Well it has been, and very successfully.

The Paddington venue seems slightly bigger, and just as moody, themed with black, red and bold, with a stylised white dragon suspended from the ceiling. And if the original Sichuan Bang Bang exuded a humming energy, here it’s crackling with a happy din that comes from a packed house.

Its diminutive nature probably helps, and if my visit was nothing unusual, it seems the locals have taken to it wholeheartedly: every table full and hopefuls waiting. What’s all the fuss about?

Part of the allure is the simple theatre of the place, but mostly it’s the food; the exotic, adventurous, slightly alien nature of Sichuan cuisine.

There’s a line at the top of the website menu (which I dearly wish I’d taken more note of) which reads: “If you love the flavours and heat like the Sichuanese do, please request your orders to be ‘crazy hot’!”

But even without the numbing heat I tend to crave, there is enough excitement on the plates to keep the pulse racing.

Wok-fried eggplant, minced pork and chilli sauce ($19, inset) sounds kind of simple. But this, like a lot of Asian cuisines, has recipes within the recipe: fermented broad bean paste and zhacai – the pickled stem of the mustard plant – in this case, adding complexities to every mouthful.

Crispy duck with Sichuan chilli sauce and cucumber ($20) reads even more simply, and it’s definitely a milder, subtler dish. But behind the placid facade lurks ginger, chinkiang black-rice vinegar and zha cai; it is special stuff.

Even subtler is a chicken dish: chilli steamed chicken with cucumber, sesame, peanut and soy ($13, entree) hiding chinkiang vinegar, chilli oil and (go figure) tahini.

There’s a fairly snappy wine list covering the Granite Belt to Minervois, Yarra Valley amber wine to Mosel Gutswein. Then a run of appropriately refreshing cocktails and a fairly mainstream collection of beers, with Tsingtao as the obvious choice.

It has been a very successful transplant, giving those of us living east of Kenmore easier access to a concept that absolutely rocks.