Alley 41

We went here for lunch to try their spicy Sauerkraut, fish soup which was very good. Very comparable to Fish for you which remains our favorite by a very slim margin. The other dishes we ordered was a duck blood dish, very good and a preserved meat with cauliflower. Very tasty. We were the only customers except for another couple. They have a lot of other dishes that we would want to go back and try. Highly recommended.

I have been wanting to dine here for 2yrs and it did not disappoint. The owner is from Chengdu and the chef is a Master Chef (an official designation in China, not a self-appointed or TV title) from Sichuan with over 40+ yrs of professional culinary experience in China who imports 80% of the ingredients directly from Sichuan, so there is an excellent reason why the food you will eat here tastes far better (fresher, intense, no corners cut) than many other Sichuan in the city. There are a few other Sichuan places on this level run by mainland immigrants, and they are all appropriately priced ($$) and good for special occasions. However Alley 41 is unique for its flavor and price point because it offers some innovative creations by this talented chef. Meaning different dishes than you often see at the popular spots, but all with the familiar flair and skill of the region—a welcome switch up for Sichuan abroad that you almost never find outside the province, let alone the U.S. And the portions are family style and generous! It doesn’t get better than this. Service was attentive and excellent as well.

Update 9/16/22: We ordered a couple of different items the second time. Preserved veggie fish soup, beef with bamboo shoot and cauliflower. The beef and bamboo shoot was extremely salty and the restaurant allowed us to change to something else. This time the food didn't really wow us. Everything was more meh 😑. I'm actually surprised we haven't been here in all the years of living here. The flavors here are really good and are a reasonably priced for the portion. We ordered the twice cooked pork, soy bean paste fish and handmade pancake (non scallion). The only thing was that it took a very long time for the fish. We will definitely come back again to try other dishes though.

The cumin beef dish had plenty of beef and it was quite tender. The cumin flavor was strong but could be a little bit stronger. We really liked the peppercorn chicken soup. It was really flavorful and numbing and you get a lot of chicken pieces in it. The dumplings in chili oil were a bit of a let down. It was watery inside and not too filling

It was our 2nd visit to Alley 41 with a group of five since we have read lots of great reviews on social media and they have won the list of Michelin Plate for four years. We got Chicken Dumplings with Chili Sauce, Double Cooked Pork, Szechuan Braised Beef, Braised Port Intestines, Fried Rice and Fish Filet in Sour Soup. The portion was okay with a reasonable price. The food was overall delicious, especially the chicken dumplings which were flavorful and fried rice which was cooked perfectly. We were going to try their Cumin Lamb but they ran out of it already, so we might plan to visit again.