Hunanese food

[Bamboo Grove]

Does anybody know a link to Hunanese Food recepies? I've tried to find from google but found only very few.

[Yuchi]

I suppose you could use chinese text to search for them, maybe then you'll find some

[liuzhou]

I'm not sure how you searched Google. "hunan recipe" gives a lot of results.

(Results 1 - 10 of about 48,100 for hunan recipe.)

[Bamboo Grove]

Thanks, I tried with "hunanese recepies" and didn't get any

[TSkillet]

Why is it that 75% of the Chinese restaurants in North American (especially outside of LA, SF, NY) are Hunanese? Or at least claim to be?

[Guest Yau]

i doubt it. I worked in SF for a few times, and i can't see any pure Hunanese restaurant. They may purely offer cantonese food, or a mixed cuisines of canton, teochew, hunan, etc.

In Europe, there're also a few restaurant named "Hong Kong". I took one in Venice, but the boss was neither cantonese nor hongkongais. The food was a mixed food in poor taste. I tried the Sour-Spicy Soup, and it stopped me drinking any of them in the next few months due to the terrible memory effect linked with this food.

[Bamboo Grove]

I hadn't realized that Hunanese food would be so popular. I've always thought that it would be less known than Sichuanese. Unfortunately both are not so common here in the Land Of Smiles.

[chengdude]

Why is it that 75% of the Chinese restaurants in North American (especially outside of LA, SF, NY) are Hunanese? Or at least claim to be?

Indeed, one of the Great Questions of our time: Why did Chinese restaurateurs in the U.S. latch on to the word "Hunan" with such zeal? I think *claim* is your operative word here. Go to one of the Fu's Garden ("Hunan Cuisine") locations, Panda Garden ("Hunan Cuisine") on Wesleyan, Hunan River on West Gray, Hunan Downtown on Capitol, or Hunan on Post Oak (Bush Sr.'s reputed fave) and see if there's anything on the menu that isn't replicated in some form or to some degree of refinement on any other standard Chinese restaurant menu in the U.S.

An ethnic Chinese girl whose parents emigrated from Laos once told me that, for her family at least, the word "Hunan" in a Chinese restaurant's name translated as "Keep Driving" when in search of authentic food. But then again, when you're poor and the legendary Hunan Dragon on South Shepherd could feed you a huge lunch special (soup, egg roll, rice, entree) for 2.99 or 3.99, who wants to quibble about authenticity?

[TSkillet]

Ha! You've listed most of the restaurants which I swore I'd never go to. There's also a couple on Shepherd/Richmond - one is near the Deremis Barbeque and the other is near Star Pizza.

Right, I'm not claiming that I'll get red-cooked pork at these places, but why is Hunan the operative "chinese restaurant" word here in NA? I mean, Cantonese or Sichaunese cuisines are at least as famous - as a descriptive word - and the cusine is much more famous. Maybe everyone around here just wants to eat like Chairman Mao.

[TSkillet]

Actually I've heard that Fu's Garden isn't too bad. But for my money (and reputedly Yao Ming as well) Peking Cuisine on Gessner and 59 is the best Chinese place in town.

[chengdude]

Give Lao Sichuan in the Welcome Foods Center on Bellaire a try as well.