R.I.P. good Szechuan restaurants

My family has a handful of Chinese restaurants that we always go to. They are

1) Dumpling House, Temple City
Operators: A Northern Chinese family who lived in Korea
Actual Chinese name: The Home Village

2) Szechuan Express, Monterey Park
Operators: A Szechuanese couple and their sons
Actual Chinese name: Little Szechuan

3) Lu's Garden, San Gabriel
Operators: Taiwanese
Actual Chinese name: Little Lu

4) Oriental Pearl, San Gabriel
Operators: Mainlanders
Actual Chinese name: House of Szechuan Flavors

The Oriental Pearl and Szechuan Express tragically closed their doors recently. A little tribute follows:

The Loh family à table

Mom, Dad, Scott and I sit down at the Oriental Pearl.

Dad [opens menu, pretends to read]: Okay, what do we want to eat?

Scott and me [rolling our eyes]: C'mon, Dad.

Dad: Everybody pick one dish.

Me: Okay, how about salt-and-pepper pork chops?

Dad [snorts]: Don't be a fool.

Mama chuckles, shaking her head at us. Dad waves a waitress over and proceeds to order our habitual menu, refined over time and now as good as set in stone:

• A combination cold plate: Fu qi fei pian (thin slices of beef and tendon, spiced with smuggled Szechuan peppercorns and cilantro), marinated slices of pork tongue, and blanched celery salad
• Twice-cooked pork (the true test of a Szechuan restaurant)
• Mapo tofu (the other true test of a Szechuan restaurant)
• Water-boiled beef (water is a misnomer here, unless water is something that is a deep red color and turns your tongue into a mass of numbness)
• Soup of white fish, pickled greens, and hot peppers
• Stir-fried bitter melon (the only non-spicy dish on the table).