Dainty Sichuan

My theory on why it's called Dainty

Well first of all.. I think this sichuan restaurant should really be called 'torture'. The wait for a table averages around an hour. And through it all you get the front row seat, watching everyone enjoying plates of red hot (add dish name here). As you progress forward in the queue, you find yourself at the kitchen entrance as waiters zoom out with freshly prepared plate of gung pao chicken and ants climb up tree (wtf? is that a tai chi posture).
When you finally get a eeat, you order twice as much as normal becuase you have been waiting so long for your food. Then when they do bring the dishes you find that you can only eat a little portion as the food is just so damn spicy!
BUt my theory on why its called Dianty came to me as I stood watching the groups of patrons indulging in their food (about 45 mins in queue). The art to eating this food, was to "Daintily" pick at the dishes with your chopsticks, eating only a tiny morsel at a time. Rather than wolfing it down like our party did. This prob explains why the meat is sliced into such small pieces.
More papaya milk!

Like a sadomasochistic affair.

I have a confession to make. I ve been obsessing about a dish. Dainty sichuan's signature dish - Chilli Chicken will have you playing needle in the haystack as you fish for chicken pieces in a big pile of dried chilli. The chefs must have deliberately chopped the chicken into tiny pieces, maxing the surface area where the chilli could take effect. I wouldn't doubt if some evil kitchen hand is massaging chillies into each piece.. daintily. The taste will blow your head away. I was a fountain of sweat halfway through the meal.

It's a good thing that Dainty stock soya bean milk and cans of papaya milk which does the trick of soothing your tastebuds and restoring your sense of taste.

Other dishes arrive like the salted-egg crab and mapo tofu, but even the mildest, spicy pork ribs, redefines the 3 chilli scale you see in other restaurants. It's been a long time since my friends and I have been for a meal punctuated by as many four letter words. And we were laying off the booze.

You walk out on an endorphin high, wondering 'why the hell you would put yourself through that torture'. But a week passes, and there is just something missing from all the other kung pao chickens in Melbourne. That's when you know it's time to head back to Dainty for some more punishment. Just like a sadomasochistic love affair.