HuNan Taste: A Jumping Off Point for an Exciting Regional Chinese Cuisine

Beef with cilantro, Mao style braised pork, and steamed dumplings at HuNan Taste (Photo Credit: Andrew Langford)

July 27 • By Michael Brown

People that seek out truly authentic Chinese food tend to follow a few rules.  The first, and most well-known, is to eat at the places actual Chinese people go to.  When it has a 4.5 on Yelp and you’ve seen videos of its kitschy decor on Instagram, it’s probably not the most authentic.  Most people stop at this point, but for the more nuanced observer there’s two additional rules for almost always guaranteeing a great Chinese meal.  If it has a 3.7 to a 4.2 on Google, it somehow probably has better food than the place with the 4.7.  And lastly, if your local hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant has started blowing up on Chinese social media, then you’ve checked off the triple crown for picking a Chinese spot.  And in Orlando, HuNan Taste is one of the few restaurants to do this.

HuNan Taste is located in Orlando’s Chinatown, a sprawling strip mall formerly anchored by a Magic Outlet store in Pine Hills.  If you’ve lived in Central Florida for any amount of time, you probably know the area has a bad reputation.  But far from most people’s notice, a group of Asian business owners have spent over a decade buying up cheap, abandoned storefronts and quietly constructing one of Orlando’s best Asian dining destinations.  HuNan Taste is one such establishment.

As the name indicates, the focus here is Hunan cooking, one of China’s eight main cuisines with its origins in the country’s south.  Like some other regional Chinese cuisines, plates tend to play with spice - though not nearly as much as Szechuan cooking - and tend to incorporate more sour, oily flavors.  

While the restaurant focuses on Hunan cooking and caters to a largely Chinese clientele, there are some American Chinese standbys for those looking to dip their toe in something more adventurous, but are maybe reluctant to fully commit on the most adventurous dishes.  Take the appetizers for example.  You can order the steamed dumplings - which are great and come in a massive order - you could go a step further and try the scallion pancake (more on that below), or you could go all-in and order their specialty, “preserved eggs.”  

Also known as century or millennium eggs, this dish is made by preserving eggs in a solution which forms a hydrogen sulfide and ammonia agent over the course of either several weeks or months.  In the end, you get a blackened egg with a jelly-like consistency.  This is probably the most famous dish at HuNan Taste, but it might be a tough sell to members of your dinner party that have never tried it before.

For mains, it is best, however, to stick with Hunan entrees.  Largely composed of meat plates with sides of rice, it seemed from a quick survey of the restaurant that this is what most other tables were ordering, save for the occasional addition of fried rice or a soup.

HuNan Taste is nothing fancy and the service can get a bit impatient, but it’s easily one of the best Chinese restaurants in Orlando.  So break outside a few comfort zones and grab your most adventurous friends who are willing to share a selection of entrees.  Who knows, a positive experience with the preserved eggs might be your gateway to a whole exciting world of Chinese regional specialties.

Reservations are not needed.  Expect to pay $20-$25 per person for food and less than $5 for beers.

Menu Highlights

Here’s a rundown of a few dishes samples from HuNan Taste:

Steamed Dumplings

These pork filled dumplings are some of the better ones in town and come in orders of twelve.  They make a great, crowd-pleasing option for sharing with a large group or having as the only appetizer before your meal.

Scallion Pancake

The consistency and crunch around the edges is there, but something is just missing from this dish.  At the very least it could use a sauce, if not the inclusion of more scallions or some form of meat.  Often brought out before anything else, you’re left with the option of either eating it alone or waiting until it gets cold.

Beef with Cilantro

This is not the actual name of the dish, but it came highly recommended from the server, who just pointed at a couple of beef dishes on the menu - none of which had English descriptions that really matched the ingredients.  Whatever the dish actually is called, you should order it because it had the most unique flavor of any of the plates sampled at HuNan Taste.  Mixing perfectly tender beef slices with an ample amount of cilantro, garlic, and peppers, this dish alone is worth driving to try HuNan.

Mao Style Braised Pork

A strong, though not terribly adventurous entree option.  This is a good dish and a popular one at that, but it’s pretty basic.  The pork cubes have a nice mix of fat and meat, while the sauce is delicious.  Still, if you really want to try a Chinese plate you’ve never sampled before, maybe look to other areas of the menu.

Lo Mein

This was only ordered due to a miscommunication.  And yes, this is about as basic as you can get with Chinese plates.  But HuNan actually makes a pretty tasty version that’s way better than anything you grew up eating from the mall food court and comes in a massive serving size.