Hunan House
| Address: | 32 Orange St, New Haven, CT 06510, USA |
| Phone: | +1 203-776-6663 |
| Rating: | 3.6 |
| Working: | 11AM–9:30PM 11AM–9:30PM 11AM–9:30PM 11AM–9:30PM 11AM–10:30PM 11AM–10:30PM 12–9:30PM |
Location
Photos 100
Reviews 6
A
A Private User
I dont mind paying high prices for good food, but Royal Palace is a disgrace. I understand finding authentic Chinese food is quite difficult in CT and should have known any restaurant claiming to specializing in multiple region cuisine is almost all ways a fraud. This place is no exception. We ordered s steamed flaunder which is the most basic Cantonese dish, and sure enough they managed to screw that up, the fish tasted like it has been sitting in the freezer for 6 months. The hot plate steak (another traditional Cantonese staple which should be seasoned with salt and pepper) looked and tasted like it was cooked in ketchup! As Chinese, I can tell you Chinese cuisine is so specialized by the regions that it is impossible to have any descent Chinese restaurant to be able to offer different regional foods under one roof, unless the restaurant has 2 separate kitchens and 2 separate chefs. Royal palace claims to specialize Cantonese and Hunan which is a huge warning bell from the start. The reason is that Cantonese is known for it’s mild light flavor with emphasis on fresh seafood while Hunan is know for heavy use of salt and flavor and famous for it’s spiciness. The 2 styles completely contradict one another and one would never find such combo in any restaurants remotely authentic. Unfortunately, my girl friend’s mother refused to heed on my warnings and insisted on Chinese. I had remote hope that for the price, we would at least be paying for freshness and descent quality cuts of meat and fish. The end result was that we paid $80 for 6 months old fish, cheap cuts of beef cooked in ketchup and some vegatble dishes that tatsted like hay. The waitress did apologize and tried to offer us some comfort by admitting that we should not expect authentic Chinese food and that this is a restaurant catered to “non Chinese”. One more thing, she also admited (under hush tone) that all of the so called fresh fish in Royal Place are in fact, frozen!
JO
Joshua Levinson
Reading about the owner of Hunan House, she wanted to bring "authentic" Hunan cuisine (I wouldnt have any idea if it was or wasnt) to New Haven, given the dearth of legitimate Chinese restaurants around. When you walk in, it will remind you of... just about every other Chinese restaurant youve been to, including its previous tenant, Royal Palace (RIP awesome crab rangoon). White walls. A few decorations. Its sparse. I called ahead and found out they didnt have their liquor license so we brought a bottle of wine (nobody else got the memo, sorry jerks!). They brought us wine glasses and we glossed over the immense menu. While it may have authentic dishes, it also has... I mean, just about everything. Theres probably a hamburger on there somewhere. I was torn so we asked the waiter what her favorite seafood dishes were, and we got them: the Fish in Hot Chili Sauce and the Salt and Pepper Prawns. Now, Im not sure if youve ever tried to eat prawn before, but it should come with some kind of manual. It turns out you basically just peel them open, coating your fingers in a nice prawn/salt dust, and then bam, you eat them. Its not a good look on a date, if you were wondering. Meanwhile, the Fish in Hot Chili Sauce, which is exactly what it sounds like, was actually pretty out of this world. Just the right amount of spice, and it just had this robust, deep flavor to it. We were both pretty enamored by it. For some reason, when it came time to pay, the folks at Hunan House totally forgot we were there, even though everyone else had left, but hey, we had wine, so whatever!
KA
Kam Siu
Order online to have it delivered through Grubhub. It arrived about an hour late. To their defense, they claimed that had a huge party order before us. But when you have a potential new big customer, delivering our food an hour late for a lunch interview is just a big no no. Our interviewee didnt even eat lunch! You may as well as kiss that customer good-bye because theres no way we can use this place for any future company luncheons. The food. We ordered an assortment of dishes. eggplant with garlic. seafood hot and sour soup. kung pao chicken. yang chow fried rice. general tsos sesame chicken. sauteed cumin beef. boneless ribs. everything was cook as well as it should be expected when you considered it was delivered. However, there were two dishes that they completely missed seasoning - yang chow fried rice and seafood hot and sour soup. Yang chow fried rice they were missing salt because it tasted like plain white rice. Hot and sour soup they missed the salt and the vinegar because it tasted like water. the chief must have been asleep on these two dishes. 3/5 stars is pretty generous considering the service i got. im willing to try them again if the opportunity arrives. but this place will not be on the top of my list of chinese restaurants in new haven. Its a shame because this place is one of the few that actually delivers in the new haven area.
A
A Private User
Hands down, the most disgusting chinese food that I have ever ate. Not only did I have a problem swallowing the food it was so gross, I still have a bad pain in my side. The service is non-existent by the way. Dishes were dirty. The wait staff either doesnt speak any English, or was really trying to get no tip. I mean the only word that they knew how to say was "yes". So I asked for a side of mustard, from 2 different waitresses and got "yes" but no mustard. Than - forget about complaining to the owners, they dont care. They tried to reason with me as to why their food was so gross and the wait staff was so terrible. Expecting that at least part of my meal be comped they gave me the entire bill to pay! I was so fed up with everything that I paid (like a sucker) just to get out of there. I think that ANY Chinese restaurant will beat this any day of the week. I dont understand the hype mentioned here. They must be working for the owners. This place should be shut down.
A
A Private User
I spent five months living in China and this is the closest to the food in Beijing that I have found in the East Coast. Royal Palace has the standard Chinese American fare like General Tsos (but done much better than a greasy hole in the wall) and for the adventurous (or Chinese) an authentic Chinese menu. Seafood dishes like my personal favorite ginger lobster are guaranteed to be fresh because the restaurant is right across the street from a Chinese market. Some nice authentic regional dishes are Honey Walnut Shrimp (Hong Kong) Peking Duck (Beijing) and many spicy specialties from Sichuan. While a lot of the staff dont speak English very well, they are still very friendly and accomodating. The owners are kind with a good sense of humor and often walk around making sure everyones satisfied. I have seen them handle the most unruly customers with patience and grace. A great place for a light afternoon lunch or a several course traditional Chinese dinner.
A
A Private User
My family has been going here for years and even though weve had off meals here before, it still is the best Chinese food in CT. I am Chinese and my parents who are very picky swear by the Water-Cooked Beef. Even though theyre not authentic, Ive tried the General Tsos Chicken and Beef and Broccoli and both dishes are many notches above take-out Chinese. However, when they are very busy, the service can range from mediocre to quite lacking. We have also noticed that recently, the freshness of the seafood is hit or miss. However, this is still the place we take our Chinese out-of-town guests to impress them.
