Enter through the doors of the Asian Food Center in north Seattle and you’ll immediately be drawn to the chile-laden dishes at Spicy Style of Sichuan. The boiled dishes, like the water-boiled beef, are gorgeous to look at and intense to eat (you’ll need bowls of rice on the side). There are dry pots with your choice of cured bacon, sizzling spicy squid, and various vegetables; an endless selection of entrees; and, for the adventurous, dishes like grilled black tripe, spicy trotter with mustard, stir-fried apple snail meat with chile peppers, chicken gizzards with pickled cowpeas, and spicy crispy pork tripe.

Greenwood’s Chef King serves up large portions of Chongqing chicken, water-boiled fish (with a good beef option also available), and a rich version of mapo tofu. Yibin “kindling” noodles, both funky and fiery, are a specialty here. More adventurous and heat-seeking eaters can order maoxuewang— a spicy stew with blood and pork parts — as well as the tongue-tingling suan la fen (sweet potato noodles), with intestines and peanuts. Or there’s the option to leave things up to the kitchen. “Whatever” is basically an omakase order that lets the chefs decide what you want. Customers who want a second surprise can add “I Don’t Know.”

There’s something appropriate about ordering Sichuan food at a brewery, which warrants inclusion of the “dump truck” location of Plenty of Clouds. (The main restaurant is in Capitol Hill.) Parked permanently at Cloudburst Brewing in Ballard, this truck provides a small menu of Sichuan (and Yunnan) dishes, all heavy on carbs to accompany your beer. The Sichuan pork dumplings bathe in flavorful chile oil and are topped with peanuts and cilantro. There are cold, sesame, and dan dan noodles, all with your choice of protein, but the mala noodle soup with crispy soy nuts and pickled vegetables is fantastic as well. Mapo tofu and smashed cucumbers help round out the snacking menu.

Bellevue’s Dan Gui Sichuan Cuisine serves up a solid selection of items. Saliva chicken is a popular cold dish — the chicken is poached and placed in chile sauce that makes for a mouth-watering (hence the name) experience. Chile-mixed eggplant with preserved egg comes in a large mortar with a pestle provided to mash everything together until you get a funky mixture. The menu showcases numerous bowls of fish in broth; try the ma la tofu pudding with fish filets in a spicy and numbing broth. The seemingly simple dry pot cabbage shows off the skill of the kitchen, as the wok hei smokiness shines through.

The atmosphere at Bellevue’s Spicy PoPo Szechuan Fish is young and fun. Order the signature Spicy PoPo and you’ll soon be greeted by a giant cauldron of swai fish swimming in broth. You can choose your level of both ma and la, then add your choice of meat and vegetables. (Beef, pork intestines, tofu skin, and lotus root are highly recommended.) You can similarly customize a dry pot, or order from a selection of Sichuan classics like cumin lamb (done two different ways), Chongqing ginger rabbit, dried sauteed green beans, and more. One unique dish to try: soybean paste shredded pork that you place in tofu skin wrappers.

四川菜是角落裏的一個經典的12th and Jackson in the Chinatown-International District. (There’s another location in Redmond.) It’s reminiscent of the “fly restaurants” in Chengdu, a family-run place that’s short on atmosphere but attracts diners (like flies) with generous portions, decent value, and delicious flavor. A popular way to start is an order or two of steamed or fried dumplings (there are 20 to the portion); you might see staff members seated at a table filling and crimping them. Check out the chewy bean thread noodles with clinging pieces of pork that give the dish “ants on the tree” its name. “Pepper” (aka Chongqing) chicken and the blistered green beans are also frequent orders. Another option: their all-you-can-eat Sichuan-style hot pots.

The experience at this Chinatown-International District hot pot spot starts with the choice of a single soup base or a combination of two. Chengdu Spicy is popular (and most indicative of the hot-pot-loving Chinese capital), but other options include pork bone, mushroom, and tomato. The menu offers a wide variety of meat, vegetables, tofu, mushrooms and more to order a la carte or in combination platters. House specialties include deep-fried pork, cumin lamb, shrimp paste, and square bamboo shoots, while pork brain, beef aorta, and goose intestines among the more “daring” options. There’s a sauce bar with sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic, cilantro and more to create an endless number of dipping possibilities. Things can get messy, so the restaurant thoughtfully provides hair ties, clothing spray, aprons, and coat covers.

The celebrated Sichuan chain from Southern California opened itsfirst Seattle locationin the Chinatown-International District in 2020, serving popular specialties such as toothpick lamb with cumin, mung bean jelly noodles drenched in chile sauce, and a cold spring onion chicken in pepper sauce. Boiled beef in hot sauce offers a double whammy of chiles and chile paste, and mapo tofu aficionados should definitely give Chengdu Taste’s version a try. If dining in, boboji is a fun cold dish comprised of chicken and vegetable skewers in either a red chilie or green pepper sauce. This is also a great place to try maoxuewang. Sometimes called duck blood casserole, it actually has a wide variety of ingredients including fish, ham/spam, organ meats, and more in a spicy broth.