The Chinese that's so authentic it hurts

"Don't be nervous about eating rice with chopsticks," said our menu reassuringly - but it wasn't the chopsticks they needed to warn us about.

Tucked down a quiet side street between King's Cross and Euston, this local Chinese looked harmless enough. Ha! Harmless as a fat raw chilli masquerading as a hunk of tomato. Décor was equally innocuous. The usual deal: couple of Chinese screens, the odd framed Mao print. Nothing special here, it seemed to say.

That the menu's first two pages were entirely in Chinese ought to have rung alarm bells. The many Chinese customers were happily slurping away at shared tureens of delicious bowls of bubbling fondue. These weren't on offer to us. What was, however, was mind-boggling.

Fire-exploded kidney flowers? Hot and numbing boiled fish? This was suddenly not a menu, but a gauntlet. "Bring on the fire-exploded beef tripe!" I declared to my nervous friend, who thankfully talked me out of it on the basis it would be disgusting.

She coped far better than me with fried pig shank slices and "pig tail in the bowl" (£12.80), a gloopy bowl of offal, in offal sauce. It was the sort of stew you poke at in movies and an eyeball bobs to the top. However, her pork slivers were a treat, heady with garlic and ginger, and the chilli-heavy Guan Gong beef was terrific, if rather like biting into a grenade.

What this place needs is a tasting menu. We ordered far too much and were pressed to take home a doggie bag. We refused. Cold Gong-po intestines for breakfast? No fear.

Snazz Sichuan
Chalton Street, London, NW1 1JD