A Lee 88 a.k.a. Sichuan Cuisine Waltham [Waltham, MA] Chinese New Year Menu

Regional Dining Discussions Boston, New England
1

I pre-scooped everyone again! A scoop before it happened! I would probably call ahead. There are 3 “levels” depending on your party size. This is going to give Mulan’s CNY menu some competition!

新年套餐A. 4-6人 $148。 凉菜：蒜泥白肉（配面条）。农家大拌土鸡。捣椒茄子。冷吃牛肉。 热菜：。 迷你佛跳墙。成都干烧明虾（每人一只）哥乐山辣子鸡。豆花鱼片。鹰嘴豆浸豆苗。老成都碗杂面。 甜点：。 醉八仙 。

New Year Package A.
4-6 people $148.

Cold dishes:
Rolled slices of pork belly with garlic puree (with noodles).
“Farmhouse” Chicken in Chli Sauce.
Eggplant with Mashed Chili Pepper
Some kinda cold beef thing, not sure

Hot dishes:
Mini Buddha leaps over the wall. (Sharkfin soup, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddha_Jumps_Over_the_Wall)
Chengdu Dried Grilled prawns (one per person)
Ge Leshan (Chonqing, Sichuan) Spicy Chicken.
Bean curd fillets, not sure what it looks like
Chickpeas soaked in bean sprouts.
Lao Chengdu bowls of miscellaneous noodles.

Dessert:.
Drunk Eight Immortals aka Eight Treasures Rice. (It’s either sticky rice with lots of dried and fresh fruits, or it could be a soupy rice soup infused with rice wine. It’s a banquet thing, as desserts aren’t really a Chinese thing, sweets are more a snack thing.)

新年套餐：套餐B. 6-8人。$188。 冷莱：夫妻肺片. 老醋蛰头 脆口黄瓜．川北凉粉．冷吃牛肉． 热菜：干锅大虾．成都樟茶鸭（半只）海味烧什锦．豆辦全鱼/鲜椒蒸全鱼．上汤浸豆苗．甜点：红糖糍粑．主食：自制手工水饺．。

New Year’s Package: Package B. 6-8 people. $188.

Cold Dishes
“Husband and wife” Sliced Beef, could be tendon, tripe, tongue, etc in chili sauce
Crispy cucumbers in vinegar, theirs is a little sweet
Vinegared Chili Jellyfish
Cold Beef again?

Hot dishes:
Dried pot prawns.
Chengdu Camphor Tea Duck (half)
Seafood Roasted assorted.
Whole fish with soy sauce/steamed whole fish with fresh pepper.
Probably pea pod tendrils in a soup

Dessert:
Brown sugar ciba. Flour and brown sugar loaves

Plus some: Staple food: homemade handmade dumplings. (I guess that’s an extra?)

套餐C 8-10人 $258。 冷菜：海味四拼．盐边干拌牛．蒜泥白肉（配冷面）麻辣春笋．烧椒皮蛋．冷吃牛肉． 热菜：韭香金蒜炒河虾/核桃大虾．金牌大盘辣子鸡/肥肠柴火鸡。乐山鲜椒辦全鱼。中国蒜苗炒自制腊肉．金汤浸肥牛．豆汤杂菌浸豆苗。主食：老成都甜水面．老妈蛋炒饭．甜点：酒酿汤圆。 定餐电话：
781-893-6663

Ok I am getting a little tired of fixing translations so…
Package C $258 for 8-10 people.

Cold dishes: Four pieces of seafood.
Dried beef mixed with salt.
Garlic white meat (with cold noodles) spicy spring shoots. Roasted pepper preserved egg.
Eat beef cold.

Hot dish:
Stir-fried river prawns with leek and golden garlic/walnut prawns.
Gold medal large plate of spicy chicken/sausage firewood turkey.
Leshan fresh Pepper makes whole fish.
Homemade bacon stir-fried with Chinese garlic seedlings. Golden soup soaked in fat beef.
Bean soup with mixed bacteria, err, no that’s Mushroom lol soaked in bean sprouts.

Staple food?: Lao Chengdu Sweet Water.
Mom fried rice with eggs.
Dessert: Wine-flavored dumplings.
Order number：
781-893-6663

It all looks amazing but I want option C! So I am inviting you if you didn’t insult me on my teaser thread. DM me? I dunno if this site has messaging, you can HMU on IG, anon6418899

Some random internet pics of these dishes

image
image900×600 58.2 KB

"buddha jumps over wall soup:

image
image825×396 80 KB

Geleshan Chicken, aka Chongqing Chicken aka Sichuan Chicken

image
Ba Bao Fan, but it could be a soupy thing instead, no guarantees

image
image900×600 57.5 KB

Jellyfish

I’ve had the Buddha Jumps Over Wall soup at Mulan, very good. I would say the range of special dishes here, all in Sichuan style and some exacting down to the city state locale outside of Chongqing (Ge Lashan) means you are going to get a very specific taste.

You are welcome! If any of you know anyone at eater dot com, please link them, I’ve tried emailing twice and got no responses. Damn shame, this place deserves recognition, having flown under the radar completely since November! It’s just me and a few Chinese nationals hanging out on WeChat harassing the owners! (Every day some one asks, hey you open? The owner says, “Door is open!” lol)

6 Likes
2

The owner said “anytime” so I guess you can just roll in and get it, but I’d call anyway. The numba is fee-fee-fo, fee-for-fo. (My Mike Tyson impersonation, how’d I’d do?)

The real number
781-893-6663

1 Like
3

Oh man, now they are saying they are closed tomorrow! So don’t go tomorrow.

Rules for Professional Food Hunters:

  1. Always call ahead
  2. If you like the food, get the chef’s phone number!
    Bonus rule learn chinese lol
3 Likes
4

I hope you’ll take this in the humorous spirit in which it’s intended – you with your great sense of humor and all – but it would save you a lot of typing if you added what I’ve quoted to your handle. Were you
“I pre-scooped everyone again! anon6418899”
instead of plain old
" anon6418899",
you’d never again have to start every post that way.

Helpfully yours.

3 Likes
5

What if the scooping is real-time or presupposition scooping or metaphysical scooping? Or just plain ole scoop!?

2 Likes
6

Thank you as always @anon6418899 for your incredibly helpful information and translations! I won’t get there but I sure had a good time reading all about it and savoring the photos!

1 Like
7

dang, thanks for the info again. and I’m not that surprised to hear you get no response from Eater Boston, they really seem to not have a lot of focus over there.

8

Not sure what that’s about, I always had a lot of respect for Blumie (Rachel) over there and even considered working for them! But I am really excited for A Lee 88 aka Sichuan Cuisine Waltham aka He Shun De.

Yes the Chinese resto scene in Boston is quite healthy and beats out NYC occasionally. Went back to Sei Bar Wakefield after a year and a half, that an My Happy Hunan Kitchen, a place I missed during 2020 but @Trumpetguy filled me in on, are the two of the best Hunan restos in the country, and it’s mind-boggling to choose a champ, so I won’t! I love how Sei Bar sells lard to go, so cool, reminds me of how Mulan sells Taiwanese sausage and other sundries at the counter as well.

But I really miss Yu Garden on Kissena in Flushing, they had the best XLB in the country and mysteriously vanished. I’ll tell their story another time.

3 Likes
9

me too, and I like some of the coverage but I feel like Eater Boston somehow just doesn’t know exactly what it wants to cover. Is it a Boston site or a New England site? I also think they give scant coverage on some local things that seem worth covering and then just drag out the same old map of the same old things in Chinatown or whatever. I swear that half of their “best of” map things don’t change at all in between postings.

I think the Globe’s food section doesn’t have good focus at all either. Maybe it’s just a Boston food media thing.

I also didn’t know that Sei Bar sold lard to go!

2 Likes
10

Yeah Boston’s best dumplings has been occupying the main slot on the home page. To my disappointment it hasn’t been updated since it was written. The Mongolian Shumai from A Lee 88 is the best dumpling in Boston. That’s all there is to it. It is so stunning. It tops my old favorite, the classic Dongbei style Pork Shrimp Leek from Golden Garden, another resto I “broke” years ago. They moved to Malden some years back, and Amy’s girl must be in college by now. (A true family business.) My own name for that dumpling is the “PSL”. It’s just the perfect pork seafood combo with leek, a heavy duty onion family member that can keep up with the tempo.

4 Likes
11

I went to this place at the Malden location a few times when I was based more in a different part of Medford (and had wheels!). It was pretty good, they had an eggplant dish that was so great that we ordered it twice at a sitting. It was a cool place to go and eat dumplings etc with the family. At this point though I haven’t been there for a couple of years so I don’t have any recent intel on how they’re holding up.

Additionally, while I’m carping about Eater Boston I’m also going to gripe about the recent " Where to Eat Beef on Weck in and Around Boston" piece, which contained a grand total of three places where you could get this sandwich in Boston–one of which was Wegman’s. (And one of the others of which was All Star Sandwich Bar, where the Beef on Weck is fairly mediocre).

I mean really, just what exactly is the point of that? It’s not a useful guide, it’s just two restaurants and a chain supermarket. Via Instagram I know that the main witer at Eater just moved to a location in Medford close to Malden and has been posting a bunch of pix of food from restaurants there (mostly delivery, fwiw)–hey, how about a “best of” map of the places to eat in Malden? that’d be a heck of a lot more useful, and you could get 10 - 12 places worth writing about quite easily.

3 Likes
12

Scoopity, scoop, scoop!

Do you know when this menu is available? Like only on Feb 1st, or the whole week, or what? I know, I could be a good detective and call them but I figure you probably already know this info.

13

and do you know if this would actually be sharkfin soup? Because for all sorts of environmental and moral reasons, I would not be able to support a restaurant that actually served this.

14

I seriously doubt it’s real sharkfin. Most Chinese places use other types of fish fins with a little extra prep in the kitchen now-a-days. The real thing is too cost prohibitive anyway.

1 Like
15

I check out Eater as much as anyone and consider it a valuable resource but some of their listicles are perplexing. They really could use some community help. They ask for tips all the time, doesn’t seem they act on them tho. Lord knows I’ve offered to write for free, esp about A Lee 88! (I mean, I’ve already written and translated way more than there ever needs to be an article, no?)

The NYC edition of Eater has a far deeper bench and Robert Sietsema, who is probably the greatest food hunter/critic alive, up there with Jonathan Gold. I still find sometimes they miss some resto here and there on a listicle, and yeah, you can tell they haven’t actually been to this place sometimes but they put it on the hot list anyway, but no one is going to be happy, that’s the thing with listicles. They are there for people to gripe over in the comments.

None the less I agree, 3 places on a list is an odd listicle.

Yea I did organize one of the very few “chowdowns” at the original Golden Garden in Belmont. The Dongbei dishes weren’t always the best, but the dumplings I did always like them better than Wang’s. I am happy that Amy and her family found success.

4 Likes
16

**I seriously doubt it’s real sharkfin
Illegal in MA

3 Likes
17

I clarified with one of the owners, the CNY specials are from Jan 21st to Feb 6th. Book one day in advance and pick up next day at specified time.

I suppose you could dine in but you would call them to make arrangements.

3 Likes
18

It seems the editor is from Western NY so it’s a personal editorial decision she made, well within her privileges to do so

19

How about about a CNY Chowdown? DM your email, I can arrange something with the owners via WeChat. I’ll invite some cheffy friends of mine so you might meet a notable bakery owner or two.

3 Likes
20

Dang, if only I were ready to emerge from my cocoon of pandemic caution. Sounds so good!

I hope that there’s a post HO-down report so I can see all that I’ll miss.

1 Like