible.  And, no, I did not steal the expression “dinosaur X” from Anthony Bourdain.  I have been saying and writing this for years.  Anyhoo, LHK was packed, and we were crammed into a nice little corner and brought a menu.  The lunch special here is listed at three friggin’ ninety five!  While they have some Americanized selections, they have lots of the real deal.  This is not one of those bad places like the monstrosity up the avenue with all the dragons outside — where the Albany bowling league ladies eat.  Forgive me for ragging on my mother’s bowling companions, but know that I held back so many times I deserve to use them as a negative example just once.  What turned the tide for me was one woman recently telling my Mom that Matthew would have a hard time finding anything good to eat in Hong Kong.  Sorry, but that took me over the top.  Oh, yes, Little Hong Kong, sorry.  This is a solid place to have a meal, though the service could have been a little better, but then again they deserved a pass because of the lunchaday throngs.  We got more than enough food for $3.95 and $4.95, respectively, and it was hot and fresh.  I had the curry chicken, but should not have because I never like any curry chicken as much as I do at Macau Cafe or even Daimo, but I felt like something hot.  It was tasty but had no potatoes, and I like potatoes.  Matt had the beef chow fun, which was excellent.  I am sorry it took us so long to figure this place out.  It’s solid for lunch.

We finally made it to Hunan Villa in Pinole for lunch.  We figured it should be good since it’s owned by the same people who own the Pear Street Bistro.  It’s in one of those yucky strip malls and looks kind of dead from the outside, but once you step in you know right away it’s connected to Pear Street what with the stained concrete with circular design and funky loft ceiling.  The menu is not overly long and we quickly selected one chicken with black bean sauce lunch special, one lettuce wraps with chicken and the sampler plate.  The served us tea in an iron tea pot, which was a nice touch.  The sampler plate had some chicken skewers, cigar shrimp, BBQ pork and spring rolls.  I find that this kind of appetizer plate is usually a blight upon the earth, but it was very, very good at Hunan Villa.  What a pleasant surprise!  The chicken skewers had large, moist chicken chunks that were crispy on the outside.  The shrimp were wrapped in a bit of phyllo and deep fried, and the roast pork was the kind with the red edges — but moist and flavorful and not dry and gray like it often is.  The spring rolls were tasty little suckers, too.  The sampler was served with a quartet of sauces:  hot mustard, sweet sauce, hot sauce, hot and sweet sauce.  Sweet.  My lettuce wraps dish was a mixture of chicken, mushrooms and other veggies served with a stack of romaine lettuce leaves and a dipping sauce akin to hoisin.  The chicken mixture was moist, which I liked because it stayed in the lettuce, though my guess is that most people would prefer it to be a little dryer.  My eating companion, Matthew, said the black bean sauce chicken was good and that he was able to detect the pungency of the beans.  Service was friendly and prompt.  We will return, even if it means driving miles up San Pablo Avenue.  $31 before tip.