Hunan Chili King

Los Angeles magazine listed this place as #2 on the Top 10 Chinese restaurants list. With so many places to choose from in SGV, that's quite a statement. I was with my parents and my mom is the Simon Cowell of Chinese restaurant reviewers. But to her defense, shes an amazing cook and has great taste.



We arrived on a Saturday at about noon, there were plenty of tables available. As we were seated, a plate of boiled peanuts and spicy pickled daikon was placed at our table. If this dish was a barometer of the heat level we were to expect, our mouths were in for a challenge.



A great thing about this place is the menu, it has pictures and English!! Yes English! But with my parents there that didn't matter, for future tho, it's going to be importante.



We ordered Cumin Lamb, Sauteed Frog, Spicy Chicken, some type of fried fish and a sauteed bamboo like vegetable. See even with a English menu, I couldn't figure out half of the dishes we ate. The frog dish tasted a lot like the chicken dish, surprise, surprise. Both were good, but trying to eat meat the with all little bones was challenging. The cumin lamb dish was my favorite, subtle cumin flavor, tender thinly sliced lamb with a ton of cilantro, chilis and scallions.



The bamboo dish was a nice contrast from all of the oily spicy dishes. The fried fish dish would have been good, but they were over cooked, bordering burned. The prices of the dishes were on the high side, but as far as authentic Szechuan cuisine goes, Hunan Chili King has that covered. The spice level is high and the service is decent.