{"id":4448,"date":"2009-03-21T13:07:07","date_gmt":"2009-03-21T17:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foodembrace.com\/?p=4448"},"modified":"2009-03-21T13:07:07","modified_gmt":"2009-03-21T17:07:07","slug":"march-20th-2009-dinner-review-hunan-lion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/2009\/03\/march-20th-2009-dinner-review-hunan-lion\/","title":{"rendered":"March 20th, 2009: Dinner (Review: Hunan Lion)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi guys!\u00a0 Sorry no post last night, I was feeling a bit under the weather and could not bring myself to type out a full recap.\u00a0 We ended up going out to dinner last night.\u00a0 I felt like going out with Scott and having a nice nite instead of staying home.\u00a0 Before we left, I had an afternoon snack because I was starving!<\/p>\n

\"snacky-poo\"

snacky-poo<\/p><\/div>\n

A slice of multi-grain bread with food of the gods, vanilla almond butter on top.\u00a0 And three apricots on the side plus I had one before taking the picture.\u00a0 Rocky also would like you to know that he had an apricot as well.\u00a0 A little while later it was dinner time!\u00a0 Originally I wanted some sort of pub\/bar style restaurant and was chatting with a local via Twitter about options.\u00a0 He recommended a place that Scott and I have been wanting to check out for a while but haven’t made it up that way yet.\u00a0 However we will soon because it’s a brewery (although a chain) and I would like to try some of their beers.<\/p>\n

\"Hunan

Hunan Lion <\/p><\/div>\n

We changed tactics and decided on Hunan Lion.\u00a0 The last time we were there, we didn’t really get to look over the menu in great detail because we were with friends who had been waiting on us to arrive.\u00a0 This time we wanted to be able to take our time and really enjoy the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\"fishies

fishies <\/p><\/div>\n

The first thing that greets you is the huge fish tank.\u00a0 We were lucky enough to be seated on the other side of it and were able to watch the fishies go about their business while we dined.\u00a0 I love the atmosphere of Hunan Lion.\u00a0 It’s absolutely the perfect type for Scott and I.\u00a0 We love nice quite places that don’t blast a ton of light in your face, blare crazy loud music, and where people remember to use their indoor voices.\u00a0 The two times we have been there, both have been on Friday evenings and we’ve not had to wait for a table.\u00a0 Perhaps we’re beating the rush?\u00a0 I don’t view this as a negative though, it’s nice to be able to be seated right away especially when you’re hungry.<\/p>\n

\"Scotty-love

Scotty-love <\/p><\/div>\n

\"It's

It's me <\/p><\/div>\n

(Fact: Both of us do not think that either of these pictures is very flattering or look like us at all! So weird. Maybe it’s the lighting? I swear I’m way more cuter in real life. ;) )\u00a0 YaY, fish tank view!<\/p>\n

We had a nice quite little table off to the side where only a few other people were dining.\u00a0 Unfortunately there seemed to be a group of 5 close by and one of the women had that annoying laugh going on.\u00a0 Not the kind where’s she looking for male attention, just an unfortunate result of genetics.\u00a0 Naturally she liked to laugh at everything, we tried to ignore her as much as we could.<\/p>\n

\"Thai

Thai beer, only choice for us!<\/p><\/div>\n

We noticed the menu had changed since we were last there and it looks much better and more professional.\u00a0 I would say it was a definite improvement.\u00a0 We were both hungry and decided on an appetizer and to split a beer.\u00a0 We ordered a Sing Ha (gotta represent), the server took the bottle so no pic of that.<\/p>\n

\"Mmmm

Mmmm beer <\/p><\/div>\n

\"Menu

Menu description <\/p><\/div>\n

Flip-flopping between ordering the bamboo shrimp or the Thai mini egg-rolls, we eventually chose the bamboo shrimp.\u00a0 We chatted for a bit and our server brought out the appetizer.<\/p>\n

\"Bamboo

Bamboo shrimp???<\/p><\/div>\n

Curious, those don’t look the same as the ones I saw previously.\u00a0 Those just look like egg rolls.\u00a0 We thought that since the menu changed that maybe some of the food changed as well so we really didn’t think much about it.\u00a0 We ate them, and I had 1.5.\u00a0 They weren’t bad but not fantastic like I remember.\u00a0 I also couldn’t find any hint of shrimp or zucchini as the description stated.\u00a0 Weird. If these are the “new” bamboo shrimp, then I would not order them again.\u00a0 A little underwhelming.<\/p>\n

Scott ordered the Szechuan Seafood dish with came with shrimp and scallops.\u00a0 He did have to ask about it though because the menu did not say what seafood made up the dish.<\/p>\n

\"Sounds

Sounds good!<\/p><\/div>\n

I ordered the Chicken and Asparagus with extra veggies at medium spicy.\u00a0 We both chose brown rice with our dinners.\u00a0 Hooray for places starting to offer brown rice!\u00a0 Another thing I really like about Hunan Lion is how accommodating they are regarding dishes.\u00a0 Meals that are not spicy, they have no problem making spicy for you.\u00a0 And the fact that extra veggies is an option, is a definite plus in my book.<\/p>\n

\"Szechuan

Szechuan Seafood <\/p><\/div>\n

Scott’s meal.<\/p>\n

\"Chicken

Chicken and Asparagus <\/p><\/div>\n

And my meal.<\/p>\n

That’s seriously a lot of food!\u00a0 I was amazed at how much food came with my meal!\u00a0 I had one very small scoop of rice and about two scoops of my meal.\u00a0 Along with a shrimp from Scott’s meal which was spicy!\u00a0 My meal was very flavorful and had just the right hint of spicy to it.\u00a0 However I did have an incident that left me feeling a little ill.<\/p>\n

My meal came with asparagus and I’m not sure that they trim off the ends either enough or at all.\u00a0 The last time I ate there, I bit into a very hard piece of asparagus.\u00a0 It was a small piece so it wasn’t too bad.\u00a0 I had forgotten all about that though.\u00a0 As I was happily munching my food and chatting with Scott, I had the unfortunate luck of starting to eat a large piece of asparagus stalk that was not cooked.\u00a0 It was the bottom piece and oh goodness chewing on that was awful.\u00a0 It was like trying to chew down a sapling.\u00a0 It literally took me several minutes to chew it.\u00a0 Scott wanted me to spit it out in my napkin but the napkins were cloth!\u00a0 Had they been paper, I would have spit it out in a second because I know it would just get tossed.\u00a0 But spitting food out in a cloth napkin just seemed wrong to me because those don’t get tossed (at least I don’t think they do) and someone would find it as they were cleaning up.\u00a0 Gross.\u00a0 So I ate it.\u00a0 Ugh guys even talking about it now makes me queasy.\u00a0 I couldn’t eat after that.\u00a0 I tried but if I had to chew something more than like three times my stomach would start to turn.\u00a0 I stopped eating which was fine because I wasn’t hungry anymore anyway.\u00a0 Not due to the sapling, just because I was content.<\/p>\n

We asked for the leftovers to be boxed up including the rice.\u00a0 You have to specifically ask for the rice to be included or else they will not box that for you.\u00a0 We also asked that the appetizer just get put in with the rice.\u00a0 This is when our server realized she brought us the wrong appetizer.\u00a0 She said those were the Thai mini egg-rolls and not bamboo shrimp.\u00a0 Ah ha!\u00a0 We wondered about that!<\/p>\n

We still had to pay for the egg-rolls though and she did not offer to bring us out the right order at no charge.\u00a0 I was a little crabby about that.\u00a0 Luckily both appetizers were the same price and the egg-rolls had<\/em> been a consideration.\u00a0 So I’ll get over it.\u00a0 Now we know what they are like, always look for the upside, right?<\/p>\n

\"Honey

Honey porter goodness <\/p><\/div>\n

We came home and settled on the couch with a movie and a honey porter.\u00a0 I only had a few sips of that though because my throat started to seriously hurt.\u00a0 Like swell up and it was very hard to swallow.\u00a0 Ick!\u00a0 I headed to bed not long after the movie was over (Lost in Translation, for those curious) and had a emergen-C before going up.<\/p>\n

I have to say, despite the appetizer mix-up and the sapling situation, our experience was a good one and we would definitely go back.\u00a0 It seriously is the perfect restaurant for us. \u00a0 If you’re looking for a relaxing and quite atmosphere either to end a long work week, or perhaps a special date night, consider Hunan Lion.\u00a0 Just test the asparagus before you eat it! ;)<\/p>\n

\"our

our fortunes <\/p><\/div>\n

Mine on top, Scott’s on the bottom.\u00a0 I don’t even know what his is trying to say!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi guys!\u00a0 Sorry no post last night, I was feeling a bit under the weather and could not bring myself to type out a full recap.\u00a0 We ended up going out to dinner last night.\u00a0 I felt like going out with Scott and having a nice nite instead of staying home.\u00a0 Before we left, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4KYWa-19K","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4448"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4448\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}