Spicepepper Garden

After moving into the area and making a list of «go-​to» restaurants for days I don’t want to cook, Spicepepper is at the top of my chart! Prices are great and I always have left overs for another meal. I’ve dined in a few times as well as take-​out.
Top favorite dishes if you’re into authentic, spicy northern Chinese cooking is:
1) Whole Eggplant YuXiang Sauce (Best I’ve ever had… seriously! Even compared to what I had in Beijing). You get 3 whole eggplants that are first deep fried and then smothered in their special pepper, gingery, sweet and spicy yuxiang «fish fragrant» sauce. There is a backstory to this dish for those who wants to research it. The look and texture of the eggplant looked like whole fish that when I first had it, I thought it was real fish! No bones here to worry about though.
2) Cumin lamb: It has all the northern Chinese spice flares in the preparation of the meat and the lamb is always marinated to perfection (not too chewy, not too tender).
3) Anything «ma la» which translates to numbingly spicy (have a few glasses of ice water ready)
The family-​owned restaurant is a laid back atmosphere and the wait staff is fairly attentive. The owner, who I believe is also the sushi chef, is very friendly and outgoing. There are times the kids are in there to assist with order placing and checking customers out.
Definitely not your off-​the-​shelf Chinese restaurant with moo goo gai pan and sweet and sour pork which is a relief, although I think there are a few Americanized Chinese dishes on the menu for those who do not seek the authentic Chinese food. Did you know General Tso’s Chicken is not a dish in China? :)

Sushi is delicious– one of my favorite places to get sushi. Dishes are authentic and really enjoyed the duck

Service: good, friendly, but ordering wine is difficult and sometimes the order gets confused because they don’t normally write it down.
Food: so good! I have yet to be disappointed. My father lived in Sichuan for a few years and he definitely approves of the quality.

It is your average, local Chinese restaurant good for take-​out dinners on weekdays. We had their Lomein noodles, which was drenched in oil. Mongolian chicken was good and flavorful. Overall they provide decent food.

I very rarely get the same thing when I return to any Resturant because I love trying new things all the time. But here I always get the Salt-​Fried Pork, it’s not because I don’t want to try something else, it because this is so good I dream about it. Very spicy but so much flavor.
My husband has to have the chicken wings, the best he has ever had. And usually the beef and broccoli which he enjoys very much.
Lunch total $ 24 and some change. Good deal, filling, and great food.

excellent good food, great service

Another excellent late-​lunch on a cold, snowy afternoon. Service was attentive and very polite and welcoming. Sushi, maki rolls specifically, were excellent. Product is consistent and pleasing — I am struck by the presence of Asian families that come here and let that be a testament to the authenticity of the preparation where am by no means an expert.

I have had several marginal experiences here. The tables are often not cleared and the waitstaff is Apathetic. Recently I called to place a takeout order and asked about the presence of nuts. One of my sons has a life threatening allergy. The man on the phone laughed and said that he did not know because ‘it came from the company’. Inexcusable. I hope they close soon.

While I admit to leaning toward the more Americanized dishes on the menu, their selection is extensive in other areas and those dishes might be the best ones. I have only had takeout but the comments on the cleanliness of the place make me nervous.
The first time I ordered I got the pan fried pork dumplings. They were divine. Thin, springy dough that was slightly charred. The dipping sauce was too sweet, which I find is a problem with many things on the menu. Unfortunately, the first time was the best. They must have been freshly made that day, every other time I’ve had them the dough was much thicker and spongy with no translucence, much like you find in other places.
No pork strips, spareribs on the bone or egg rolls. Boneless ribs were dry and very brown.
The beef skewers (teriyaki anywhere else) might as well be a lollipop it’s so sticky and sweet. Also over marinated to the point of mushiness. Same with the chicken skewers.
The pad Thai was good the first time, though there was no peanut sauce on the noodles, just a garnish of chopped peanuts and not very much chicken. The noodles were dressed with fish sauce and also very sweet. There was a thick layer of fresh bean sprouts on top that was delicious. The second time I ordered it I asked for some water chestnuts and pea pods. There were about six pea pods in the dish and no bean sprouts on top! The Lo mien was also light on ingredients aside from noodles and garlic, the garlic being very bitter tasting.
The main problem with this place is that they don’t offer small sizes and there are only a few combination plates offered aside from the lunch time menu. I guess I don’t mind mediocre food as long as there’s not a lot of it.

We’ve had take out multiple times, been for dinner three times and lunch twice. The food is great, consistent and they take their time on the phone to make sure they get the order right and were very apologetic the one time they got something wrong.
The crispy chicken wings are fantastic and the dan dan noodles are addictive. The reason for the 4 star and not the 5 is solely the service when we eat in the restaurant. It could be cultural but a smile wouldn’t go astray and alerting people that the refills are not free would have kept the table of 20+ patrons sitting next to us from waging war on the already unhappy waitress.
It will remain our go to Chinese food takeout!

Really, really good food. Probably the best Chinese restaurant in the area in that regard. The owners seem like really nice people as well; very friendly an attentive. There has consistently been a waitress so unfriendly and inattentive that it takes down the entire experience. I swear I’ve gotten her every time I’ve ever been there. No idea why she still works there if she hates other human beings so much.

Our family of five had a celebration dinner at this Chinese restaurant today. We chose it over other Chinese restaraunts as it was the closet to where live. So it was a pleasant surprise that it turned out to be a delicious meal.
We ordered four dishes, spicy dry fish fillets, cumin lamb, shredded pork with green pepper, and pea seedlings (names of the dishes are my translation, so may not be accurate). The first three were all spicy yet had nice taste beyond being spicy. The pea seedlings was the lone vegetable dish we ordered. It was also very good. In addition, we ordered scallion pancakes, which were among the better ones we have had.
The price was quite reasonable. Before the tip, the total was about $ 65.
Surprisingly, the restaurant was not busy at all. We were seated right away and the waitress was attentive.

Good food. Good spicy menu. Enough said. Spicy fried fish is a must try !! Servers and owner are very welcoming and nice. Felt like home. I’ll come back for more

Grabbed some lunch here with a client and really enjoyed my food. Sushi was very fresh and nicely prepared. We got a Salmon Roll and a Volcano Roll … both were delicious, but the Volcano Roll was stellar.
Double cooked pork belly and house fried rice was the main dishes. The pork was very good… but it’s very rich and I would suggest ordering this if you have a larger party.
The HFR had very clean flavors and had a minimal amount of oil in it which is a nice diversion from the norm.

The food was ‘alright’ but the service was terrible and the bathroom was filthy. The waitress acted like she couldn’t be bothered and had an attitude. We had to chase her down to get the check. She practically threw the bill down on the table and walked away. She never bothered to ask if we wanted to take our leftover food home. A bad experience and I’ll never go back.

Just got takeout from here last week. Got a selection of maki rolls and an order of chicken with broccoli. The food was not edible. The sushi was old – not fresh at all. We were grossed out and tossed it.
The chicken with broccoli was also not good. The chicken was undercooked, which makes sense since the guy said the food would be ready «in 15 minutes».
We did have the avocado salad. I thought it tasted fine, but my wife noticed some of the avocado was brown.
We didn’t contact the restaurant because we simply didn’t want another order. We won’t be ordering from this place again. Yikes.

Food is good! Very hard to understand the staff

Visiting a friend, he suggested takeout from a walking distance restaurant. Ok — fine. But I didn’t expect much. I’m a big fan of good, spicy food, but I expected standard or below.
This was tasty. Spicy, indeed, exactly as I like it. We even went and «dined» there two nights later.
There was a dichotomy — I felt I was walking into a traditional «american chinese» restaurant — and if not for the szechwan food, probably still felt as if I would have gotten below average food. Within that concept, they also made sushi — and I finally deferred from ordering any once I asked for certain items (like ama-​ebi) and they just stared at me.
So — stick to what they seem good at, and avoid the rest.

After passing Spicepepper Garden for years on my travels along 119, and meaning to stop in (I am TIRED of Bamboo), a friend and I stopped in for lunch last week.
We arrived at about 11:45 so they just opened for the day. Only one other table was occupied.
The waitress was polite and efficient and very insistent that we really wanted forks and not chopsticks.
I ordered the cashew chicken lunch special which came with soup (I chose egg drop with corn), a spring roll and white rice.
The soup was very good, but the corn had that canned vegetable taste. Fresh or even frozen corn would be a HUGE improvement here.
The spring roll was tasty and we ordered two more.
The cashew chicken was excellent. It was served in a brown sauce with lots of ginger and tasted different than any other place I’ve had it.
My lunch buddy was brave and ordered sushi. I’d never order sushi at a restaurant the first time I visited, but he threw caution — and his intestinal tract — to the wind and ordered an assortment of sashimi and a roll called the «High Protein.» He said it was very good.
Lunch for two, including sushi was less than $ 40.00 so in addition to being delicious, it’s not too hard on your wallet.
We agreed that we would return.

Without a doubt, this is the best Oriental-​style restaurant in the Acton-​Boxborough-​Westford-​Concord area. They know how to cook reasonably authentic food that is fresh and a little different. The salt content seems low — as I did not taste a lot of MSG.
I need to add — try the Sichuan green beans. They know how to make them crisp and tasty.