Jinli’s big advantage (to me, anyway) was that it is open on Tuesday, so if we forgot and went to Sichuan Cottage on a Tuesday, we had a backup plan. Now that we only do takeout and call ahead, even that is gone.
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I see you too are a person of culture. Bang bang is my middle name! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ-Z1di-c58
What do you get as the main at Cottage?
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I happened got some generic take out from Jinli over the weekend. It wasn’t Szechuan dishes but a limited group ordering menu they provide at my kids Chinese Saturday school.
Quite frankly, the food sucked. I have a spicy eggplant that has no flavor, it feel like it was just eggplant sitting in a puddle of oil. The beef chow fun has really tough chewy beef slices… have they not heard of meat tenderizer 
.
Anyway, stick with Cottage if possible 
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Yeah they are definitely not doing the beef tenderizing! I mean it’s fine but a bit unusual for a chinese place. I dunno if something happened with that place because their food was great a few years back.
Is it possible they decided that they didn’t need to bring their best game to a school of non-adults? Of course, word of mouth is getting around, so this may not have been the best choice.
I know you are more adventurous than my crew!
Mix of preferences in my household but the only thing we have been avoiding is anything with fried chicken in it (gen tsos, sesame, etc) as it seems subpar lately. Also, the only apps we like are boneless spare ribs and wonton in hot oil (but they’re skimping on the oil). Sichaun chicken, chicken in hot garlic sauce, 3 pepper chicken, ginger shrimp, orange beef, singapore thin rice noodle. My son likes the dandan at Sichaun as well but I think Jinli’s is better.
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Really bummed to see this… was it too ‘upscale’ or do you think the owners just wanted to get out?
Too close to Sichuan Cottage, which had equally good food, lower prices, and an established customer base. What Jin Li had going for it was more seating (hence better for larger groups), a wider menu, and being open on Tuesdays. Apparently those weren’t enough.
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Yeah, I wondered about the competition from SC (and Crown Palace, for that matter).
I think of Crown Palace as strictly dim sum, and certainly not a Sichuan restaurant. (I was only driving by Jin Li because I went to the Asian Food Mart before going to Crown Palace for dim sum yesterday (for the first time in six years!) and decided to use the northern exit from the parking lot.
(The six years was three years COVID and then three years with Mark no longer up to a dim sum meal. For some reason our friends never went in all that time either, so we were all really enjoying getting back to it. Warning: the Stuffed Hot Peppers vary widely in hotness!)
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JinLi wasn’t good the few times we ate there.
