Szechuan's Dumpling Arlington

Szechuan's Dumpling in Arlington reopened this week under new management/ownership. The interior is unchanged, not sure why they papered up the windows while they waited to reopen. The new owner worked briefly at Taipei Gourmet in Lexington and did remember me so that was nice. The waitress was part of the old crew so the chili oil promptly arrived. The menu is totally different and so is the lunch menu, all the good stuff on the old lunch menu is gone and it now looks like any generic Chinese restaurant. The good news is that the soup of the day is now H&S or Wonton soup. Gone is the terrible pork bone soup.

I couldn't find anything even remotely interesting on the lunch menu so I ordered the Beef Noodle Soup ($8.95) off the regular menu. When the waitress delivered the soup she said, "It's slightly different". There is no more choice of noodles, but these thick noodles were fine. The beef is different, gone is the shaved beef replaced with a very tender slices of beef. They were so tender that they almost lacked texture. The broth was very very rich and really good. It now comes with bok choy that was nice and crisp instead of spinach. It was a good amount of beef. They still don't have a dumpling on the menu called Sichuan Dumpling and when I brought this up, I don't think she got it. Pork Belly with Garlic is gone from the app section. Twice Cooked Pork (belly) is also missing from the lunch menu and will be sorely missed. As far as lunches go there is really no reason for me to go here. I had some really outstanding lunches here during the year and half that they were open but no more.