Thursday, December 14, 2006

Hunan First

Hot, Filling and Prompt. That's about the best I can say about the lunch experience at Hunan First with my father. This Greenbrae restaurant looked like a hole-in-the-wall, and so we went in with the hope of being surprised by a new hidden find.

Hunan First - Interior

The interior is rather beat up, the tables uneven is some places, and it is small. However, they've tried to make the place cheery with some artwork.

Tea Service

We were greeted promptly and given tea. Often the manner in Chinese restaurants is rather brusque so I was not surprised to find that here. I was pleasantly surprised by the lunch menu - three tiered, depended on the entree (A) for $5.00, (B) $5.59 and (C) $6.00. My father and I ordered off the (C) menu, which had the white meat chicken dishes and prawns.

Chicken, Snow Peas & Mushrooms with Fried Rice

Dad was served the Chicken, Snowpeas and Mushrooms dish with Fried Rice.

Sesame Chicken with Chow Mein


I had the Sesame Chicken dish with Chow Mein. The meals listed an "Appetizer" and "Fruit" as well as a fortune cookie. The fortune cookie was as expected, but apparently the appetizer was the two big pieces of won-ton skin deep-fried (yuk). The "fruit" was two small bites of canned pineapple... huh? Dad said the Chicken, Snowpeas and Mushroom dish was fine, although nothing to broadcast. The chicken in my dish was good, but the sauce was terribly sweet and the chicken was drowned in it. My dish also had smaller pieces of won ton wrappers deep fried and thrown in with the chicken. The chow mein was soft and nearly mushy. This one can remain hidden as far as I'm concerned.

But I have a place to recommend highly - Piazza d'Angelo in Mill Valley. I was there at a social event last night, where it wasn't appropriate to take photos, and it was fabulous! I was invited to a private party, and we had dinner family style with a number of off-menu items like duck meat cannelloni. I've been there many times, although not recently until last night and have never been disappointed. It is in a different class and price range than the above, but since I just went I wanted to note it. I'll get back to it with a full review and photos sometime in the future.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just had chinese last night but this still looks good. Even though I ate too much of it last night. I always have to make a special request for green tea and not "ooo long?" tea.

Anonymous said...

We have used Hunan First for 6 or 7 years. But recently if has really started to slide down hill. Last week my son found a bug in his fried rice. Needless to say we will never go back there again.