Red “Chilli” House…doesn’t “Chilli” read like a misspelled word that knocked a spelling bee contestant out of the competition? Or like someone added one too many letter “l’s” to the already misspelled word “chili?” Actually, that spelling (which some of us purists consider Texan) is by design. The delightful Chinese restaurant sporting that appellation–which opened its doors in June, 2024–wouldn’t change it. Among other things, it illustrates just how important Capsicum is in some provinces of China, particularly Sichuan and Hunan.
Capsicum, as most New Mexicans know, is the genus to which all chili (chile in New Mexico) peppers and bell peppers belong. The fruit of the capsicum plant contains a chemical called capsaicin, the active ingredient that gives chile its piquancy. Historians widely agree that capsicum was unknown outside the tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas before 1490s. That’s when Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue and brought this red-fruited plant along with other food plants, such as maize, beans and squash, from the New World to the Old.
When introduced to China in the 16th Century, chile peppers were called “barbarian peppers” on account of their foreign origin. Eventually the province of Sichuan developed a profound predilection for piquant peppers. By the 20th Century, you couldn’t find a Sichuan menu without extremely piquant peppers. Among those with a zealous passion for hot peppers was Chairman Mao, the founding father of the Chinese republic. Mao was known to have declared “A man who dares to eat hot peppers fears nothing; all of our Red Army soldiers loved spicy food.”
Today, the tongue-tingling, throat-scorching cuisine of the Sichuan region with its liberal use of hot peppers is without doubt the most popular culinary style in China. Increasingly, the cuisine of the Sichuan (also spelled Szechuan) is poised to supplant the much milder Cantonese cuisine as the most popular Chinese food style across the fruited plain. Fire-eaters (like me) have learned that tolerance of the piquancy generated by New Mexico’s sacrosanct red and green does not always translate to being able to handle the Napalm heat of Szechuan peppers. It can be a painful lesson.
Though the Red Chilli House menu doesn’t feature Sichuan cuisine exclusively, that menu has a respectable number of dishes that bring the heat. One section of the menu is titled “American Chinese,” an acknowledgement that the fifteen items on that section were created by Chinese immigrants. Other sections of the menu are titled: Popular Items (20), Appetizers (10), Soup (3), Buns/Dumplings (11), Signature Dish (23), Vegetables (9) Fried Rice (8), Noodles (12) and Dessert (6). The menu also has a 14 item section for Lunch Specials.
Among the most intriguing aspects of the menu is the “authenticity” of the menu. While American tastes lean toward sweet and sour dishes, the closest you’ll find to those are orange chicken and sesame chicken, both featuring white meat. Instead, the menu includes such items eschewed by the American palate as pork lungs in chili sauce, spicy beef tripe slices, spicy beef tendon,and beef and intestines in chili oil. One item which piqued my interest was “hand-grabbed lamb chops” (which sounds rather like a ribald joke).
11 July 2024: Fittingly, one of the walls at the Red Chilli House is festooned with decorative bamboo dim sum baskets, the type of which are used at dim sum restaurants to ferry delectable delights to your table. Among the most popular dim sum items are dumplings and buns, either steamed or pan-fried. There are eleven items on the Buns/Dumplings section of the menu. They’re all prepared in-house by a very skilled chef. You can even purchase frozen dumplings to prepare at home later. We didn’t want to wait. My Kim picked out the pan-fried buns. Though served on a plate and not on a dim sum basket, these gems have a slightly crispy bottom (there’s a joke in there somewhere) that gives way to a marble-sized pork sausage orb. Served in quantities of five per order and accommpanied by soy sauce, they’re quite good.
26 July 2025: Only Nio Szechuan on Montgomery has a comparable menu to the Red Chilli House. There are several comonalities so it’s only natural to compare one restaurant’s version of an item with the other restaurant’s version. Such is the case with the wontons in chili oil (delicate wontons drizzled with chili oil, garnished with chopped scallions and sesame seeds). Both versions are outstanding. In fact, I’d go so far as to declare them my favorite wontons in New Mexico. Red Chilli House’s version isn’t quite as fiercely piquant as those from Nio, but they’ll give your taste buds a swift kick if you’re not ready for the wonderful burn. Because they’re served in chili oil, these wontons don’t maintain their integrity as well as other dumplings, but it won’t really matter. You taste buds will love them.
26 July 2025: In a previous post, I shared Wikipedia’s “list of dumplings” which surprised some of you that by definition, empanadas and ravioli are both a type of dumpling. Even Hot Pockets are a type of dumpling. Wikipedia’s list is constantly being revised. In previous instantiations, Danny DeVito and Barack Obama were both listed as dumpling types. Suffice to say, Red Chilli House’s special dumplings are what most of us would picture dumplings to be. These crescent-shaped beauties are savory and juicy with just a hint of sweetness. What makes them special is that the pork sausage within each dumpling is covered in a delicious broth reminiscent of soup dumplings. Special indeed!
11 July 2024: Remember that “American Chinese” menu section I mentioned earlier. Sesame chicken (crispy chicken pieces tossed in a sweet and savory honey sesame sauce) is among the items on that section of the menu though the origin of sesame chicken is in dispute. Some sources credit its origin to the southern Chinese region of Guangdong while other sources believe it was invented in North America back in the 1970s. Whatever it’s origin, it’s a very popular dish across the fruited plain. It’s not a dish I would ever order (too sweet for my tastes), but my Kim will. She enjoyed Red Chilli’s version.
26 July 2025: A June, 2024 visit to Kwok’s Bistro, a James Beard “Best Chef: Southwest” semifinalist restaurant in Reno reminded me how good Chinese eggplant dishes can be. Though my preference is for Sichuan eggplant with its piquant notes, Red Chilli’s eggplant with garlic sauce (from the Vegetables section of the menu) is the next best thing. The gently steamed eggplant is so tender it practically melts in your mouth. It’s lightly sauteed and tossed with a flavorful and umami-rich garlic sauce. Garlic cloves help cement the garlic flavors vampires hate. I loved this dish even more the second time experiencing it with our friends Tom and Ellyn Hamilton. In fact, from among the seven items we shared, this was a near-consensus best dish of the evening. Maybe eggplant can’t change your life, but it can sure make it more tasty.
30 September 2024: My friend and former stand-up comedian Bill Resnik has shared more meals with me than anyone but my Kim. Our tastes are remarkably similar, especially when it comes to Chinese food. Neither of us is fond of sweet-and-sour anything. Our preferences lie in Chinese food that has a personality, especially if that personality is assertive and angry. Even more than me, Bill will add Chinese chili oil to Chinese food that’s already too hot for most people to eat. He’s a bona fide volcano eater who would thrive in the Szechuan province of China where foods are as explosive as Old Faithful.
When ordering from a Chinese menu, Bill is likely going to ask if the item is sweet, a good indication he probably won’t like it. He’ll then ask that the dish be made “extra hot” as in lots of Chinese chili peppers, the small and spicy dynamite that will make your nose run just by looking at them. Predictably, he ordered shredded pork with garlic sauce for his inaugural meal at Red Chilli House. Chili peppers festooned this stir-fried dish along with red- and green-peppers and a generous amount of pork which didn’t at all resemble shredded pork (at least as you’ll find shredded pork in barbecue). The combination of garlic, chili and chili oil was terrific. This is a dish I’ll order again.
30 September 2024: During our three year tour of England, my Kim and I learned to appreciate (okay, love) leeks, a vastly underappreciated Rodney Dangerfield (they get no respect) of the vegetable family. Closely related to onions and garlic, but with a sweeter and more mild flavor, leeks to taste like a mild and delicate version of an onion, with the same base flavor but far less intensity. The Mermaid, our favorite restaurant in Burford (the most beautiful village in England, by the way) prepared the very best leeks I’ve ever had. They’re permanently imprinted on my memory engrams
Red Chilli House’s version of leeks didn’t resemble The Mermaid’s version (not even close) but the vast differences demonstrate the versatility of this vegetable. While enjoying my plate of shredded pork with yellow leeks, I kept wondering where the unique flavor of the dish emanated. It was most certainly from the leeks having been stir-fried along with celery and bell peppers. In describing this dish, Saveur noted “Leeks are sliced on the diagonal to increase the surface area exposed to the wok; that way, they wilt and release their fragrance faster. The pork is sliced thinly so that it will brown quickly before it loses its moisture.” That all makes sense, but I’m convinced leeks inherit a unique flavor profile when stir-fried.
30 September 2024: When you contemplate foods that are indigenous to China, potatoes are likely not among them. Potatoes didn’t arrive in China until Dutch traders brought them in the mid-1600s. As in Ireland, they quickly became associated with poverty and food shortages. Today, China is the world’s largest potato producer, although about half of the 95 million metric tons it grows every year is exported or fed to livestock. By contrast, Americans eat 80% of what is grown domestically. If you’ve never seen potatoes on a Chinese restaurant’s menu, maybe you’re not visiting the right Chinese restaurants.
At Szechuan style Chinese restaurants (such as Nio Szechuan and the Red Chilli House), shredded potatoes are a classic appetizer . Slightly crunchy, laced with red- and green-peppers as well as ginger, these tubers can be habit-forming. Shredded potatoes are remarkably uniform in size and are thinner than shoestring fries, albeit not fried. Szechuan chefs have mastered the art of preparing shredded potatoes so that they’re not starchy and soft (even mushy). They remain crispy for the duration of your enjoyment–and you will enjoy them immensely.
26 July 2025: When our friends Tom and Ellyn Hamilton are in town, we know we’re in for a great time and great food. Almost invariably we meet up at a Chinese restaurant and without exception we order a lot of food. Tom, a phenomenal retired chef who once owned and operated Colorado’s best steakhouse is a fellow trencherman. Like me, he can put down a lot of food, but it had better be good. With the closure of Budhai Gourmet Chinese, his favorite Chinese restaurant in Albuquerque has become Nio Szechuan, a wonderful venue if your tastes gravitate towards authenticity and entrees with personality.
Tom and Ellyn have visited China several times and like me, his tastes gravite towards authenticity and piquancy. He didn’t bat an eye when perusing Red Chilli House’s menu and seeing protein entrees made with intestines, lungs and kidneys. In inviting to Red Chilli House, I had hoped to introduce him to Chinese items rarely found in American Chinese restaurants. What surprised me most, however, is that (like me two years ago), he had never had Chinese shredded potatoes. Not surprisingly, however, he and Ellyn loved them. So did my Kim.
26 July 2025: Another surprise was a dish simply known on the menu as “signature grilled fish.”(served with a savory sauce, accompanied by vegetables such as bell peppers, onions, lotus root and mushrooms). Talk about underselling. There is so much to this beauteous family-sized tray brimming with a large sea bass swimming in a chili-glazed sauce. The cynosure of this pelagic treat was a whole fish grilled to perfection and resplendent with tender, flaky meat. Not so flaky are the annoying fish bones which warrant paying close attention while enjoying this dish. This dish inherits a fiery personality (that is actually even more pronounced the following day) from ginger, scallions, garlic, jalapeños and lots of cilantro. When flavors are allowed to marinate overnight, the signature grilled fish is even more delicious.
26 July 2025: You can probably call the crispy duck (marinated in Chinese spices, steamed, then deep-fried until crispy) the polar opposite of the signature grilled fish. Truly worthy of its name, the duck’s skin is exceptionally crispy, giving it a discernible crunch when bitten into. Inside, the meat is tender and juicy though there’s really not a lot of it. At many Chinese restaurants, crispy duck is served with thin pancakes and hoisin sauce, allowing you to make your own “duck wraps.” That wasn’t the case at the Red Chilli House. We would have probably enjoyed this duck even more with a complementary sauce.
26 July 2025: You’ve got to love a menu in which superlatives precede some menu items. For example, at the Red Chilli House, you’ll find such appetizers as mouthwatering chicken and heartbreaking jelly noodles. Hmm, I’ve never had my heart broken by jelly noodles. Maybe it’s time to try them. Not descriptive, but delicious is the sliced beef in chili oil (tender beef slices in a rich, spicy chili oil sauce, garnished with fresh green onions). This is a beautiful dish redolent with nasal-clearing chili oil. Fittingly because of the restaurant’s name, it’s deeply, richly red punctuated by chili flakes and scallions.
26 July 2025: Tom rarely visits a Chinese restaurant without having the hot and sour soup. He’s visited China several times so he recognizes the real stuff as well as the pretenders “dumbed down” for American tastes. Though hot and sour soup (along with egg drop soup) is ubiquitous in Chinese restaurants, rarely does it showcase the Szechuan properties that make it “hot.” Still there’s a delightful consistency to even restaurant-quality hot and sour soup. First, it’s made with a surprising number of ingredients. You can probably name mushrooms (wood-ear, shiitake and distant cousin Lilly flower) and green onion, but there’s a lot more going on in even the most basic hot and sour soup. White vinegar and soy sauce impart the sour components of the soup. Red Chilli House’s version isn’t quite as hot or sour as we would have liked, but it does envelop diners with pleasing fragrances and deliciousness.
The Red Chilli House has given Albuquerque’s west-siders a reason to follow Horace Greely’s advice. If our first visit is any indication, we’ll be going west quite often.
Red Chilli House
8201 Golf Course Road N.W.
Albuquerque, New Mexico
(505) 681-8869
Website |
LATEST VISIT: 26 July 2025
1st VISIT: 11 July 2024
# OF VISITS: 3
RATING: 23
COST: $$
BEST BET: Eggplant in Garlic Sauce, Sesame Chicken, Pork Buns, Shredded Pork With Garlic Sauce, Signature Grilled Fish, Sliced Beef in Chili Oil, Hot and Sour Soup,
REVIEW #1412
We’ve been DISABUSED! Our apologies to any who may have asked for the “special menu” at Red Chilli on our earlier advice. On a more recent visit, a waitress who seemed quite authoritative informed us that in fact there was no “special menu,” but only the part of the standard menu (following the American Chinese section) which was labeled “Signature Dishes” or some such. Still delicious, and still genuine, as indicated by the generous moat of red-colored oil surrounding our shredded pork in garlic sauce. (This may be off-putting to some, but it’s no different from many Szechuan stir-fry dishes we’ve had other large cities.)
Its spelled “Chillay”
Please try to keep up, Ruben
I thought it was spelled “chilleigh?” 🤔
Very genuine Szechuan, and overall really good. And, our waitress informed that they have a “special menu” in addition to the standard one.
Ann & Bruce, we haven’t heard from you in a long time. I hope you’ve been healthy, happy and eating at a lot of great Duke City restaurants. I’ll have to visit Red Chilli House soon to try that “special menu.” The more authentic Chinese food is, the better.
Thanks for the kind words. We pretty much went out of circulation during the pandemic, but I admit even before that we had become more asocial, doing more cooking experiments at home. We’re also eager to try the special menu (since we didn’t hear about it until the end of our meal there).
I enjoyed both versions of the shredded pork dishes and they were both wonderful and distinct from each other. I will definitely have them again. I’ll be back, but will have to save up for it since most things at Red Chilli House are priced higher than their counterparts at other restaurants like Neo. I had a little sticker shock, but not a lot, and it was quickly forgotten because the food was very good. I don’t think I’ll be ordering the wontons in chili oil – they were surprisingly bland and somewhat gummy in texture.
Cheers,
FS
Oh, you’re trying to lecture us on how to spell chile””?