Apparently Manchester has the 3rd largest Chinatown in Europe. London is probably 1st but I'm not sure which is 2nd. Nonetheless given there aren't really any typical local Manchester foods then any excuse for Asian was a good one. Funnily most of the well reputed ones are on the very expensive side which I wasn't really up for - although Tattu does look good if up for it - or Cantonese which I think is less exciting than other Chinese cuisines.
I wanted to go to Red Chilli for Szechuan but the Chinatown branch was closed so Hunan seemed somewhere else nearby and of regional cuisine. It tends to have more braises, stirfries and smoked meats. Apparently it can be fiery hot but not too much here. I tried to select what would be Hunanese dishes, as they do serve Cantonese and other bits of fare too (including for some reason pho...)
- Chairman Mao's Red Braised Pork £7.8 - not nearly as glowing red as the picture in the menu, a warming dish of savoury pork;
- Stirfried Hunan Smoked Bacon with Garlic shoots £9.8 - really delicious smoked salted meat with garlic shoots adding texture and differing flavour. It was marked as a spicy dish and the chillies added heat but not too much;
- Stirfried Cucumber with Salted Egg Yolk £8.8 - I like the salted duck egg added to deepfries and so it was good to see it with a vegetable dish. The cucumber was somewhat crunchy and not the soft squishy texture usually associated with cooked cucumber. The egg yolk coating wasn't very salty but still fine;
- Steamed & Deepfried Northern Buns £6 - I reminisce about the deepfried mantou buns from a now-closed restaurant in Melbourne who served the delicious things with crisp coats and layers of mantou bread slivered underneath. These were much less flavoursome and exciting and next time I'd probably just get rice instead.
It was a decent meal other than the bread. I do still prefer the heat of Szechuan or the cumin of the north.