All the Heat You Can Eat

We love hot, spicy Sichuanese cooking in this country. Many a popular Chinese restaurant divides its menu into three sections: Cantonese, Mandarin and Sichuan.

But there’s more to Sichuan than chiles and garlic. You can sample unfamiliar country-style Sichuan food at a place named Rong Hwa, located at the rear of a Monterey Park mini-mall. The name means “prosperous China” in Mandarin, and it may turn out to be appropriate.

At first sight, nothing suggests that this is an exceptional restaurant. It looks like any number of San Gabriel Valley Chinese places: pink walls, green polyester tablecloths, a drop ceiling, one very conspicuous fish tank stocked with live crab and rock cod, precious little room for waitresses to navigate in between tables.

Your first clue that there is more going on is the fact that Rong Hwa is always full. The second is that the customers are almost all Chinese.

OK, there’s another reason for the absence of non-Chinese. You really have to be able to read Chinese to get the best out of this kitchen. Many of the restaurant’s more distinctive dishes are not found on the regular menu. Look for them on the blazing red Chinese language banners tacked up to the wall.

If you don’t read Chinese, it couldn’t hurt to bring someone who does. Or just ask your questions of the owner, who is always present and eager to help.

In any case, the English-language menu is far from tame. In fact, it lists well more than 100 choices, ranging from the well-known (sizzling beef) and the wonderful (“three cups spices sauce chicken”) to exotica (like duck tongue with special mint, pan-fried turnip with egg and the ever-popular shredded pig ear in hot sauce).

Everyone starts off with a stainless steel pitcher of black tea and a saucer of mildly spiced pickled bean sprouts. If you ask for chile sauce, you’ll get a fiery dish of peppers mixed with tiny dried fish. It’s a stand-up hot sauce that works with just about anything the restaurant serves. Finish the dish before the main courses arrive--say, as an accompaniment to a tall, cold bottle of Taiwan beer--and you earn immediate respect from the waitress.

Now you are ready to rumble. The cold dish wu wei jiu gung, or five spice abalone, is among those not on the regular menu. It’s a pile of the chewy mollusk thinly sliced and blanketed in a complex cocktail sauce in which you can taste tomatoes, horseradish, star anise and ginger. It’s remarkable--and what is truly remarkable is the price: $5.95.

Ngao gan is another cheap and delicious cold dish not on the English menu. It’s razor-thin slices of translucent beef tendon, laced with chives and sesame oil. On the regular menu, a good appetizer is Sichuan won ton, half-a-dozen bite-sized pork dumplings doused with chile oil and served on rice.

Before your main course, you might have crab with seasoned salt. The crab is definitely fresh, presented to you live before being fried. It takes a bit of work to eat this delicious, slightly spicy crab, but the effort is well rewarded.

Back to the wall for two dishes that just about everyone at Rong Hwa will be eating when you’re there. One is the hot appetizer o a jen, or baby oyster roll. It’s four golden fried cylinders that look suspiciously like ordinary egg rolls, but don’t be fooled. Inside the crisp crust is a powerfully flavored mixture of minced oysters and leafy greens--sort of a oyster po’ boy, Chinese style.

Then there is the restaurant’s calling card, hua yu san si, literally, fish cooked three different ways. Most of us think of hot and spicy food, rather than fish, when we think of Sichuan, even if we’re aware its name means four rivers. But Sichuan chefs are masters with the fish that swim in those muddy rivers, and Rong Hwa does wonders with whole Pacific rock cod, which the kitchen prepares for $10 a pound.

The first course is a rich broth made with the head and tail, the second a stunning platter of crispy fish fritters sprinkled with spiced salt. The best has been saved for last, because the final course is the rest of the fish steamed with ginger, garlic, green onion, chiles and dark soy sauce. The flesh is meltingly tender, but watch out for those bones.

At the finish, Rong Hwa serves complimentary orange slices and a sweet red bean soup that is, for once, not cloyingly sweet. The really sweet moment is when you get the bill. A family of four can feast here for under $60.

BE THERE

Rong Hwa, 230 N. Garfield Ave., Monterey Park. (818) 572-4629. Open daily, 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Beer and wine only. Parking in lot. MasterCard and Visa accepted. Takeout. Dinner for two, $16-$29.

What to Get: cold beef tendon, Sichuan wonton, baby oyster roll, fish cooked three different ways, fried crab with seasoned salt.