I had a couple of dinners last week at Mr. Szechuan in the Parkside. It’s open late - until 1am every day, and is conveniently next to a Muni Metro L Taraval line stop.
On my first visit last week it was raining, and a little soup was in order. I had a Little Hot Pot ($22.95), which is a hot pot in which you can select six items along with the broth. You order via a QR code on the table, but pay your waiter directly once you’re ready to check out.
The broth choices for the hot pot were Szechuan spicy - which is what I picked, Japanese Sukiyaki, hot boiled, and laksa. There’s also a long list of topping choices to add in - you pick 6 items. For the toppings I picked sliced lamb, Angus beef, beef tripe, napa cabbage for vegetables, bean stick (which I thought was a noodle but was actually tofu skin I think), and beef tendon. Here’s my hot pot. It was very nice on a damp rainy day. The broth was nicely flavored with a bit of numbing spicy mala but not excessively so, it was drinkable. The sliced lamb and beef were cooked well and were tender, and the tendon melted in your mouth. The tofu skin was nice to soak up the broth.
And it comes with a side - a choice of plain rice, rice with minced pork, brown rice, scallion paste noodles, fried rice, or fried noodles. I picked the rice with minced pork, which was steamed rice with a little bit of minced pork in a soy based gravy.
I also ordered an appetizer of Wontons in Chili Oil ($9.95), which was wholly unnecessary 
These were also very good - fat wontons in a thick sauce that was sweet, spicy with chili oil, and numbing.
On my second visit last week I had a Dry Pot ($26.95) which also had a choice of toppings and also a sauce. I chose the Szechuan spicy sauce (there are also choices of garlic, hot & spicy, and kungpao), and beef tongue, crispy salted chicken, king trumpet mushrooms, green bok choy, fried tofu, and wide bean noodles as toppings. This is a very large portion and probably could be shared with an appetizer between two people. It was very good. There were a lot of dried chilis within the dry pot, and the Szechuan spicy sauce was spicy, salty, and hot. The crispy salted chicken wasn’t super crispy but the meat was quite tender, as was the tongue and the meaty trumpet mushrooms. The wide bean noodles were nice and chewy.
For a side I had the scallion paste noodles. The noodles were quite al dente in a scallion and soy based sauce. I think I probably should have ordered some plain rice or minced pork rice as it would have been a little more neutral to eat with the strong flavors of the dry pot.
Good food and a good late night option in the Parkside.
