CHAIRMAN MAO, who was from Hunan province, apparently said, "You can't be a revolutionary unless you eat chillies." I know this because it's stated on the menu in Hunan restaurant, Chinatown.
The drama takes place in an identikit Chinatown restaurant interior but you don’t even notice because the food is lighting bonfires in your mouth.
The Chinese young woman, also from Hunan, who was dining with us, said, "That man. He said many things, too many things." She was not being complimentary.
But she's beginning to be typical.
Up the stairs to Hunan
There are signs the subjects of the People's Republic are becoming less guarded about their country, and not just in Hong Kong, as Simon Reeve's BBC documentary showed on Sunday 19 October - click here.
Our guest's words made more sense when you realise the Hunanese suffered more than most in Mao's ideological modernisation which resulted in the Great Famine and the deaths of twenty million.
Mao is being reassessed in the minds of many modern Chinese.
Er...
Damn.
Look what I've done.
I've broken the fifth rule of restaurant reviewing.
Never mention terrible hardship or worse, famine and genocide, in a food review when you're about to professionally stuff your face. Sounds shallow.
So forgive me and here's a musical interlude to take your mind off famine.
Back to reviewing.
Hunan Restaurant on George Street is a cracker.
The colours, the flavours, the verve of the food make it standout. Of course, the drama takes place in an identikit Chinatown restaurant interior but you don’t even notice because the food is lighting bonfires in your mouth and dancing on the graves of bland rubbish.
There was one sour note, a beer braised duck (£12) which was horrible. This comes with an inverted beer glass containing a centimetre of beer, surrounded by heaped up food. You lift the glass and beer gushes out. You're supposed to be rewarded "with a summer flavour of freshness", instead it tastes like you've poured yesterday's stale, flat Carlsberg Special Brew on last night's Chinese takeaway, possibly after someone dropped their fag ash into the can.
But there was no more bad news at Hunan. None.
A very lush pig from the Chairman's table
Mao’s red-braised pork (£6.80), was a gloriously succulent, fleshy treat, lively, heated, and very easy eating.
But it couldn't compare with the spicy velvet crab Hunan style (£28) - one of the more expensive dishes but one that two or three people could use as a base to arrange other plates of food around.
This was magnificent and displayed all the bold heat of the regional style; they love chillies in Hunan. But in the stock here there was also star anise, coriander, garlic, cabbage, celery and more chillis with, of course, loads of crab.
Velvet crab gives its gifts
This was fighting crab, you had to tussle with hands and exotic implements to extract the meat. The rest you had to spoon up like a soup, it was thrilling eating although it took an enjoyable week or two to complete the whole vast dish.
The restaurant thoughtfully provided plastic gloves to stop hands getting messed up and there was a small forest of napkins required to avoid white shirts being soiled.
Almost as thrilling was the spicy salmon head at £9.80, again a rich, burning, blast of a dish that somehow contained subtle flavours too.
Spicy salmon head with an exciting range of pepper action
The rabbit dish for around £8 was good even if it was fiddly getting to the flesh, but better than the rabbit were the cold dishes. Hunanese food might be best-known for being scorchio but it can have great subtlety as well, especially with the veggie creations. Meat-deniers should try it out.
The stir-fried potato strips with red pepper (£4.80) and the kelp in soy sauce and garlic (£3.80) were both immensely enjoyable. The cold kelp worked wonders with the heat providing a mouth-calming exercise.
Kelp is at hand
The menu is a joy to read and invites return visits: duck neck, stir-fried Hunan smoky bacon with turnip, braised pigs feet with garlic and chilli, sauteed ducks gizzard, frogs legs, tripe with white nut and Chinese leaves, aromatic crispy pigs intestines, hand-torn cabbage with vinegar.
Then there was 'eye of newt, and toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog, adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting, lizard's leg, and howlet's wing'...oh dear, I'm getting confused with Macbeth.
The menu even sings of 'pigs delicacies' - I was too delicate to ask. And there's even a dish called 'ants climbing a tree' (£6.80). The Chinese will famously eat anything but I'm guessing this is poetic licence.
I will be back to Hunan very very soon. I adored the place and if nothing else it taught me never to put cold lager into hot food. And reminded me not to break the fifth rule of food reviewing.
Let's finish with more music. This from Chinese band, Hedgehog, reminds me of how my mouth felt after all the chillis: invigorated.
You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter @JonathSchofield or connect via Google+
ALL OUR SCORED FOOD REVIEWS ARE IMPARTIAL AND PAID FOR BY MANCHESTER CONFIDENTIAL. REVIEW VISITS ARE UNANNOUNCED AND COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT OF ANY COMMERICAL RELATIONSHIP.
You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter @JonathSchofield or connect via Google+
Rating: 14/20
Food: 7.5/10 (kelp 6.5, belly pork 8, fish heads 8, crab 8.5, beer thingy 5, rabbit 6.5, potato strips 7)
Service: 3.5/5
Ambience: 3/5
Potato and chilli strips and my gloves for the crab
Up to one's neck
