Last night we went to the Szechuan in Gouvia. This is the sister restaurant of one that we'd originally gone to quite often, years ago when we first moved here. It's still located on the "Disco Strip" on the drive out of town.. It was (at the time) the only Chinese we could find on the island.
It was always an uneven experience, in that, it was either very good or "meh...". Still it WAS a Chinese restaurant and this IS Corfu...
The Gouvia restaurant is very lovely and has been made a "year round" place with the addition of big glass windows with elegant curtains. (In the summer it's an open patio.)
We went a couple of times in the summertime and it was pretty good though a bit pricey. We meant to go back but somehow didn't, and we thought we'd save it for that point in the wintertime where we really craved some Chinese food.
Now it's deep non-season, and it was time.
And we got to enjoy a lovely fresh flower on the table!
Then our main dish arrived. I had hot chili chicken (spicy) and T had Szechuan Chicken.
My chicken was pretty good. When you ask for spicy they add more hot chili pepper pod seeds. (It totally passed the leftover test though, as we brought a small amount back - T left 2 Tablespoonfuls!- and I am eating it cold as I write...) Thankfully, the portions were more generous than they'd been the last time we at there!
T's Szechuan chicken was sadly inedible. The sauce wasn't bad but the chicken pieces (which I suppose were meant to be deep fried then tossed with the sauce) were soggy and with the sauce on top, sort of turned to an inedible mush.
This was rather surprising as I would guess it might be considered their "signature" dish!
The waiter was really very charming and when I called him to the table, he took the dish back, offering T another meal, (ANY meal) but T had tasted my dish and just decided to eat the rest of my spicy chicken instead, which was fine with me. (The only thing I thought was perhaps we'd come too early -we were there at 8 pm- and perhaps the oil wasn't hot enough...?)
There were quite a lot of take-outs coming and going over the course of our meal, but it was only as we were leaving that another table filled with customers.
So all in all, yes, we had Chinese food last evening, but no sadly it was NOT outstanding.
Still it'll do in a pinch, and for a closer--- the fortune cookies that came with the bill (adjusted to mirror our failed meal), sent us along with good fortunes and the little farewell "fruit cordial" was interesting but not the best ending to the meal.
