Hunan Dinner

Last night we went for a repeat visit to a Hunan Restaurant in the neighborhood. C had been there at least once on his first visit to the city and raved about the food. Last week we had dinner there and thought that it would be a good place to take C.'s Phoenix colleague (in town for a couple of weeks). He found this restaurant in our Dorling Kindersley guide to Beijing ad Shanghai. It is an excellent place; the service is really good, the beer girls are cute (each brand of beer has their own servers with uniforms- in this place it is the Tiger and Kirin girls) and the menu has english subtitles.

Every time that we have been there, we have ordered the Hunan ribs. They are large ribs (not sure if beef or pork) that are coated with a dry spice rub, that to my best estimation contains cumin seed, chilies, garlic, salt, star anise, and other unidentified elements. Jean would have loved this one.

We also had a cold cucumber dish that is lightly flavored with sesame oil, soya sauce and chilies, oh and perhaps a little vinegar. Last night we ordered, to complement the ribs, a dish of squash ( cubed and in a lightly sugared sauce with dates), a plate of asparagus and another green vegetable dish (not sure what kind of green this was , but resembles a really skinny guy lan).

We managed to eat almost all of it, and only left some on the plates because we were sufficiently full. I'm sure that we will be back; we spotted some intriguing fish dishes on our neighbor's tables and I think that we will have to explore that multipage menu quite a bit more.



Photos taken by JCS