| rev:text
| - I am a huge fan of Han Chinese Kabob and Grill. 4.5 stars for now but will start it at 5 because we had an overall great experience. I didn't grow up eating these types of flavors, and only when I went to western china for a summer as an adult did I really get exposed for the first time. When I got back stateside, I really craved these flavors! I really enjoy how diverse the flavors in Chinese cooking can be.
We arrived on a Sunday evening for a meal - plenty of seating available, but also a steady stream of people coming in to eat. Our small party ended up ordering a bunch of different types of food to try - it was definitely double what we could handle but we were happy to take leftovers home. Here we go:
Appetizers:
4 - Potato salad - cold, thinly sliced/julienned, lightly cooked/raw potato with chili flakes + peppercorn. You can get this as a main dish, larger, hot/stir fried. This is one of the small appetizer dishes that I missed the most from China! Very clean flavor as there isn't much oil. The flavor went well with...
3.5 - ...Chef's Noodle Special - cold, flat, rice noodles with a slightly spicy sauce (horseradish flavor) with julienned veggies + egg. It's a great raw dish. I really like the dish in general, but found this one to be a little watery w/ not enough of the sauce. We think it's b/c the veggies weren't drained enough of the water. It's also usually banquet size, but I think it's a good portion for this size of a restaurant. Probably shareable between 4 people. Hopefully they will adjust as this is such a crave-worthy dish.
4 - Tomato and egg soup - clean and delicious flavor, great on a cold fall day. Pretty standard flavor, but good nonetheless.
MAINS:
5 - Lamb kabobs - I have been craving these like crazy. Totally reminds me of the mutton kabobs we used to eat that summer. We ordered it spicy and it did not disappoint. After we placed the order, we could smell a wood burning stove in the back. Our guess is that they have one in the back for the kabobs. I checked in on yelp and got a free kabob skewer :) Ours was really tender. The dish comes with 6 skewers, but if you get enough dishes, it should totally be enough.
5 - Stir fried cabbage - this one has one of my favorite spices...prickly ash!! I love how these dishes are able to have tons of flavor while not using that much oil. The dish was crunchy. We noticed that both the cabbage and red chills had a char (again probably from the bbq) on the edges - so good.
4.5 - Tomato beef noodle soup - I have been looking for this holy grail. The sweetness of the tomato broth was a welcome break from the other flavors. Just keep in mind that it's not Taiwanese style - so the beef comes sliced rather than in shank form. I thought the broth was a winner though.
5 - Xinjiang LAMB - ok, definitely spicy and matches the flavor of the stir fried cabbage. By the time we got it we were really full. Definitely shareable between 4+ people. Lots of prickly ashhhhh and cumin seeds. As you may know, Xinjiang province is in western China and has a high Muslim population. (no pork!) so lamb/mutton is a huge part of the halal cuisine there. Such a different experience than on the coast.
3.5 - Pickled pork belly - we thought we were ordering something similar to the twice cooked pork belly (should've listened to the waitress!) but we decided to try this one. The main flavor on this one is definitely sour - they use lots of sour veggies with crystal noodles and bits of pork. It reminded me of sauerkraut. My palette is not used to the intensity of sourness so we barely made our way through and it felt off for us (maybe a hint of sweetness would have helped). Also, it's a huge portion and the ratio of cabbage to meat to noodles was off.
OVERALL:
We found this place to have really diverse flavors. We also liked that it relied more on spice + flame rather than oil, unlike some other nearby restaurants. Since I didn't grow up with the flavors, it was definitely an adjustment. But a welcome adjustment.
Service wise - similar to other Chinese restaurants. Don't be afraid to make eye contact and slightly raise your hand in the air - it's culturally acceptable. We had to do that a few times for tea and water. Otherwise, it's clean and cafe style.
Great place to come in if you want a quick bite too - we saw a few students come in for a skewer snack w/ the fried green beans.
Great first visit - we'll be back.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)