Szechuan Chef opened in John's Landing earlier this summer to put an end to my long, dark journey. Live seafood wells with meaty fish and petulant crab stand in the lobby, and four dining rooms on three levels are tastefully decorated with sturdy marble-like tables, upholstered leather chairs, and wrought-iron railings (photos on their website seem to show the restaurant's Bellevue location, and are misleading). While I've occasionally gotten the wary "are you sure you want to order that (we don't want you sending those intestines back)" treatment when asking for an unusual dish, the service standard is efficient and unobtrusive.

The presence of Chong Qing hot chicken ($11.95) on the menu showed me all was well in the world. This standard Szechuan dish, elsewhere called anything from Chicken with 1,000 Chiles to Chicken in Exploding Dynamite Bath, is popcorn-sized, greaseless fried chicken tossed in a dry wok with a mountain of dried red chiles and batons of scallions. It's charred with bona fide wok hay, and, at first glance, impossible to eat. But the chiles are there to perfume and season the dish more than they are for eating, though the pods, when deeply browned and blistered, have the crunch and nutty flavor of a roasted pumpkin seed, and they are delicious. The heat of the chicken builds slowly and evenly, creating a slow buzz in your nervous system, more about getting high than getting hurt.

Xiao long bao ($7.95 for 10) are available to start, and are a very good—if small—version of the popular soup dumplings. These are nearly bite size, and filled with a light, hot broth, which due to its limited volume will reset to aspic if not enjoyed quickly. A less-common find are the addicting dry-style Szechuan wontons ($6.95), a bowl of silky, tender, and ragged hand-made dumplings in an oniony soy and chile oil. A cold starter of chewy Szechuan noodles with a peanut paste and chile oil sauce ($6.95) is simple and filling.

Hot and spicy hand-shaven noodles ($10.95 with meat) showcase fresh noodle dough sliced freehand into strips ranging in size from chow mein to chow fun, and are more tender than the hand-pulled noodles at Frank's. The shrimp, another quick litmus test, were perfect: a white, pinkie-sized tail, tender like a scallop. Yang Zhou fried rice ($8.95), fluffy and steaming, with finely julienned cabbage, chopped shrimp, sweet sausage, and shredded egg, was also deeply satisfying.

Boiled, skin-on peanuts—as well as carefully chopped vegetables that were more for texture and flavor than filler—made the Kung Pao chicken ($9.95) one of the best versions in town, and the twice-cooked pork ($10.95) was a generous serving of thickly sliced, sweet, black-bean-tinged Chinese bacon with leeks and celery. The only miss was the cumin lamb ($12.95), which for all the heat and cumin could probably just have been beef.

Szechuan Chef is, without a doubt, a must-try restaurant for anyone on the hunt for the ultimate local Chinese food experience. It closes the chapter on a clichéd Portland shortcoming, and is now the gold standard for those that follow.

Let's hope they start delivering.