FIPS Food Throwdowns: The Sweet & Sour Edition [Szechuan Delight vs. Red Hot II]

FIPS Food Throwdowns is a monthly series where we order the same exact thing from two different Park Slope restaurants, get it delivered, and evaluate which was better.  It's a culinary smackdown...a triumph of the delivery will. 

If you're unfamiliar with FIPS Food Throwdowns check out our first one, where the sombrero-wearing ayayayayyyy ridiculous Rancho Alegre beat out Barrio in a guacamole throwdown in the biggest upset of 2010 (not counting the Sandra Bullock/Jesse James debacle, of course. It's embarassing how much I care). 

This month, it's all about the Asian invasion, baby!  And by Asian invasion, I mean something really inauthentic like sweet & sour chicken.  Szechuan Delight versus Red Hot II—who will be the champion?  

Both places will be judged by certain criteria:

Ordering ease: Ever had to spend 15 minutes on the phone just trying to order a fucking chips and guacamole only to find out they have a $30 minimum and don't take American Express?  Yeah, thanks, Los Pollitos II.  We appreciate it when a place makes it simple.

Delivery time: Anything under 15 minutes is a miracle.  Anything over 45 minutes, I'm grabbing my torch and pitchfork.  

Price: Because you should never spend $40 on takeout unless it's 4AM, you're drunk, and you decide that you and your two friends need 5 large pizzas.  

How'd it hold up?: Soggy fries, leaking miso soups, cold pizza—even though I know my food is being slung over some guy's shoulder and transported on a bike, I'd like it to not look like it was.  

Taste: Obviously.

Bonus: Extra sauces?  Plastic containers that you can use again for lunch?  Score.

So, let's do this!

FIPS Food Throwdowns: The Sweet & Sour Edition

Szechuan Delight vs. Red Hot II 

Szechuan Delight (152 7th Ave at Garfield Pl, 718-788-5408) is one of those places (like Red Hot, for example) that I've ordered from for years, but have never actually set foot in, which, is often the standard for Chinese takeout places in NYC.  I'm lazy, you make lo mein—JUST BRING IT TO ME, I'M TIRED AND JEOPARDY'S ON.

 

Ordering ease: Very easy.  Person repeated all of my information on the phone.

Price: $14.95 for Sweet & Sour chicken (which came with a pint of white rice) and a pint of vegetable lo mein.

Delivery time: 25 minutes, the average time you would expect.

Taste: Sweet and sour sauce was definitely the better of the two, but the chicken wasn't as crispy.  Take a look at the photo above, and then compare it with the photos of Red Hot's chicken.  This chicken definitely needed more time in the fryer.  And what's with the erroneous bits of crinkle-cut carrot?  GROSS.  The vegetable lo mein was bland and needed soy sauce or salt.

Bonus: Three reusable containers, and plenty of sauces and napkins included.

Red Hot II (349 7th Ave at 10th St, 718-369-2577) is the place that my old roommate would order from about 4 times a week.  Her boyfriend would come over, they'd spread all of the take-out menus on the coffee table, pretend they were considering other options, and then always decide on Red Hot.  Of course I'd be all like, GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT, I WANT TO WATCH TOP CHEF IN PEACE!  But whatevs. 

Ordering ease: HELLOCANIHELPYOULETMEPUTYOUONHOLD?! It was okay, actually, better than most, especially since I was a pain in the ass and needed to pay with a credit card.

Price: $15.24 for Sweet & Sour chicken (which came with a pint of white rice) and a pint of vegetable lo mein.  Despite the fact that we were given only one fortune cookie, which denotes that it is a meal for one, it could have been a meal for two moderately hungry people (two famished people?  FORGET IT). Conversely, I love when I get a ton of sushi from JPAN and it comes with like six sets of chopsticks.  Ummm... I'm eating all of this with ONE set of chopsticks, DON'T EVEN TRY TO JUDGE ME.

Delivery time: Five minutes.  Seriously.  FIVE minutes.  How does that even happen?  I checked my phone for "recent calls" and the clock for what time it was about 16 times, and it was legitimately at my door in five minutes.  This can be good, or it can be bad, meaning they could have given us crap that was already sitting there forever. 

Taste: The chicken was perfectly crispy and the vegetable lo mein was great—smoky and flavorful, no need to add any additional condiments.  BUT—the sweet and sour sauce was pretty bland.  And take a look at this shit:

Fucking carrots!  You didn't help at all!

Bonus: Sweet & sour sauce and chicken containers were both reuseable, but the veggie lo mein wasn't. 

Basically, here's what happened:

Note that all of the Red Hot containers are completely empty and the Szechuan Delight (yes, I misspelled on the graphic—shoot me) is only half picked over.

So, the obvious winner here is:

 

While the price for the two meals was pretty comparable, and Szechuan Delight's sweet & sour sauce was a little better, the lo mein and the chicken from Red Hot were TOTALLY better than the shit that Szechuan Delight put out. 

What's interesting is that while Szechuan's food tasted like it needed some more time in the kitchen, they took 25 minutes to deliver, while Red Hot took five. 

Bravo, Red Hot II.  You'll be servicing all of my lo mein-related needs from now on.