This small, unassuming restaurant with the impressively long menu demonstrates that there’s much more to Sichuan cuisine than lots of chilies.

While living in the San Gabriel Valley, I developed a fondness for regional Chinese cuisine, a far cry from the generic Cantonese fare I grew up eating. My wife, born and raised in mainland China, finds irony in the fact that of all the Chinese cuisines we’ve sampled, from Shanghainese to Islamic-Chinese, Sichuan cuisine has firmly remained my favorite.

So it was serendipitous the day we happened to turn onto Diane Avenue and found Ba Ren, an unassuming restaurant tucked away just off Clairemont Mesa Boulevard, serving up excellent Sichuan food. Since then, we’ve tried nearly two hundred of its menu items, and we are still constantly surprised and delighted.

In almost stereotypical Chinese restaurant fashion, the interior of Ba Ren is simply adorned. Other than the mural of the city of Chongqing and the large table with trays of various cold appetizers calling out to you, nothing really catches your attention. Instead, the focus is all on the food.

Sichuan cookery is about more than throwing a few chilies into a dish for heat. It’s a delicate balancing act in which one or more of Sichuan cuisine’s twenty-plus basic flavors and almost sixty cooking techniques are employed to create a dish in which the spices and flavors complement the main ingredients. One thing we quickly noticed was that the spices at Ba Ren never overwhelm the flavor of the main ingredients.

Appetizers range from pickled ginger cucumber to thinly sliced marinated pig’s ear. Among our favorites are the Dried Beef with Sichuan Peppercorn, strips of chewy, spicy beef studded with finely chopped peppers. This dish best exemplifies the ma la or “numbing-hot” flavor, a nice contrast to the salty-sweet earthiness of the Marinated Bamboo Shoots. The Spicy Fried Peanuts with chirimen, small boiled and dried fish, are addictive. But my favorite appetizer is the Fu Qi Fei Pian, translated as “Husband and Wife Lung Slices,” which at Ba Ren actually consists of thinly sliced marinated stewed beef brisket and tendon flavored with five-spice, Sichuan peppercorns, and Chinese celery, creating a contrasting combination of textures and flavors. There are so many wonderful appetizers to choose from, it’s a good idea to get a three-item combination plate so you can sample several.

Some of the snack-like items I enjoyed were the Cold Chicken with Spicy Sauce (chopped cold chicken drenched in a fiery, slightly sweet sauce, topped with cilantro and chopped peanuts) and the Sichuan Cold Noodle (cold spaghetti noodles topped with a wonderfully refreshing, salty-sweet Chinese black vinegar-based sauce).

Among the 500-plus menu items are Sichuan classics such as water-boiled dishes, which at Ba Ren are appropriately called Boiled in Hot Sauce. From these, I’d recommend the beef or the expertly marinated fish fillet.

The Fish-Flavored Eggplant is excellent. When cooked, peeled eggplant achieves a velvety texture; add to that the combination of seasonings normally used in cooking fish, and you have an almost perfect dish. Other recommendations include the Sichuan Pickled Pepper dishes, Dry-Cooked Lamb, Stir-Fried Dried Beef, and a Rice Crust dish, in which a bowl of sauce, the meat of your choice, and vegetables are poured over squares of crispy rice, creating lots of sizzling sounds. As the rice hydrates, the texture of the dish changes until the consistency of a potage is created.

Some other interesting and delicious menu items are the Twice-Cooked Fish, an outstanding dish of fish filets battered and deep-fried, then stir-fried with leeks and a slightly spicy sauce. The Hot Pepper Prawns are deep-fried and combined with a large quantity of scalded dried chilies is a numbingly spicy creation with a hint of sweetness.

Mandarin is the native tongue spoken at Ba Ren, but the hospitable staff understands enough English for you to get a great meal. Items range in price from $6 to $8 for appetizers, snacks, and soups, and from $8 to $15 for entrees. Ample parking can be found behind the restaurant and along the street.

We’ve really just scratched the surface. Ba Ren has a staggering array of offerings.
So the next time you want to try something new and interesting or perhaps are feeling a bit stuffed up and need to clear those sinuses, Ba Ren might fit the bill.

I do not have any connections with this business