Hunan Taste

While I don’t yet believe that Hunan Taste is any sort of competition for Grace Garden, I do believe it will improve over time. The service was a bit shaky (our waiter, who seemed to be American-born, wasn’t very familiar with the menu, and he got one of the dishes wrong) but the owners were around to smooth ruffled feathers and to answer questions about the extensive menu.
Mao’s favorite red-braised pork belly was nice, and the tea tree mushrooms were novel. Shrimp fried noodles were a very simple but non-greasy form of lo mein, and the crispy duck could have been a tad more crispy. From the American-style Chinese menu, the won ton soup was rather flavorless, although I appreciated the lighter-style dumpling wrappers, and the roast pork appetizer was a little tough and came with a rather startlingly red sauce.

Overall, without having tried any of the truly spicy Hunan-style dishes (none of our dishes had any heat at all, despite the few token dried peppers) it’s hard to say how authentic the food was in our first trip. However, further investigation will be done in this matter. :)