There was a recent Eater article about the best Szechuan restaurants in Atlanta. Being a huge fan of this regional Chinese cuisine, I added six new spots to the list, including Hai in Decatur. This is the same list that gave me Sho Spicy, from earlier this year. When my wife and I were dating forty years ago, her mom worked at the Belk’s in Suburban Plaza. That store is long since gone but, surprisingly, the strip mall is still there. Hai is across the parking lot from where Belk’s used to be. Knowing that chef Han Wai worked with Peter Chang at Tasty China, for three tears, gave the place immediate “cred”, in my book.

We started with the hot and sour soup – one of the litmus tests for any Chinese restaurant. It definitely had the heat and a great flavor. And I followed with my favorite dish – Shan City (Szechuan Chili) Chicken.

The chicken and red chiles were diced and lightly battered and had an appropriate level of heat for the spice warning. My lovely wife ordered the salt & pepper shrimp, at my suggestion.

We were surprised when the shrimp arrived fried with the head, tail and shell still on. This resulted in a very messy dish and a lot of the flavor was in the batter, which was lost with the peeling.

I’d definitely head back, avoiding the shrimp, for the scallion bubble pancake, which we saw heading to another table. It was a steam filled balloon of fried bread with scallions and a side of milk curry.