Best mapo tofu I ever had. I could not stop eating this.

My first time eating lion’s mane mushroom. They don’t taste like much of anything but absorb the flavors of whatever sauce they’re cooked in which in this case, doesn’t taste much like the mapo tofus I’ve had so far.

A milder version of the dish meant to gently introduce Szechwan cuisine to Japan back in the day, (and to my mother who can’t handle spicy food so well these days). Honorably shared by Iron Chef Chinese’s son, Chen Kentaro in his book “A DASH OF SZECHWAN.”

Better than Chen’s but less than friendly to my stomach 😖

Really spicy and intense. I’d say this was somewhere on the spectrum of very flavorful, memorable, yet kinda not for me.