Han Dynasty

The bi-level dining room at Han Dynasty in Old City is an unremarkable space even under normal circumstances, and rarely have I seen it busy. But given the evening's event, it seemed especially empty when we arrived at five minutes before the 7 p.m. start time on Monday night.

So it was mildly startling when Han Chiang suddenly whooshed out from the shadows, his dark hair tousled, his broken glasses Scotch-taped and tilted askew, with a clipboard in his hand and a most officious tone to his question: "Do you have a reservation?"

The big dinner, it turns out, was downstairs in the party room, a narrow space lined with tables and already filling up with 70-plus diners buzzing with anticipation of an epic Sichuan banquet.

The growing renown of Han Dynasty's blow-out feasts - 20 courses for $25 the first Monday of every month - has cultivated a following among adventure eaters, spice-seekers, and an international crowd craving an authentic taste of home. One of the blog-savvy East Asian Wharton students at my round table seemed particularly tickled to meet Han himself, the famously bossy, opinionated, and amusing owner.

"Oh my God, you're Han?!" he said. "You're a legend!"

"No," protested Han without missing a beat as he delivered an opening salvo of ox tongue and tripe that shined with an orange chili-oil glow. "I'm not dead yet."

That's an understatement for Han, the 31-year-old Taiwanese dynamo who, in the last three years, has channeled the fiery flavors of his father's native Sichuan into a trio of the area's most exciting Chinese restaurants. I first encountered Han last year at his Royersford location, his second, where his chefs turned out vivid tea-smoked duck and fire-licked dry pots - but also Americanized dishes that made Han curse aloud his own occasional suburban compromise.

Such transgressions have been virtually nonexistent at his city debut, where the spice levels can be dialed up to vision-stoking heats, house-steeped chili oil flows like butter in a French restaurant, and you're likely to encounter anything from rabbit and offal to a special called "Weird Taste Chicken." Han Dynasty's menu is not for the squeamish or delicate palate. But for those who love food with intensity, Dynasty's veteran chef, Shao Lin Jiang, 62, is your Sichuan man.