喜湘御 Yummeet Hunan Restaurant

🇨🇳 CHINA (Hunan)
📍 8450 Garvey Avenue, Rosemead, San Gabriel Valley
🅿️ Parking lot behind building
🥤 No Alcohol

EDITOR'S NOTE: The menu at this restaurant is only in Chinese, so those characters have been provided on the dishes below.

Since changing over from the previous tenant Hunan Spicy Taste, the new banner hung on both facades of the restaurant uses the same Chinese characters (喜湘御), short for something like "happiness Hunan royal." As of at least this past October, the new "Yummeet" is owned by a new group with new chefs, but continues the offerings from this province. Chapu Tea Bar also has a counter inside the restaurant, if you are in the mood for bubble tea or their other drinks offerings.

In the early days, an English menu was promised, but this idea seems to have been scrapped in favor of keeping finicky diners away that might ask for alterations to their Hunan specialties. While possibly shunning some business, this is good news for customers that like to experience foods from around the world because they are doing Hunanese food really well here.

If you do not read Chinese text yourself, grab your friends that do and bring enough of them to sit at the big tables with lazy Susans and share as many dishes as possible. The menu they do give you is hand-written and laminated, and spans a range of items from cold "snacks" to stir-fry dishes, soups and so many types of meats.

The meat dishes start arriving fast after ordering, ahead of their vegetable companions. Like at most Hunan restaurants, the braised pork belly dish of 富贵红烧肉 ($23.95, above) is a must order. Many times this is translated as Chairman Mao's red braised pork, but here they use a word for rich rather than that polarizing former leader. Either way, it is wonderful, and disappeared at record speed.

Shown in the order the dishes were dropped at the table, the second was the most expensive order of 紫苏焖鲈鱼 ($48.95, above), a large stew of sea bass braised in basil. After the braised pork, this stepped up the spice levels quite a bit, where they remained for most of the rest of the meal. Plenty of chopped up peppers were swimming in light khaki-colored broth, while big soft hunks of tofu and more firm fish are mostly submerged.

Besides the basil, the soup is full of peppery flavors, and has a smooth creamy texture. While it is a bit difficult to show the scale with these photos, the bowl is massive and quite a bit larger than every other dish. You can eat this with spoonfuls of rice or on its own.

The most surprising sip of the night may have been the broth of the 东安走地鸡半只 ($23.95, above), named for Dong'an County in Hunan Province. Often this dish is served cold, but here the free range chicken comes in a hot and spicy broth that is supremely sour from rice vinegar. The soup has scallions, ginger, chopped peppers, and numbing Sichuan peppercorns, and is extremely good.

Appearing much like Mexican dishes served "divorciados" or "bandera," the 剁椒鱼头 ($28.95, below) is a split fish head that is prepared with both chopped red and green chili peppers. This is another distinctly Hunanese dish with spices from the province and is cooked by steaming. The meat near the head is luxuriously fatty but the finished dish has barely any grease.

No matter what the region, a plate of shredded potatoes is always enjoyable from Chinese chefs, and the 香辣土豆丝 ($12.95, above) here does not disappoint. Since this is Hunan-style, it is of course heavily spiked with peppers, while the potatoes are cooked lightly and perfectly, leaving them crisp and chewy.

If the sound of eggplant, green pepper, and preserved egg together sounds good, try the 皮蛋青椒擂茄子 ($16.95, below), a dish served in a mortar and pestle. There is plenty of garlic and other ingredients that join the three main components, but you will not get a break from the heat of the meal with this item.

The first real chance to start feeling your mouth again comes with a bowl of 上汤小豆苗 ($15.95, above), which has more preserved egg combined with small bright green pea sprouts and ground chicken. By this time in the meal, it is nice to sip on the salty broth, even if it does not stand out so much. Once again, the dish has good texture combinations with soft egg, firm ground chicken, and crunchy sprouts.

The last dish of the night was another vegetable favorite, 小炒笋干 ($11.95, below), which stir-fried thin pieces of bamboo in other vegetables and chili peppers. Besides the potatoes, it was one of the spiciest dishes of the evening, but a real pleasure to eat again because of the combination of textures and tastes involved.

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