Spice Crazed: La Fu You Sichuan Kitchen in Jing'an (Closed)

Head over the La Fu You, a new Sichuan restaurant in Shanghai's Jing’an district that’s bringing some serious heat in a bistro setting. Highly recommended!

Update: Renamed to Zui Fu You, serving regional Chinese cuisine.

About La Fu You Sichuan Kitchen

La Fu You's interiors resembles many Shanghai bistros — clean design with tasteful tilework and colorful, eye-catching posters and art. The setting is comfortable and convivial for a casual meal. It's located on Yanping Lu near Changping Lu, right across from Sloppy Gin.

It's a venture by Juan, a first-time restaurant operator from the culture and entertainment industry who's running the restaurant this as a side project along with her business partner from the F&B industry.

Seating on the second floor

To ensure the menu's authenticity, they’ve employed chefs directly from Chengdu to execute the food, which is excellent.

The Food at La Fu You

On the menu are fiery fan-favorite Sichuan dishes including Kou Shui Ji aka “saliva chicken” and Fuqi Feipian, sliced beef and ox tongue in chili sauce (¥42, 夫妻肺片), as well as delicacies of rabbit head with bullfrog (¥118, 鸡兔同龙) and custardy pig brain served simmered in a spicy broth (¥38, 纯情恋哸脑).

The ever-popular Yuxiang Rousi is just perfect. This is one of the most iconic Sichuan dishes, and despite its name—yuxiang, which means fish fragrance—it doesn't contain any fish. It's a stir-fry of lean pork, celtuce, and wood ear mushrooms, tossed in a sauce that's tangy, sweet, spicy, and sour. It’s saucy and garlicky and demands a bowl of rice.

Yuxiang Rousi (¥58, 鱼香肉丝)

However, the winning dish for me was the Crispy Fried Intestines. Connoisseurs of offal like myself may find this dish hard to top. Intestines are fried to a crispy finish with chilies, numbing peppercorns, and dried spices. The rings are crispy, some edges crunchy, and some larger pieces have a tender and slightly gooey center.

Crispy Fried Intestines (¥88, 辣子脆炸肥肠)

It is also not at all oily. Fair warning, it packs quite some heat, marked on the menu with four chilies, the highest spice rating of all the dishes.

Then you have the standards, which are cheap and tasty and easy to love, like fried long beans and a cold dish of sliced pork belly soaked in chili oil with tons of garlic.

Fried Long Beans (¥42, 亁煸四季豆)

Sliced Pork Belly with Garlic (¥42, 蒜泥白肉) – Super garlicky, and not as spicy as it looks.

Don’t miss the Yacai Fried Rice, an unassuming dish imbued with wokhei and so much flavor. It’s fried with yacai, a version of preserved mustard greens, egg, and bits of pork lard.

Yacai Fried Rice 芽菜脆哨蛋炒饭 (¥38)

Pork Trotter Soup (¥68, 蹄花汤) – A very light milky broth with gelatinous pork trotters, lightly seasoned with white pepper. Made fresh daily, limited portions.

I do implore you to get the Jiuniang Douhua dessert mid-meal. It’s rather effective, if not necessary, in staunching the spicy burn. It’s a dessert of sweet-fermented rice (jiuniang) with fluffy, extra-soft uncurdled tofu, goji, and fun, crunchy pearls of water chestnut encased in tapioca.

Jiuniang Douhua (¥32, 酒酿爆爆珠冰豆花) - Served ice cold.

In Summary

The menu is small compared to other Chinese restaurants of similar nature, but all heavy hitters. Everything I had was fantastic.

They also do a few lunch sets, a couple dishes like the Yuxiang Rousi served with complimentary rice (otherwise ¥5 a serving), as well as sets starting from ¥188 for four dishes.

For drinks, they have a modest selection of white and red wines, beer, and soft drinks. My go-to would be the sour plum (¥16, 酸梅汤) and soybean drink (¥18, 冰豆浆), both complementary to the spicy stuff.

La Fu You opened at the end of April.

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La Fu You 辣富友
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