If you are wondering why the tribute to Mao, Hunan is Mao's hometown, and Chairman Mao aims to bring authentic Hunan dishes to Sydney. While Sichuan is more internationally renowned for its spicy and numbing dishes, Hunan actually takes centre-stage when it comes to the use of chillis in cooking in China. There is a saying in Chinese that "Sichuan people have no fear of spiciness, Hunan people fear it's not spicy!"
This is a basic but clean old-school Chinese restaurant with friendly staff who write everything in Chinese and have trouble using calculators. Good sign. The Hunan food is wonderfully rich and spicy - along the lines of Szechuan but it actually seemed less oily to me, just heavily spiced. Despite their famous braised pork being unavailable, I got lamb with heaps of chopped veges and chilli, a leek omelette, and some great fried rice. The dishes look expensive, many over $20, but they are large and I got about 5 meals out of $55 worth of takeaway.
Went for dinner on a Wednesday night with a group of 7 and a toddler. A baby chair was available.
There were a few tables but the place was not crowded.
The service was excellent, the waitresses attentive. We were not rushed through the meal.
The food was very good.
Honourable mentions include the house smoked pork with garlic shoots, stir fried egg plant,, stir pepper chilli king prawns, dumplings, steamed fish fillets with pickled green chillies and of course their signature braised pork.
The only disappointment was the smoked duck and smoked chicken dish. Their special spicy noodles was not to our taste although the texture of the noodles was very good.
Prices were average.
I would give it a 4 star rating and I will certainly return again!
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