San Xi Lou at BaseHall: Sichuan Dim Sum and Noodles Land in Central

For years, eating at San Xi Lou meant a trip up the hill to Mid-Levels, a long table and a bubbling pot of chilli oil that left your lips happily numb. Now the Sichuan stalwart has done something cannier: it has bottled that same fire into a grab-and-go lunch counter in the heart of the business district. San Xi Lou at BaseHall brings Sichuan dim sum, mala bites and big bowls of noodles to one of Central's most convenient food halls — and you can be in and out on a lunch break.

What is San Xi Lou at BaseHall?

San Xi Lou is one of those Hong Kong names that locals trust for the real, tongue-tingling stuff. The original restaurant has spent years building a reputation for proper Sichuan cooking — mala hotpot, dry-fried green beans, that addictive numbing-and-spicy double act the Cantonese call mala. This new venture is its first serious move into casual, fast eating.

The counter opened at BaseHall in Central in mid-2026, arriving alongside two other new vendors, TEMAI and SEVENS, as part of a fresh line-up at the food hall. San Xi Lou's brief here is simple: take the flavours people queue for and serve them quickly, in a format built for a weekday lunch rather than a long dinner.

That means a tighter menu of Sichuan-leaning dim sum, a few mala-spiked snacks, and comforting bowls of rice and noodles. There is no banquet seating, no lazy Susan — just a counter, a tray and a seat in BaseHall's communal hall. For a district where lunch is often a rushed sandwich, that is a genuinely welcome arrival. We first flagged it in our round-up of new Hong Kong openings, and it has earned its own write-up since.

What to order — and what it costs

The headline dish is the mala chicken rice — San Xi Lou's signature numbing-spicy chicken, served over rice for around HK$138. It is the most direct line from the original restaurant's kitchen to a lunch tray, and the one to order if you only try one thing.

Beyond that, the menu reads like a greatest-hits of casual Sichuan. Look for dan dan noodles, saliva chicken (口水雞) rice — cold poached chicken under a slick of chilli, garlic and Sichuan pepper — chicken soup xiao long bao, and Chongqing-style sour and spicy noodles, alongside a short run of dim sum.

Here is the smart move for value: the set meals start from about HK$88, pairing a choice of noodles or rice with selected dim sum and a drink. Want to trade up? Listings note an option for fish soup rice noodles with cuttlefish paste at around HK$98. For Central, where a forgettable café lunch can easily clear HK$120, that is sharp pricing for food with this much character.

Prices are drawn from local listings, including Dim Sum Daily and the South China Morning Post's June new-restaurants feature; they were correct at the time of writing and may change. Confirm at the counter before ordering.

Where it is and how to get there

BaseHall is about as easy to reach as a Central lunch gets. BaseHall 01 sits on the lower ground floor of Jardine House (怡和大廈), the round-windowed tower at 1 Connaught Place, right by the waterfront. It is roughly a two-minute walk from Central MTR Station, Exit A, and linked to Hong Kong Station by footbridge — so you can get there from half the city without stepping outside.

BaseHall itself is a polished, American-style food hall: a shared dining room ringed by independent vendors, with everything from craft beer to Bengali street food under one roof. Dropping a trusted Sichuan name into that mix gives the lunch crowd a reason to skip the usual chains.

How it compares to the Mid-Levels original

Let's be clear about what this is — and isn't. The BaseHall counter is a casual spin-off, not a carbon copy of the flagship. The original San Xi Lou is a proper sit-down restaurant at 7/F, Coda Plaza, 51 Garden Road, Mid-Levels, the kind of place you book for a group and order a table-groaning spread of Sichuan classics and a mala hotpot.

The BaseHall version trades that ceremony for speed and price. You won't get the full hotpot ritual or the deep cut of the original menu. What you will get is the house's defining flavours — the numbing chilli, the punchy chicken — for a fraction of the time and outlay. Think of it as San Xi Lou's lunch-hour ambassador rather than its replacement.

If you fall for the BaseHall counter and want the full experience, the Mid-Levels original is a short hop up the hill, and it sits among the city's better Sichuan rooms — one reason it features in our guide to the 50 best restaurants in Hong Kong.

Is it worth a detour?

If you work in Central or pass through Hong Kong Station, the answer is an easy yes — this is now one of the more interesting lunches within a two-minute walk of the turnstiles. The set meals make it a low-risk first visit, and the mala chicken rice is the kind of dish that turns a Tuesday around.

If you are coming from across the harbour purely for this, temper your expectations: it is a food-hall counter, not the full restaurant, and you will be eating on a tray in a busy hall. But as a fast, affordable hit of proper Sichuan flavour in the middle of the city, San Xi Lou at BaseHall earns its spot. For more of the same energy, our guide to the best dim sum in Hong Kong and our pick of the best cha chaan teng cover the city's other great everyday eats, while the monthly new Hong Kong restaurant openings round-up keeps you ahead of what's next.

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