Hunan Taste

As of June 13, Hunan Taste is closed. Looks like this place couldn’t make it at that Fairfax location. The place had potential but I felt the entrees were on the smaller side. One thing I didn’t like was they didn’t hand out the non-​Chinese menu to Chinese customers. What if that Chinese table wanted shrimp toast or chicken chop suey, lol.

This is where review scores fail me, as I can’t really assign a number value to this place. On one hand, I’ve tried several of their dishes and been sorely disappointed. On the other, I just cannot get enough of their fried rice! It’s moist but not soggy, just enough to give it the right amount of texture. Most Cubes places seem to dry theirs out far too much, but here it’s cooked just right. The Lo Mein and eggrolls are favorites too, but that’s about as adventurous as I get here. So what do I put for a place with only a few things I like and yet can’t quit? Hopefully my review here is enough, if you share the same love for fried rice and lo mein that I do then don’t let the number of stars scare you off.

food quality is good but overpriced. However, service is so bad and waitress doesn’t want to do anything and requesting more tips. The entire time the waitress did not bring us any napkins or check on us. We were not happy about that. We ate about $ 80 and left $ 8 tip. The waitress came over and counted her tip and said «your tip is not enough. We requested at least 15% tip at the restaurant.» what kind of restaurant is this? I have never had any waiter demanding more tips! this is ridiculous. no service = no tips! I think $ 8 tip is more than enough for your bad service. Anyways, I will not return to this restaurant and I will not recommend it to anyone.

Pretty authentic with a variety of dishes. The menu has more than ten pages. Good place for family or friend gatherings. They have huge tables that can sit eleven people. The manager is really nice. They have bubble milk tea too. Fresh seafood. Not super spicy in my opinion.

I was looking for authentic Chinese restaurant and one of friend recommended this restaurant
First impression of restaurant I kinda liked it
I will say nice interior with setup
Which increase my expectation about food
We order 8 different dishes
Most expensive one was steamed halibut $ 29.99
Ok all portion of dishes so small
6 people order 8 dishes nobody say «I’m full»
Check amount $ 160 wow never expected at Chinese restaurant
Ok if I was satisfy about food
I won’t say anything about price
Heres my rating
Atmosphere 4 of 5
Taste 1 of 5
Service 2 of 5
Price 2 of 5
All over 2 of 5
Not a great taste with overprice
Just authentic atmosphere interior restaurant
Won’t come back

Bland, tastless and won’t be back.
Got the fried rice and poo poo platter so I had a wide selection of stuff.
Rice was a big solid serving of weird small grains and plenty of shrimp and chicken but very plain. The chicken was odd too — like strings of chicken, never seen that before.
The shrimp toast in the poo poo platter was the best aspect but the rest of it was disappointing. The batterred covering the poo poo shrimp was partially uncooked (threw it away) and the egg rolls were packed with veg and no meat.
Rice had a lot of meat but just all of it was one bland flavourless experiance.
Most dissapointing — when ordering I had asked for extra soy sauce and got one packet, yes, literally ONE packet is all they sent, with a whole bunch of other sauces packets (duck etc). I tipped 15% on a delivery in the app and this was my first ever order with them so I have no clue why they did that?
Someone would have to specifically pick out just ONE packet of soy sauce and then grab a whole bunch of other packets to do this. Perhaps this was done deliberately by the delivery guy to screw around with me for asking for a little extra soy sauce but either it demonstrates extra ordinary incompetence or a very anti-​customer attitude.
Either way, its not the deal killer, the disappointment is with the bland food — I won’t be back and its probably best for you to avoid too.

Truly delicious! Adventurous menu’s! There is an Americanized menu and a more authentic Chinese menu. We had s hard time deciding what to order! We LOVED the food. Each dish was flavorful and well presented. Service was very attentive. Great find in Fairfax!

There are a lot of choices from the menu and food is good and authentic, but it is pricey and portions are average. Also an extra small bowl of rice is $ 1.50. If you are adventurous, they have many options to try turtle soup, frog dishes, and etc. The interior is nice and decorated. I would give the food a 4 star.
Not sure if this was a one time thing, their credit card reader was not working. We were not informed of it until we sat down and ordered. We did not have cash on us but they told us they believe the reader will work later. Unfortunately, it did not work later and my boyfriend had to drive back home to get his debit card. We definitely would have left and avoided this place last night if they were honest from the beginning. Not sure if they were just trying to get business, but the whole thing left a sour taste. We were not offered any apology from management or any discount at all.

I love this place, the food the décor and the price for a good Chinese food is fair. The people are polite and very helpful. Do yourself a favor and give this place a try.

I’m not a big fan of Chinese food, but if I have a craving for it, I would definitely come back to Hunan Taste. This restaurant should be located in Falls church or Arlington area not fairfax, where there may be more people into authentic Chinese food. The menu may be too exotic for people commonly used to ordering general tso chicken. The menu consisted of turtle soup, many frog, duck dishes and seafood. They also specialized in various casserole dishes. Also, all the ingredients seems extremely fresh.
The restaurant is new, so it’s super clean and loved the nicely decorated and cleaned bathroom. Not your typical Chinese restaurant. Service was very attentive but not suffocating. My only problem was there’s no drink menu of any kind… weird.
If you are in the mood for great authentic Chinese food, give them a try but ask for the Chinese menu and stay away from the typical carry out General tso chicken. You will be surprised.

Impulsively veering off course at the site of this establishment, we took a chance to eat at Hunan Taste Restaurant. Thankfully we were not disappointed. We started with our favorite hot and sour soup which we mix with egg drop soup and the waitress was most accommodating. Then we ordered our entrees, which consisted of Hunan chicken and beef with vegetables. Both were oversized beautifully prepared and arrived hot.
Only the take out packages get a lower grade because everything spilled on the way home.
A surprisingly good stop overall!

This location is the newer of two locations of Hunan Taste, the first one being located in Baltimore. Upon sitting down we opened up a menu that was THE most mainland Chinese ish we had ever seen in this area. Even the description of the restaurant was in Chinese only, proclaiming the restaurant to be truly loyal to authentic Hunan flavors and cooking styles.
Upon tasting the braised fish head with hot peppers (be careful of the tiny bones!), the Mao style braised pork, the divine incense mint pork, you will know why the dishes are priced at where they are. Having spent five years in China and eating good Chinese food, I will say this type of authenticity of flavor cannot be found in your neighborhood Chinese restaurant.
If you are not keen on the fat content of the braised pork or the tiny fish bones, give the mint pork a try and you will experience a flavored pork, slightly sweet, with fried light mint leaves to compliment. The fish head was really good though and a recommended Chefs specialty, not too spicy.
The service was slightly better than average for Chinese restaurants and although expensive we will be back for more. (the menu is huge and exotic).

First visit since its recent opening. Extensive menu of dishes aimed at the Chinese food traditionalist (translation: food here is less Americanized so some of you might appreciate this more authentic Chinese menu; typical Americans want General Tso and Orange Chicken… Chinese food = Cheap take out).
Not here. The food was actually good! The Fish fillet cooked in spicy chili oil was great. KongPao Chicken was good too. The servings were pretty good size and the dinning room was spacious and nicely decorated. Your date won’t think that you’re cheap! We hope to come back to try other items on the menu.

Hunan Taste’s décor is the highlight. Old world glam… chandeliers, table cloths, traditional furniture… A surprise for a strip mall restaurant in Fairfax. We ordered take-​out on a Friday night. The place was pretty empty – only 3 or 4 tables were occupied.
The food: Meh… Others captured my thoughts rather well. A extensive menu, full of exotic dishes but the cuisine/​taste left a lot to be desired. Also, it’s pricey… Too pricey for mediocre cuisine.

Decided to try out this new chinese restaurant on a whim which was a mistake.
We were greeted promptly at the door, seated in less than a minute. We were then handed the menu, given hot tea and complimentary nuts and pickled radish.
The menu has a lot of choices in it, they have pictures to make the selection process easier I guess. It is a lot and not everything is available and its also repetitive.
Anyway, we ordered crispy shrimps and tofu strips. The tofu was too salty for me, the crispy shrimps were in the freezer too long. Price wise its more on the high end, for some basic dishes. Nice interiors.

First thing I want to address: Some have complained about Hunan Taste’s prices, but honestly, this is not your standard Chinese takeout joint. I couldn’t even count all the chandeliers in the dining room. You should expect moderate prices if there are white tablecloths and chefs who actually wear crisp white uniforms, complete with toques (compare this to your typical Cantonese restaurant dining experience, where a glimpse of the chef or cook usually means seeing a guy in a white t-​shirt, sometimes soiled with bits of blood, and if lucky, an apron). This is a Chinese banquet-​style restaurant. You would pay very similar prices if you headed to Rosslyn and dined at China Garden.
Hunan Taste is quite a treasure, if you ask me. It’s one of the few places in the DC area where you can find authentic Hunan cuisine. Also, for the truly adventurous, they offer some medicinal dishes under the «Nourishing Diet» section of their menu that contain ingredients like soft-​shell turtle and pigeon. Not for the faint of heart, but probably a delight for the Andrew ZImmernesque eaters.
To get a good sense of Hunan cuisine, my husband and I shared a few dishes, though ironically the dishes that we ordered were all mild and not spicy, which is what Hunan cuisine is known for.
Dishes we ordered:
Cold, shredded potato appetizer
Steamed egg cooked with four flavors
Tea tree mushrooms with pork
Fish balls wrapped in lotus leaf
Garlic rice noodles with winter melon
My favorites were the shredded potato appetizer and the fish balls wrapped in lotus leaf. Both were very flavorful and unique. The shredded potato appetizer was surprisingly refreshing. Potatoes being so starchy can be rather heavy, but having it shredded and tossed in a vinegary dressing made it a lot more palatable. The fish balls were very savory and pleasantly not too salty as their Cantonese counterparts. The texture was somewhat dumpling-​like, which was interesting.
The tea tree mushrooms dish, served in a casserole pot, was also really tasty, though it contained pork, so I only nibbled on a mushroom or two. My husband was a fan, though initially being skeptical about the strange fungus. There were some chili peppers scattered here and there, but they gave the dish just a hint of a bite instead of overpowering heat.
The steamed egg cooked with four flavors was basically a giant egg custard lining the bottom of a casserole dish and topped with «four flavors»: ham, scallops, shrimps, and imitation crab meat. The menu description said nothing about the actual «four flavors,» so I kinda wish that was mentioned. I had some of the egg custard and the seafood but of course passed on the salted meat. My dining partner-​in-​crime said the dish was more flavorful if you took a bite of the egg and then a bite of the ham.
Some tips:
Definitely ask what a dish contains since the menu, as mentioned earlier, isn’t always too descriptive. (Many menu items, though, are pictured beside their name.)
Take some time to explore this menu because it’s huge!
Order a variety of dishes to share, or even a plethora of dishes, if dining alone, to experience Hunan cuisine.
The overall freshness and quality of the food that we tried yesterday was quite impressive. Also, service was top-​notch. Our servers, though not fluent in English, were very attentive, helpful, and courteous.
So in sum, the higher prices (not really higher, just normal for this kind of experience) are totally worth it. The amount of care taken in preparing these dishes makes those price tags totally fair. And how do you think the owner will pay for the small army of highly skilled and professional chefs in the kitchen? Yeah…

I came here for lunch with my family and loved it. The food is fantastic and very authentic. The service is great.
We got their special of the day soup: braised fish with tofu soup. Well made. Seasoned well, lots of soft tofu and the fish is very fresh.
My favorite was the egg pancake with sponge cucumber veggie dish, eggplant in clay pot and spicy chanzui frog.
They have so many authentic Hunan dishes here. Have to come back and try their hot pot dishes next time.

The Good: The food was among the best and most authentic Chinese meals I’ve had in the DC area. The selection was extensive, and the meat dishes were particularly good. We had three different pork belly dishes at our table, and all were great. Even the intestines (of which I“m not normally a fan) were so flavorful and crispy, I forgot what I was eating. The atmosphere was also pleasant and authentic.
The Bad: First, the prices are a bit steep. Not overly so, but for a casual Chinese restaurant in a suburban strip mall, they were an outlier. Second, they only take 2 credit cards per table. So my table with 3 couples was left to awkwardly decide which couple was paying for which (because, who carries cash?). When we asked them to take the third card, we got a relatively harsh reply from the manager, stating «First, if this were a Vietnamese restaurant we wouldn’t even take credit cards. Second, we can’t let a table of 50 people use 50 different cards.» 3=50, apparently. Third, most of the plates and bowls we received were dirty, and some even had what looked like cigarette ashes in them. When we brought it to the manager’s attention, he told us that it was the dishwasher’s problem, so don’t blame him.
Bottom line: The food was good but it was not worth the high price or the defensive manager who doesn’t think you should expect clean dishes.

Chose this restaurant because they were open late… mistake 1
Not only did my order come out to $ 30 for chicken and broccoli and general tsao chicken
My chicken broccoli. Was not cooked and had no sauce
By the time I got home to see that meal wasn’t prepared the restaurant had closed
DO NOT COME HERE

We tried out Hunan Taste this past Saturday with a group and it was only A-​OK. We got a few of the standard Chinese dishes which they got right but the one thing they didn’t get right was the fish. We ordered an entire steamed fish and it looked great, but tasted extremely «fishy» which meant that the fish was not fresh. The fish was also $ 29.95 which also on the pricey side.
Also, it was clear that Hunan Taste was working out the kinks with its service. There were 12 tables and only 2 – 3 servers helping out. The food and drinks took a while to come out and you had to flag down a server for any refills on tea or rice.
One thing I noticed was that the tables were too tightly packed together. This layout made only the job of the servers difficult as they had to walk around tables to get to the ones in the corner.
Summary:
— Traditional Chinese Entrees in the $ 15 range
— Fish was «fishy» and not fresh
— Food was overall decent
— Located in a strip mall with ample parking
— Need to work on having more servers and seating arrangement
— Lavish decour
— Extensive Menu with Pictures. However, could be organized better.