We dropped Aaron off at school today; the original plan was to take him up yesterday, but the snow delayed our trip. We kicked off Aaron’s second semester with lunch at Szechuan Garden near Trenton on the ride up.

I read about the place years ago and added it to my bucket list back then. Since I find myself up near Bordentown in between home and Rutgers, I always wonder about it when we’re nearby.

It was a great lunch. The Garden strikes me as authentic, to the degree that I would be able to identify such. Here was the specials menu when you came in the door:

We ordered some apps to try: dumplings in chili oil, scallion pancakes, and fungus with chili vinaigrette.

The fungus was the surprise hit for me. The dumplings were awesome, though: big, pillowy, and floating in some spicy chili oil.

I tried the dry fried shredded beef from the specials menu. It had that great numbing burn you get from Szechuan peppercorns. It was really salty, though. Rhonda had a roast duck special from the lunch menu.

Aaron ordered the Ma Po tofu with minced pork, which is one of his occasional orders from the joint around the corner (without the minced pork). It too was excellent: the tofu was soft, and the sauce, spicy and salty. Lots of salt at this lunch!

So we’ll miss Aaron again now that he’s back at school, but we made a good day of his return trip.