Sichuan Crawfish

One of the best times I ever had was in 2003, after I’d finished up cooking in Japan and was in Beijing visiting an old friend who knew the back alleys and underbelly of that city like nobody else. After a night doing something we probably shouldn’t have in a place where we could, my friend took me to this dump of a restaurant in one of the hutongs—the ghettos—of the city (many of which were bulldozed to make way for the 2008 Olympics, as this place was). My friend, Tully and the wai