A Plus A Sichuan China

Love the food here. I can get most dishes super spicy. Apparently, I like to work up a sweat when I eat. I usually get take out, and it’s consistently good. I love the veggies and seafood dishes the most.

These guys make solid, real Chinese food. They have some American-​Chinese dishes too, but we haven’t tried those yet — the other stuff is so good, we don’t want to switch! Our favorites are things like the Spicy Fish Fillet (水煮魚), Stir Fried Water Spinach (蒜蓉空心菜), and Beef with Cumin Sauce (孜然牛肉). Order it spicy if you like it more like what you’d find in mainland China. Many dishes are a garlic lover’s dream, with big slivers of chopped garlic, not just little minced bits like what you’d usually find.
Their food is a great take-​out value, too! If my wife and I order two meat dishes and three vegetable dishes, that costs about $ 60 and makes 3 meals for each of us, which is only $ 10 per meal.
They changed ownership about a year ago, but the new owner had done catering from their kitchen prior to that, so they knew the kitchen staff, and kept them on after the transition. The food is just the same as it was, as far as we can tell.
Their web ordering works, but is a little confusing. Their web site is
, but on the web an older web site still shows up lower down in Google. They also take orders through four different services (Menufy, Eat24, BeyondMenu, and grubHub), which sometimes also show up on Google, to add to the confusion. But if you go to their web site and order online, these guys do get the order, and it really does work.

I’ve been going here for about a year and it’s one of the only authentic Szechuan places in Austin. There is another one up the street and another one in town. They have many American Chinese dishes as well.
Dishes like the spicy pigs ear, spicy honeycomb, and pigs feet are traditional Szechuan and very well done.
On occasions I do find that the dishes are totally confused. I ordered Dan Dan noodles and instead of getting cold noodles with that thick peanut type sauce I got greasy hot noodles with Szechuan peppercorns. That is not right. I’ve ordered pepper pork chop and the pork chop has been extremely old. You could taste the pork was on its last legs and borderline unsafe. That’s not cool.
There are many dishes to explore and the best thing is to go with lots of people to share dishes and sit on the right side when you walk in at one of the tables where they have the lazy Susan in the middle of the table. That’s the authentic way and the best way to explore the many wonderful tastes, smells, and textures Szachuan food has to offer.
It’s definitely one of my few ‘go to’ places in Austin despite the restaurant being an old diner in poor condition. I go there for the food and that’s what they do well.

After management change, the place has rolled downhill. I usually get bean curd and mustard greens. Plate came with stems and bean curd. Asked about the leafy portion of greens, and server/​owner said ‘greens out of season’. Are you kidding me!!! Another group at another table complained about something being salty– response from owner: ‘we don’t make individualized dishes’. Great customer service-​NOT! Was a fantastic restaurant-​now I won’t be back due to decreased taste and quality of food, with a definite lack of customer service. Go farther south on 183 to Asia Café… that’s going to be your next best bet.

So I heard good things about this place, decided to ask some friends to go with. I mostly wanted to go here because it was considered authentic. It seemed a pretty big throw from my favorite authentic haunts in NYC, but I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt, I ordered something j hunt had before, the dry pot. The dish itself was fairly tasty, but being called dry pot, it did not live up to its namesake as it was covered in oil. Now I haven’t had this dish anywhere else so I can’t compare. The flavor was just right, garlic, just right spicy, and lemongrass. But the oil made it hard to eat at times. I feel like they could have brought that flavor without that amount of oil. And there was no searing of the chicken to make it necessary for cooking (it would have been too much for that too)
The price was a lot for what I got ($ 14) and it ended up making new me feel sick later that night. Now, you may ask, why not 1 star? Well, it’s because they at least had decent flavor and seasoning. That’s something some places don’t event bother with. And I enjoyed it mostly when I was eating it, if it hadn’t been for the feeling sick part (combined with the price), I’d give it 3 stars. Also, my friends got the lunch menu items which were significantly cheaper, but none of them looked authentic to me.
Edit: I wanted to point out that the authentic restaurants I’ve been to in NYC may be from a different region in China. This may well be super authentic to that region. I don’t know enough about that sort of thing. It wouldn’t change my option of the food itself but it may change the accuracy of my opinion on its authenticity.

Spicy Fish. It is the best fish dish I have had in ATX. A little bit greasy/​oily, but so darn good!

I was served the spoiled beef for the lunch special Hunan Beef and darken deep fry egg roll.
First I complained the egg roll about the color (either re-​fry or oil not fresh), the server also the owner would not replace the egg roll.
I ate few piece of beef, I am 100% sure the meat is spoiled and the server tasted tiny piece and said it’s good meat. I left most my meal untouched. I should have taken the meal back and reported the health department. The owner refused any discount of my meal. I did not think about taking the bad meal home for the evidence of reporting to health department.
I will not go back this restaurant again.
This is my first review on Unilocal

My husband and I ate here on on Presidents Day, and had the best meal in a long time. We usually go to a different Chinese restaurant, but heard that chefs from there worked here now. I had the Spicy Fish Filet, and he had the Mapo Tofu, which are our favorite dishes elsewhere, and were amazed at how much better the taste and flavor is here at A +A! I could actually taste the Sichuan peppercorns, in the Mapo Tofu, and couldn’t get over how delicious it was.
The staff were friendly and helpful, explaining the different ingredients used in different dishes, and went out of their way to make sure we had a good dining experience. When they saw we were full and would need to go boxes, they were brought right out and packaged the food for us.
This is now our new favorite place, and we will be back ofen!

We love the food here! It’s fresh and doesn’t taste oily! Oily Chinese food is my pet peeve. Great quality and great prices too. Our favorite items: green beans with garlic, eggplant with pork, pork and bamboo shoots, crispy peppercorn chicken, and spicy fish.

Dumplings were way too thick. Noddles were greasy as heck. The chicken dish i ordered just had a bad flavor and it was greasy as well. Just not any good at all.

Haven’t had Cashew Chicken for awhile it was great. Especially loved the sauce and portions were plentiful. Oh they’ve got Sea cucumber.

We came here on a whim one day after having a short un-​satisfying stint at Taco Cabana. We were still hungry and were craving Chinese food.
The place was pretty empty on a week day so we got pretty good service. We ordered one entrée — the Pork with Garlic sauce and it was more than enough to share! What was nice was that it came with lots of veggies and we had enough to have several more meals when we brought it home. The pork was pretty fatty and the sauce was greasy but the flavor was decent.
This is definitely a good value for your buck but it wasn’t the best thing I’d ever had. Since it seemed to be a pretty popular place for take out, I would come back to explore other menu items.

I’m not exactly sure what recently happened here but there was some sort of ownership/​management change and things are definitely taking a turn for the worse.
To give them credit, they attempted a remodel of the restrooms. And now they are a little cleaner and much brighter than they used to be. But only slightly. It looks like they purchased old sink and toilet fixtures and used them. Well, at least it’s brighter and the horrific stench is gone.
Now I’m wondering why there’s no soap dispenser on the wall and no mirror. There was a soap dispenser on the sink but it was full of weak soap water.
That’s truly disgusting. Is that what the cooks are cleaning their hands with? At least the older, horrific smelling, truly dark and scary restroom had soap in a wall mounted dispenser.
But here’s the real killer. We’ve been eating here at least once a week for well over a year now. The one guy we work with that demands we come so regularly was insulted by who ever the new management is when he asked for extra broccoli with his beef and broccoli. He’s always asked for this and it’s never been an issue until just recently.
This lady went on to explain how she has to charge him and extra $ 2 for the broccoli. He didn’t get a side plate of broccoli. Obviously this means «more broccoli than beef, please» — easy right? Management is already making out on the deal because it means «slightly less beef» which is much more expensive than broccoli.
Then I still don’t understand how a few more pieces of broccoli would cost $ 2. A POUND of broccoli on average in the U.S. is $ 1.70. Let’s call it under a dollar at most. And if you purchase it as a restaurant in bulk you get bulk discounts. And if it’s frozen, it’s still even cheaper.
Finally, and this is really the amusing part of it all, he’s one of your most regular customers. He actually eats there without us at other times during the week. You are willing to lose a highly regular customer over broccoli that you aren’t losing money on?
So, all of this and their continuing severe lack of hygienic sensibilities tells me they really don’t want me as a customer. Sad, I thought this place had potential.
Best of luck!

yeah.
I heard a while back that they had some sort of relationship with Asia Café — something along the lines of one of the head chefs here used to work there, or maybe the other way around… I won’t even pretend to know the details but it doesn’t surprise me at all. The Spicy Fish at both places is nearly identical. This is THE dish to try if you haven’t. Sooo goooood.
A+A is a little different in that there are a few more Americanized Chinese options, not as impressive (intimidating?) of a menu as Asia Café. The delivery option and the fact that they’re not as crowded make A+A a great option for anyone in the area. Some dishes are less than stellar (like the dumplings) but ask for recommendations and look through other reviews for what dishes to get and you’ll enjoy it. And try the fish!

This is some of the best Chinese food of it’s style in the Austin area. I suspect it’s highly underrated because there are a bunch of people obsessed about décor and having a waiter serve them, or that think that Panda Express with cake-​like batter on fried chicken and sugar is Chinese food.
Helps to have someone that knows Chinese cuisine to help you order as the menu is massive. There’s so much good stuff, but what comes to mind right now is Twice Cooked Pork with bacon.

This restaurant is my favorite take out place. My favorite are pork with garlic sauce, beef with cumin sauce and dry chicken.
The food comes in generous portion. I take out dinner at least once a month.
Food preparation is always quick and they have authentic Chinese food.

Amazing place… great food great service.
Moving from San Francisco, I was looking for a good Sichuan place… I think between Asia Café and this place, I have places I can go to for my Sichuan cravings… They do have some veggie options, what else can I ask for!
Food came out fast, it was fresh and tasty!

My husband loves this place. He goes here with co-​workers and they eat in. I’ve only had take-​out from here and it is definitely not my favorite place. He swears that in-​house it is fantastic.
Usually I will get chicken cashew or chicken almond whatever and every place is pretty similar. I didn’t really like it here. My husband convinced me to give them another try — so I did. I tried the salt and pepper chicken and the egg drop soup. The salt and pepper chicken, while somewhat dry was actually pretty good. The egg drop soup was not — it had a taste to it that I couldn’t put my finger on and used obviously frozen veggies. Later, I didn’t feel great.
Anyways, it’s not the worst I’ve experienced but it’s far from the best no matter what my husband says. The place looks old and shabby even from the outside, and looks super questionable. Their posters are so sun faded it’s ridiculous. I could go on. One star and that’s stretching it. No more chances from me!

Do you like Kung Pao, General Tso, Sesame, Sweet and Sour, or other American types of Chinese food? Awesome, but don’t come here. This ain’t Panda Express and if you take the effort to come to a restaurant that specializes in Sichuan food (as indicated by the name) and order any of the above listed foods… you’ve already failed.
If you appreciate authentic, no excuses, not made for American palates Sichuan food… you’ve made a wise decision in coming here. There are number of great dishes ranging with a variety of protein choices from frog to lamb. There are a few standouts for me, but my absolute favorite is Dry Pot anything.
The Dry Pot is a generously sized portion of your chosen protein (my faves are rabbit or lamb) with a moderate amount of vegetables and copious amounts of dried chiles and mouth numbing Sichuan peppercorns.
Service has always been casual and friendly. They are happy to help the uninitiated navigate the menu. Prices are… well, they’re cheap. Portions can easily food 2 – 3 people with normal appetites. I am well trained in the art of mastication and I have to take home half of my portions on a regular basis.
So, if you want something that breaks the humdrum of Americanized Chinese food, do yourself a solid and stop in at A+A.
…and be a little adventurous.

If you don’t expect good service and love Sichuan food, this place is good. They are not busy and you can get your food quickly. The rice is so-​so, but the non-​Americanized dishes are flavorful, and the spices will make your mouth sing. I love the combination of Sichuan peppercorns and whole dried red peppers.
My favorite dish here is the stir fried frog legs. Other dishes are okay and similar to Asia Café down the road. Overall, this is a good place to get inexpensive Chinese food.