Therapeutic Chengdu Taste – Alhambra

I think every physician deals with one medical problem that defines bane of their existence. All problems are a pain in one way or another, but there’s always one that gives us more trouble than most. Mine is hypertension, and if I could do away with just one medical problem, that would be it. Because trying to control hypertension in an outpatient clinic is an absolute nightmare.

When treating newly-diagnosed hypertension, we almost always start at the second line because the first line treatment is miserable. Props to patients who try, but no amount of Mrs. Dash is going to substitute for salt, the saving grace of food…At least that’s what I thought until found the Wontons With Pepper Sauce at Chengdu Taste. The deep red sauce of numbing pain is the classic temporary taste-bud-obliterating broth that put Szechuan cuisine on the map. When you think of numbing the tongue, you usually recall the Novocain the dentist gave you to soften the blow of the repulsive root canal, but status post Szechuan food is different. You may be barely able to feel your tongue, but what you CAN feel is a strangely prickly taste that mimics the sting of salt.

But even the strictest diet can fail, and you’re left titrating dosages to no avail. You strike a balance between the diuretic, the ACE, and the kidneys like the perfectly-proportioned cumin crust of the tender Toothpick Lamb. Disrupt that balance and you may be throwing away the toothpick with the lamb still attached.

If only salt were the only culprit for hypertension; sometimes the culprit is me. Affectionately named “white coat hypertension”, my mere presence can skyrocket a normal systolic by 70. If you’re completely at ease with doctors, dip into the Boiled Fish in Hot Sauce and let the sweat tell the story. The fish is flaky and fresh, the cabbage is soaked through but still stays crisp, and the still-numbing sauce brings on the heat.

Sometime I think I AM a medical condition. People come to my clinic complaining of the bland food they eat and the white rice they replace with brown (which is NOT a suitable substitution if you’re Asian, BTW), and I sometimes think I made their lives worse instead of better. At least I can recommend Chengdu Taste to soften the blow. A single spoonful of pepper sauce makes the medicine go down… That’s my lie and I’m stickin’ to it.