Our very close family friends, Mr.A and Mrs.K, decided to arrange dinner with us in the lead up to Mr.N’s 30^th birthday celebrations and trusted restaurant guru, Mrs.K had something unusual in mind. I recall receiving a text from Mr.A a few days before the meal: “recommending any restaurant to you incites fear in me after reading your blogs!”. Really? I’m about as scary as a kitten in a tutu. Look, I don’t profess to being a “know-it-all-foodie” because actually, I don’t know it all, at all! I think everyone is a foodie to some degree or another, I just love writing about my experiences, simple.

Hunan is a 10 minute walk from Sloane Square and we battled through the icy chills of early March towards the restaurant. Mr.N and I were there early as always. The restaurant is intimately cosy with a minimal interior made up of the odd oriental print hung up on the crisp cream walls. We were seated immediately to the left in a tiny enclosed booth caged away from everyone else who were sat in the open area. “Oh no” I whispered, “we can’t see anyone, how am I going to observe people and write about them in my blog?” Mr.N thinks I should become a psychologist, he thinks I am obsessed with analysing people. I assure him it’s a girl thing. To be honest, it was surprisingly nice to not see anyone else during our meal apart from our waiters for a change.

Hunan has a unique concept and one that won’t sit well with the control freaks amongst you. There is no menu. A courteous waiter comes over to enquire about what you don’t eat e.g. beef, seafood, cabbage, whatever it is. You simply tell them how spicy you like your food and ta-da, they start bringing out the chef’s special tapas style dishes based on what you’ve just told them. Hassle-free, no-nonsense food. This is great, I thought. I am that annoyingly indecisive person in a restaurant who takes forever choosing what to order even though I’ve decided in the first few seconds of seeing the menu what I will eat- otherwise known as the “just need 5 minutes, please” customer.  I procrastinate, ummm-ing and aahhh-ing, trying to convince myself that this time I’ll choose the mussels over the sea bass and of course, the sea bass always wins so why do I even waste my time?

The bar is stocked with some of the world’s most premium wines with an emphasis on Bordeaux, Burgundy and the New World (Australia, California, Argentina). Mrs. K ordered the sancerre, a famously crisp and popular Sauvignon Blanc which went down so easy and  complemented our meal perfectly.

Less than a few minutes after we had finished our “food consultation”, waves of dishes started coming out strikingly fast, one after the other and getting bigger and bigger each time. The fragrant steam bamboo soup came out first, it had a squidgy omelette texture and it was fantastic. Next came the deliciously salty and garlicky minced chicken cocooned in a crunchy lettuce wrap. We had the braised ox tongue salad which Mr.A and Mr.N seemed to enjoy but I’m not a tongue person. One of my favourites was the chicken stuffed mushroom and it’s not a dish you often see in restaurants unfortunately. We tried the prawn xiao long bao (if you don’t know what this is, see my Din Tai Fung blog). We also had these gorgeously moreish crispy garlic and chilli sautéed thin green beans.

The stand out dish was undeniably the frog leg with Chinese chives. It was this fat little meaty and juicy drumstick. The other star dish was the sea bream in yellow miso sauce, we all loved this.

There were so many dishes including the steamed scallop dumpling, mussels in black bean sauce, scallion pancake with spicy radish, Perthshire grass fed fillet of lamb, chilli squid, bitter melon salad, spinach rolls, duck salad, sesame taro roll, sesame prawn toast and more!

For mains out came the crispy aromatic duck pancakes. We barely managed two pancakes each by this point and I’m a sucker for a good duck pancake. You know when you go to your grandma’s house and she just feeds you non-stop until her kitchen is empty and your stomach is full, yes? Well this was like a Chinese version of that visit to your grandma’s. Dessert was too tempting and we all succumbed to the temptation of deep fried toffee apple and banana fritters with vanilla ice cream.

I have to say that the service was seamless. After our meal I asked Michael Peng, the owner’s son, to email me the menu and without fuss I received the entire menu within hours of my request. As we were leaving there was a mammoth queue in the narrow passage leading into the restaurant swarming with peckish diners. It’s really quite extraordinary- how does a small, under the radar place like this situated so far away from the hustle and bustle of central London get so much interest? The power of great food, that’s what it is.

The infamously sardonic and one of my favourite restaurant critics, Giles Coren, wrote “I have long accepted that it may be the best Chinese restaurant in the world” when describing Hunan. I haven’t been to enough Chinese restaurants to make such a stout statement but I will say that our experience was truly gratifying and I would happily return here for an occasion. I love the variety, I love the generous portions and I love the f**k-it-I’m-paying-£60-a-head-but-I-will-let-a-stranger-choose-my-entire-meal thing!

We went for a drink afterwards to the stylishly upmarket bar, The Botanist, in Sloane Square. The place is just what you would expect to find in the popular Chelsea hub: glam Russian blondes, Kendall Jenner clones, debaucherous bankers etc. Eagle eyed Mrs.K managed to bag us a seating area, we were squashed together but we were at least sat down. All of a sudden this Rod Stewart lookalike swanned in carrying a poodle in a Louis Vuitton bag.  “What the f**k is that?” were a bemused Mr.A’s exact words. Pretentious Sloanies and their poor poodles was what the f**k that was. I don’t know who this man was but he must have been of relative importance considering he was conversing with almost everyone and his poodle was the subject of many selfies taken by some of the self-indulgent crowd. #poorpoodle.  It was at this point we decided to call it a night!

Food: 9/10  Atmosphere:  7/10   Value:  9/10

If this restaurant were a fictional character it would be…Batman- extremely giving but mysterious. You never quite know what to expect from him but the outcome of his actions are almost always for the best.