It’s great to see Sichuan dishes spread to non-Sichuan places beyond Kung pao, mapo, garlic sauce (yu Xiang, fish fragrant), and dry fried string beans. I hope the demand for 1000 chile / Chongqing chicken causes places to use higher quality Sichuan peppercorns- most taste like sawdust, even in lower quality Sichuan restaurants.
The spread of XLB is crazy. Many places use frozen XLB, either locally made or mass produced, and that can be a good or bad thing depending on the source. Some higher end places use machine made XLB.
