Szechuan de vivre

After you read this, turn off your computer, slip on your shoes, pet the dog, lock the door, and head into midtown. Just south of Bryant Park, on 39th Street between 5th and 6th Aves., you’ll find Szechuan Gourmet. Go inside and request a table for one. Start perusing the dozens of achingly wonderful selections on the menu. Instinctively pull back out of self-preservation. Creep back in. Think how cool and daring you’d seem if you ordered one of the many frog or eel dishes in the Delicacy section, but chicken out in the end. Scratch your head. Look important. Start to check your email but think better of it. Wave off the server as you request a few more minutes to study the menu in silent contemplation, a foodie monk. When the server returns, order (with gusto) a mix of old and new, safe and spunky. To start, pork belly with chili-garlic soy and honey-glazed spare ribs. For your main course, stir-fried sea scallops with roasted chili peanut, wok tossed crispy beef filets with roasted chili cumin, and sliced chicken with mixed vegetables. Make a mental note about ordering a hot pot dish the next time you’re here, because there will be a next time and a time after that. Admire the orange sheen and fiery tang of the chili-garlic soy reduction and how it pumps up the meaty fatty bass notes of the pork belly. Dismiss the honey-glazed spare ribs as too damned sweet. Take them away! Marvel at the scallops, translucent scallopy flesh glistening with peanuts and red chilis. They’re huge. Their sheer reality is an affront to all that you know. Chopstick them down to half-size and send them down your gullet. Squint suspiciously at the crispy beef filets, without a doubt the fugliest dish on the table. But feel the pop-rocks sparkle of the cumin and imagine the beef filets alight in your mouth, up to god knows what. Ignore the chicken with a haughty sniff as you take the last pull on your Tsingtao. Put your shoes on. Exit the restaurant and head back home. You’ve done more than enough for one night.