I absolutely loved the food and my entire experience at Szechuan Opera. This is one of those restaurants where there's so much variety on the menu that you can easily have a huge meal and spend a lot of money, or simply go in for a quick meal and not break the bank.
I went there on a Saturday afternoon around 3 pm, and at that time there was no wait to get in. It was just my friend and I, so they seated us in the mezzanine level that had booths (each booth could seat 4 people). The tables at the booths are very large and we were very happy with the seating. If you're on a date or have 4 people, or you just like booth seating, you should request to be seated up there.
The menu quality was excellent, with many photos of popular dishes and a spice level next to the dish names.
Our server Sean was extremely helpful and polite. I started our interaction by asking him what the best/most popular items on the menu were and he provided me with a good number of dishes and asked me what my spice tolerance was to make sure I didn't order anything I couldn't handle. Once he gave us all that info, he offered to come back when we were ready.
When we did order, I chose to order his top suggestion for what his personal favorite dad, which was the Spicy Dry Hotpot, and we also ordered General Tso's Chicken, an order of soup dumplings, roast pork buns, and scallion pancakes. We asked to make sure the General Tso's Chicken was made a little extra crispy.
To our pleasant surprise, our dishes started coming out very quickly. Everything looked and smelled delicious. The Dry Hotpot came in a large metal bowl that had a burner that they lit underneath to keep it hot.
The dry hot pot really stood out as the centerpiece of our meal, and could have fed two people. It was filled with lots of red pepper flakes for the spice, beef, shrimp, spam, fish, plus a variety of vegetables (green and red peppers, locust root, cauliflower and cabbage) but it also contained two things I was happily surprised to see.
One of the items was little balls of Mei fun (angel hair) noodles laid over itself in a neat ball and tied up with its own noodles into tasty little noodles balls. The other I'm not 100% sure about, but it might have been a green bean tied up in a knot. Both were really cute and delicious finds in the hot pot. The whole dish is pretty spicy (my friend wasn't into how spicy it was), but that was exactly what i wanted. It is a very salty dish, though, so if you have any issues with salt, either ask the server to have the kitchen modify the dish for you, or avoid this.
The General Tso's Chicken was perfect and the sauce was sweeter than spicy.
Overall, the entire meal tasted perfect to me.
The decor of the place was awesome. The artwork and furniture was really cool.
While seated in the mezzanine, you can either sit on the side that looks out into the mall, or on the side that looks down on the main label of the restaurant. I sat on the side looking out into the mall.
Servers have their tablets slung over their shoulders and when you want to pay, it's a very quick transaction right on the spot.
When leaving it was getting closer to dinner time and a line was forming at the door for seats.
There's also a to go kiosk outside the entrance if you want that option. It might be slghtly limited compared to the sit down menu.
I would definitely return for the delicious food, the cool decor, and the professional, quick and friendly service!