Spiced

Very authentic sichuanese cuisine. When all of our previous haunts have not been able to maintain their quality, this place stood out. We ordered chicken fried rice, yozhou noodles. Other faves are the 3 cold appetizers and dry pot. The portions are huge.

Highly recommend to try this place out.

Dining at Spiced is like a culinary roller coaster. It's easy to get lost and distracted by it's large menu. Certain dishes are hits others are huge duds. So like Indy in The Last Crusade, you need to choose wisely.

A few solid favorites of mine are the cold dishes: pig ears, picked vegetables, tripe, you name it. I also like how they're super generous and pile the bowl high with your choices. The dry spiced fish was a surprised hit for me. It's a basket of fried fish fillets dusted with Sichuan spices. The batter is light, airy, and best of all satisfying crispy, like really good fish 'n chips.

On the flip side, I didn't like the beef sizzling plate. It sat in a deep pool of oil it sat in, and when it first came out was splattering oil all over the place. The dry pots here look a little skimpy when compared to Sizzling Pot King. Also avoid getting random items are can be frozen and reheated like the shen jian baos (fried buns). The buns came out tough and chewy.

I love the selection of cold appetizers! Yum yum yum.

Portions here are pretty big, so be aware before ordering!

Crispy rice dish - We ordered this with shrimp and it was super tasty!

Sauteed string beans - Yummy and full of flavor.

Tofu and bok choy soup - A little too bland, will pass.

The cold dishes are definitely the highlight!

I lived for nearly 20 years in the PRC, and if authenticity is your trip, then Spiced is for you. The dishes, the atmosphere and the service is precisely authentic. Coming here for lunch or dinner is a very cheap way to experience China. The quantity is generous, the quality, high, and the price is reasonable. We really enjoyed ourselves!

Note: the picture of the cold dish was taken about 5 minutes after we'd started eating.

Update, two weeks after our first visit:

This places keeps it's 5-star rating. We brought friends who are visiting from China. Everyone was impressed with the quality and authenticity of the food! This place is consistently excellent.

The place was just OK. Big portions, but the food is definitely pricey with every dish. Some dishes were salty too like what others said.

Oh dont ask for tea. They charge $1 per person which is wtf.

Not a goto spot I would come to normally and i love szechuan and chinese food. Would go to other places in Bellevue instead.

My family heard good things about Spiced as it's authentic Szechuanese cuisine, but it was just alright in our opinion - maybe it was just the dishes we ordered, but some of the flavors were pretty different than what we expected.

Would not recommend:
* Beef Stir Fry Noodles - This dish was overly greasy; you could see the oils pooling at the bottom. It also had somewhat of a smoky flavor, almost like they added liquid smoke (though that's probably not the case). It was odd and I didn't care for it.
* Wontons in Chili Oil - I expected the chili oil/sauce to be spicy, but it was more like just a soy sauce, which was disappointing.

Would recommend:
* Chicken in Szechuan Hot Garlic Sauce - This had the perfect amount of spiciness and the vegetables were delightfully crunchy. It could have used more garlic, but the chicken was lean and cooked well.
* Fried Fish with Chiles - Eat with caution as this is very spicy (and we only ordered it at 1 star)! The fish was moist and flaky inside, but I'm not a huge fan of the crust. It tasted almost like the breading around a corndog, which I didn't think matched too well with the fish. I expected more of a panko breading, which would have made the dish perfect.
* House Special Green Beans - loved these! Great garlic flavor - definitely a must.

The restaurant has a cozy atmosphere as it's pretty small. The service is okay but not great - after we got all our food, no one stopped by to check on us until we were ready to pay the bill. We were hoping someone would come by with the water since the food gets pretty spicy!

Overall, not bad - I wouldn't mind giving it another try, but would just change up my order.

Best Chinese restaurant ever!!!! Omgosh this is so authentic.

My favorite type of food is Chinese but I have a hard time finding a good list of restaurants in Washington with really great authentic dishes. A co-worker took me here and I fell in LOVE! What a bomb place! We got the appetizer (you can select three things for only 7 bucks or so) and we ordered three dishes to share. It was so much and all so delicious.

I'm excited to come here again!

What an ingenious idea to choose three cold appetizers for $7.99!
Perfect for us because we are too much of a curious cat to be able to just choose one.
The staff was very generous with the portion of the cold appetizer too. It's like a whole meal. I was surprised they have marinated sliced pig skin. (May be weird if you are not used to the gelatinous consistency, but it has lots of collage for the skin ;p).

On to the beef and fried tofu dry pot...
Not too much bean sprout (Check!)
Can taste the numbing peppercorn (Check!)
Good portion (Check!)
More tofu than beef (Sad..)

Overall, it's a good place for Szechuan cuisine. Will be back to try more stuffs and that pig skin.

My love for Szechuan food is borderline an addiction so I am VERY picky when it comes to trying new Szechuan restaurants. Spiced has become my new go to! This place is the real deal. As the name of the restaurant implies, the dishes here were loaded with lots of peppercorn and chili peppers and that's how you know you've come to the right place. They have what looks like an ice cream display case at the front of the restaurant but that's where they have all their cold appetizer dishes you can choose from and bring back to your table before you even order off the menu. Perfect for when you come in hangry and need something to eat ASAP! They are also very generous with their portions, they pack as much as they can onto the small plate! I highly recommend the couple's beef and the thinly sliced potatoes to start off your meal.

As for the main menu selections, go for the fried chicken and the boiled fish! They also have some dishes that are not spicy but come on... if you're going to dine at a Szechuan restaurant you're coming to eat spicy food let's be real. I love this place because of how authentic their dishes taste, and how everything on the menu has so much flavor! The service here is typical of any Asian restaurant, you order and they leave you alone most of the time unless you need refills, napkins, etc. so don't come expecting a waiter or waitress checking up on you every ten minutes. But honestly, you'll be too busy stuffing your face with their bomb food to even have time to flag down a waiter!

We've been coming to spiced since it opened 8 years ago, and it's our go-to place for spicy Chinese food. Numbing, spicy, and authentic with large portions, they have some fantastic stand-out dishes here if you know what to order. Not everything is great, but 5 stars for the following which make it worth the trip (in order of greatness):

-Deep fried spicy battered fish (forgot the name on the menu, but you can find a picture of it) - batter incredibly light and crispy, fish is perfectly cooked. Probably one of the spiciest and most numbing dishes they have here.:). Imagine beer-battered fish and chips without the chips and with a kick!

-Sizziling plate pepper beef - This one isn't super spicy (unless you find black pepper spicy), but the beef is super tender and falls apart in your mouth. Flavorful and served with celery, onions, and bell peppers, this is the staple "non-spicy" dish in our order.

-Water boiled fish - numbing and served in a bath of chili oil and peppers with bean sprouts at the bottom of the bowl. Fish is cooked perfectly! pieces are large, unlike some other places I have tried where the pieces are small slices.

-Green onion pancake - flaky and flavorful, not too oily, and no too dough-ey like some other ones we have tried

-Eggplant in spicy garlic sauce - I'm a huge fan of this dish in general, and the flavor of the one served at Spiced is excellent, one of my favorites.

-Dry fried Green beans - tender and flavorful. The beans have texture and are not overcooked. My young kids love them.

The Kung Pao Chicken is decent. The beef and broccoli is also pretty good (beef very tender) if you need something neutral for more American palates. Their cold cut bar is good too, though I haven't been able to order much because most people I go with aren't asian and are a little intimidated;). There is a pork belly dish that was really great one time we ordered, but while the flavor is good, the texture of the meat has been hit and miss after, so we don't order it anymore.

Service is ok, and they do have some large round tables for bigger parties. Highly recommend for spice and Chinese food lovers looking for good eats.