Bamboo Garden, home of the swimming fire fish. Click here to read the introduction to the new weekly Voracious column: Serving Sake to a Serb.Bellevue’s Bamboo Garden (202 106th Pl. N.E.) specializes in Sichuan cuisine loaded with peppercorns, chilis, garlic, and other spicy herbs. The restaurant is especially proud of its hot pots, even boasting on its website that it’s the “Home of the Swimming Fire Fish” – an enormous bowl of poached fish in red oil that Jonathan Kauffman ranked no. 2 on his list of the five spiciest dishes in Seattle. But last month, the health department shut down Bamboo Garden for several offenses, including unsafe temperatures, poor personal hygiene, and equipment that wasn’t properly sanitized. Gross. (Although truth be told, I would probably eat at Bamboo Garden even if I saw a big ol’ rat run across my table. It’s that good.)Thankfully, it’s up and running again. I called Slavko as soon as I heard the news. “Bamboo Garden is back! They must’ve taken care of all those health code violations!” I announced gleefully. “Beautiful,” he responded, with understandably, less enthusiasm. Bamboo Garden’s temporary closure may have turned others off, too. It was near empty when we arrived at1 p.m., usually a busy time for the restaurant. Undeterred, we followed a server to a table and ordered the acclaimed swimming fire fish and, because Slavko wanted something familiar “just in case,” Kung Pao chicken.The “safety” dish: Kung Pao chickenFive minutes later, enough food to feed a small family arrived at our table. The swimming fire fish was full of poached fish, tofu, seaweed, and bean sprouts. Slavko watched the fillets bob up and down in the warm broth. “Is it still alive?” he asked. (It wasn’t.) He ignored the bowl at first, instead shoveling piles of Kung Pao chicken in his mouth at an almost frightening speed. “Aren’t you going to try the fish?” I asked. He obliged. Sort of. He began simultaneously spearing the fish and chicken. “Stop!” I cried out in exasperation. Slavko finally turned his full attention to the swimming fire fish. He loved its spiciness, despite the fact that he had to gulp down several glasses of water while eating it. He thought the fish fillets were light and wonderful. The problem was the tofu. “I don’t like it,” he said. “I never have. It has no flavor.” Even worse, he noted, was that the tofu and poached fish looked too alike for him to distinguish between the two. But the more he ate, the better his identification skills got. I soon had a plate full of tofu (provided courtesy of Slavko), while he had one consisting entirely of fish. “I could eat this entire bowl,” he said. And he did. Minus the tofu. I ate that.