Spicy City Reviews

You should try it for sure. Food is awesome and very delicious. You’ll find a great verity of Chinese food, soups

Spicy City Chinese Restaurant in Convoy is about the most authentic Sichuan restaurant not just in San Diego but all of California. It is perennial favorite restaurant among the ethnic Chinese population in San Diego as well as those who visit from elsewhere. They are uncompromising in their use of Sichuan spices and sauces. However you can ask them to tone it down a little to suit your spice tolerance. They also got an amazingly wide variety of Sichuan dishes, not all of which are spicy. Go early especially during weekends dinner time as they can get really crowded. Parking in the plaza where they are located can also be a challenge.

While the name gives you a hint of what it is famous for, I like items that are not so spicy. The fish in brown sauce has mushrooms, tofu , lots of garlic and of course the fish. my favorite. My next fav is the Sizzling Beef. It hot by black pepper, not hot peppers. Although, one of the main ladies there had us try a different beef dish. My dinner companions tried to order beef and broccoli and she said order this other beef dish instead. Great choice. I wish I remember the name but I'm sure you can figure it out. Also, if you like hot but not make you cry hot, try the eggplant in garlic sauce. Makes me sweat but, how tasty.

Best Chinese food in San Diego. Authentic Sichuan cuisine. Favorite among Chinese tourists and students. Michelin Plate Award 2019 (one of only 14 in San Diego). Looks like a hole-in-the-wall, but serves excellent dishes.

This is a great Chinese restaurant. It is fairly small and crowded, so we were glad we had booked a table in advance. The selection of food is very large and it was all very tasty without leaving one overfed. I would go back to this place in a heart beat!

We were surprised with the service here and the attitude of the waitresses. As most people expected, service in this kind of restaurant would be mediocre. We rather found the waitresses friendly., perhaps we arrived early for lunch on a weekday before the crowd came. We had the spicy fish fillet with garlic sauce, dad dan noodle and mixture of 3 cold items. Not too keen with the dan dan noodle. The fish was delicious and big portion!

SPicy City is a small restaurant that serves mainly spicy sichuan food. There is normally a wait at night and you have to put your name down. They serve all the popular spicy dishs but also have non spicy food. I liked their spicy wontons. Service is pretty quick as they like to have quick turns. It is crowded inside.

I have been tasting every corner of San Diego lately and have been very disappointed. I thought the $31 I spent would have gone further, as it was just two of us. So I waited and hoped it would be a good amount of great tasting food, as most Chinese places do. I was let down by the service, atmosphere, taste of the food, and quantitiy. This place is just Ok.. but not sure if the value is there!

We ate family style with 7 dishes between 6 adults. So many great tastes. Started out with scallion pancake which is crispy on outside and soft inside. The wanton soup broth is very flavorful and wontons are plump and tasty. Sweet and sour chicken is a good choice for those who don't want spicy food. For adventurous types, I recommend the chicken dry hot pot. Watch out for those chilies. Had green beans and eggplant for veggies. Eggplant was a little mushy for my taste. Service is friendly and fast.

We were visiting relatives in San Diego and wanted them to see our children speak Mandarin. We found this restaurant on Trip Advisor and Yelp, and it had decent reviews, but more importantly it had dishes on the menu that we loved when we were in China. We had boiled beef, tudousi, szechuan green beans, pot stickers, soup, and more. All of the food was great, and our children were able to show off their Mandarin...the waitresses were great and spoke only Mandarin to with them...would definitely come back.

This is a popular spot for Szechuan-style Chinese food. Be prepared to wait upwards of 30+ minutes for a table during peak hours. More if you have a large party. The restaurant is small and seating is limited. Go during the week and you will hardly have to wait in line for a delicious meal at a reasonable price. I would suggest that you order the Szechuan dishes that you don't normally see on the menu in your typical Chinese restaurant. Go to the front for a plate of pickled dishes as an appetizer. I would recommend the spicy fish stew or twice cooked fish. The spicy fried chicken cubes are safe bet if you're not feeling too adventurous.

A portion of San Diego's Asian community lives and works in Kearny Mesa, therefore, you can find a wide assortment of ethnic restaurants, large and small, clustered around Convoy Street. Spicy City (also known as Si Chuan Garden) is a tiny eatery located in a storefront. You could easily miss it, were it not for the crowds of enthusiastic customers buzzing around the entrance. It's a no frills operation, with bare tables and zero atmosphere, but the menu goes on and on, listing an astounding assortment of authentic dishes form the Sichuan region of China. Literally hundreds of selections are grouped in categories like "rice dishes", "casseroles", "clay pots", "hot pots", "sizzling plates" and "crispy rice crust dishes". If you aren't familiar with Sichuan cuisine, the wait staff are very helpful in explaining the options, plus, you can always point to something being delivered to an adjacent table and ask what it is. Pay close attention to the menu. Dishes listed with one, two or three "peppers" are very spicy. There is even a warning at the bottom of the menu stating "Please aware of spiciness for spicy food". Adventurous diners, however, will find that the chefs utilize spices in amazing variations, creating wonderful specialties that you will find nowhere else in San Diego.

This isn't your high-end, 3 * Michelin sort of place, but you probably know that. It's all about the food. The food is good. I'm no expert and my palate isn't sophisticated, but it always seems fresh to me. Great spices, not crazy hot (spice-wise). I love the Sezchaun spicy fish dish and the spicy aubergine. The fish dish - be careful as it will feed three people, easily. It's served in a bowl which is like a small paddling pool. The service is fantastic. If you come here expecting to be finessed and have someone make polite pre-meal conversation with you, then you'll be disappointed. Go in. Sit down. Order. Eat. Pay. Leave. Be happy. Highly recommendable. By far the best restaurant of it's kind in San Diego, I think.

soo good...try their beef noodle soup!

My wife was out of town, didn't feel like cooking, and a co-worker told me about this place. I'm a little more adventurous in my eating so thought I would check it out before taking my wife there. We will definitely be back. There are a number of very "interesting" items on the menu and I am not that adventurous so I tried something a little more mainstream for someone that grew up in Iowa. I had the shrimp chow mien and my o' my was it good. It was an enormous plate of food, much more than I expected for $8.95 and had probably double the amount of shrimp I anticipated. Looking forward to going back and exploring the menu further.

As soon as you open the door the sounds and smells bombard your senses. The place was packed when a group of us visited and had to endure a 20 minute wait. The clanging of plates, dinner conversation and shuffle of the busy waiting staff were good hallmarks of a popular establishment. By the time we were seated our hunger levels were pretty high, which did cause some enthusiastic ordering. Most of the dishes we ordered had a seafood element to them: fried shrimp with hot pepper, Szechuan style spicy fish, shrimp fried rice, Chongqing grilled fish, as well as onion pancake, home style tofu and sauteed mixed vegetables. It helped pave the way that one of our group could speak Cantonese so there was no problem making sure what we were getting was what we were after. Pretty much every dish had varying levels of spice to it and each dish was a very generous serving. Needless to say, there were leftovers packed up and taken away. If you don't like spice and chilli then you may wish to reconsider this place - the name of the place should give you a clue. It was a very good experience for some hunger travellers.

This place is the best. If you like Sichuan cooking, go here. The dishes are both appetizing in their presentation and , more importantly, in taste. The vegetables tasted fresh and were stir-fried just right. Not too overcooked and not too raw. The Chicken in Dry Pot was AMAZING. The combination of all the different colors of peppers together in the plate and the taste of sichuan pepper is really nice Also excellent was the Chef's Special Green Beans. If you like garlic and sichuan pepper, this is DA BOMB. Impressive how much garlic they must peel and mince just to make this dish. Extremely tasty. Also, highly recommend the Walnut Shrimp I could have eaten much more.. but we were full with these dishes and had to take home leftovers

kind of tranditional sichuan food and most of its food are pretty spicy as its name indicates. the only bad thing is that sometimes you need to wait almost 1 hour to get in on friday or weekend night. so be early and get a table early until you are hungry to die.

Let me start by saying, if you want some legit flavors and heat, this should be on your list. 6 of us ordered a variety of menu items and we all left happy! My favorite was the whole fish prepared medium heat. Everything was great!! If you need antacid, take it prior to eating, lol. Reasonably priced. Casual.

Good szechan. Authentic and hot. Some dishes are too hot for American tastes. But for the adventurous this is good. There are some dishes aren't hot and you could always tell the waitress to tame it down.

I've gone to this place for the past 2 months. I've always ordered the pork intestines dried pot and around 2-5 Tsingtao beers, and I've never could get over the fact that they always over charge me just because I'm there by myself and seemingly *wasted*. The people seem nice but god, no matter how much wasted I was, I knew that in my calculating head they're cheating me. I guess its the Chinese way. I've live with my wife in Changsha for 5 years and I know how it goes. today, 8/10/13 will be the last time I'll be there. I just can't stand the cheating, no matter how seemingly *good* they two-face you.

The Asian food scene is somewhat limited in San Diego. Spicy City as the name implies is hot food. Expatriate Chinese highly recommended this authentic place. So we were gamed. Spicy City is located in a strip mall with other Asian restaurants. Plain looking on the outside, limited seating inside. It is a small restaurant with mirrored walls to make it appear larger. Lots of customers were waiting for a table. Szechuan cooking incorporating spices, chili, and peppercorns to open up your sweat pores. Service was inattentive, typical for Chinese restaurant. Fluency in Mandarin will get you better service. Service staff does understand English. We started with a 3-combo cold appetizer. Assorted cold meats, chicken, pig ears, pickled cucumber and other vegetables were in the front display case. You choose your selections and they bring it to you. The flavors in our selections were right on and delicious. We also ordered onion pancake for appetizer that was substantial but not memorable. Frozen pre-made ones from Chinese supermarket fried at home would yield the same result. The entire menu is photos of the dishes and prices. Easy to order even if you don’t read or speak Chinese. Our entrees were Twice Cooked Pork, Szechuan Beef, Steamed Fish with Bean Curd Special Sauce, Dan Dan Noodles, Dried Fried String Beans and non-spicy Sautéed Mixed Vegetables to cool the palate. Twice Cooked Pork has mixed vegetables stirred fried in. The dish was very good. Szechuan Beef dish was hot and outstanding. Steamed Fish with Bean Curd Special Sauce is served in huge soup bowl with way too much broth and not enough ingredients. Did not like it as it was rather bland. A great sauce of peanut butter and mixed spices fabulously enhanced the Dan Dan Noodles. Dried Fried String Bean was almost overcooked but tasty. Sautéed Mixed Vegetables was prepared well. Rice is extra. I would eat there again, but arrive earlier or during non-peak hours. Tip. Parking lot is easily filled. Avoid parking frustration by parking on Engineer Road.

We love hot food and we love Chinese food. So hot Chinese food should be great. Right? Wrong. The hot pot tasted somewhere between battery acid and detergent. We took one bite each and rejected it. We ordered some stir fried pork. Pork stir fried with Chilis only. It had a very strange flavor. The pot stickers were good and you get a lot of them. We won't be back.

Definitely not your "same old menu" Chinese. Excellent dry-style meat dishes, cooked with red chiles that infuse the meat or vegetable or noodle without resorting to heavy sauces. There are many very exotic dishes not found in the average neighborhood Chinese. They do offer mild dishes, but the specialties here are highly spiced dishes. If your taste runs to won ton soup, egg rolls and cashew chicken, this may not be for you. But if you want a very different and very tasty take on spicy Chinese, try this place.

Great food, very spicy. Fair service. Decent prices. No atmosphere but who cares. Wired hours. Call to make sure open. Try Kung poa watch the bones. Real Chinese.

If you would like to taste authentic Chinese Sichuan flavor food, then this is the place to go. When I had a business meeting there, my colleague who originally from Sichuan showed me the place. He considers the food flavor is quite authentic and close to what he has in his hometown. I agree and the food is delicious. The restaurant was packed when we got there, so that means this is a well known place for local.

We’ve been here a few times and the food is always good. The place is small and always super crowded, not the cleanest space but the Sichuan food is amazing. The spicy fish, chicken with peppers and the tomato fish soup are yummy. There are tons of vegetarian options too. Don’t expect the best service and a leisurely meal. You get in, eat and get out!

This is one of my favorite Sichuan restaurant in San Diego. I highly recommend to try this place if you want to taste what real Chinese food is like. If your adventurous and like spicy numbing food, get the fish broil or anything with 3 peppers. We come for the food, not the ambiance! Top favorites are: Toothpick Cumin Lamb Lamb Soup Braised green beans Fish broil Chong Ching pot

We visited Spicy City for the 1st time. Soon after being seated we were asked to move to a different table so another group with kids could sit at our table. We ordered hot and sour soup and 3 entrees--tofu with leeks, eggplant with spicy garlic sauce and dried pot chicken. The soup and tofu w/leeks were brought out together and shortly after, the eggplant. 20mins later the chicken still hadn't arrived. We asked the server. She said she would check. 5mins later, we asked again and she said it was cooking. It finally arrived 30mins after the other dishes. The flavor of the dishes was good.

It hurts my soul to see restaurants like Panda Express and PF Changs ranked as the best places for Chinese food in a town like San Diego. Found this place by accident several years ago and keep coming back for more. The number and variety of dishes is absolutely astounding, but to be honest, I'm not very adventurous---I just love what I love. The wonton soup is some of the best I've ever tasted (sodium heaven, as it should be), and I usually split a meat dish alongside the green beans (which are fantastic beyond words). It can be a little intimidating the first time visiting this restaurant (especially if it is crowded...which it is every night), but this is a MUST-DO for anyone who wants a true Chinese meal.

Being a New Yorker, I thought I knew what Great Chinese was, but after eating here, I have come to realize that New York has nothing on San Diego. This food is insanely great!! The best I’ve ever had. We originally order food we normally order in New York, but the owner steered us in the right direction. Mongolian beef, sesame chicken, chicken lomain, soups, and rice. Each dish was large enough for 5 people and each dish was delicious— absolutely delicious. Sizzling beef was cooked on the table. Soup had 40 wontons! Crazy good!!!!

Good location in small plaza, parking can be challenge especial on the weekend Small place with Chinese atmosphere, reasonable prices & good portion Great customer services. ****You can request to tame the levels of of spice up to your taste (low, mild or hot)**** Plenty of cold appetizer pick 3 combo for $6.95 - Great flavors & delicious Cold pork belly with bean sprouts - Love the flavor Spicy fried chicken cubes with hot peppers - Too dry Beef stir fry - Good, but too much bean sprouts underneath Spicy fish stew - Favorful & very tastety We really enjoyed very much & highly recommend

This place is like a trip to the interior of China's Szechuan area. There are some crazy authentic dishes for the adventurous diners and they can bring the heat. I enjoy the trip it's like eating out with the guy from the show bizzare foods sometimes though.