China Hunan

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Less than twelve months after the opening of their glamorous Bondesque China Song in Monkstown, the veritable gallop of the redoubtable Ryon Wen and Ian Keegan, the business duo behind some of Dublin’s most interesting Chinese restaurants of recent years, continued apace with the opening of the fab China Hunan in D6 Ranelagh.

As always, the décor is spectacular, bringing blue skies to Ranelagh, by way of a cool rolling LED ceiling, set above dramatic black columns fit for Beijing’s Forbidden City.

They’re showcasing the food of China’s Hunan province here, a mountainous region in Southern China, which, nowadays, is a major communications centre, and when it comes to food, is right up my alley, the spiciest in China. Never fear though, there’re lots of mild dishes, and they’ll hold back on the really hot stuff if you prefer. Besides which, they also have Cantonese & Sichuan main courses too.  

One of the stars of the show is their tableside theatrics of Peking Roast Duck carved by Chef right in front of you. (This must be ordered in advance). 

It’s a very well thought out menu, well priced, giving the opportunity to have lots of smaller plates or platters. There’s also something for everyone here. For the more adventurous, the hardcore traditional Chinese dishes will appeal – lots of pigs blood, intestines, kidneys, liver, such Mr & Mrs Smith Sichuan beef offal slices with ox tongue, ox heart, and beef tripe; Hunan ‘Bandit’ Style’ pork liver with pickled bird’s eye hot hot chillies; or spicy stir-fried pork intestines with ginger, garlic scapes and chilli. 

Spicy hot & sour soup winked at me, but bringing us a spectacular amuse bouche brace of mango king prawns wrapped in golden strings of ketafi pastry, we kicked off proper with their colourful Dim Sum Platter sporting mouthfuls of heaven via a mixed mushroom dumpling, a Ha Gou crystal prawn dumpling, vibrant green spinach & chives prawn, and a black squid ink crabmeat and scallop dumpling. After those we polished off some French Baguette sesame prawn toast with caviar. Forget the little flat triangles of toast smeared with a paste, it’s sesame toast like you’ve never had before – chunky prawns encased in diagonal mouthfuls of crisp baguette. Our third choice was an order of tasty crispy duck spring rolls with deep rich hoisin sauce. 

For the fishophiles, there was lobster steamed, sauteed, or Typhoon shelter style, plus prawns and turbot galore. However, from the Cantonese mains selection we had another show-stopper – a large platter of steamed king scallops, each creamy mollusc sitting majestically in its shell, resting on a little nest of silver noodles, enhanced with the chef’s garlic, soy and scallion sauce. 

On the meaty side, Hunan-style stir-fried John Stone ribeye steak wafted past us in bowls perched on resting ‘golden cow’ bases. There was just so much more we wanted, so we went for the BBQ roasted platter with a trio of melt in the mouth crispy skinned roast duck, a square roasted pork belly, and honey glazed pork to which we added a bowl of noodles. 

We finished with what looked like black and gold cricket balls – hot rich steamed sticky buns oozing lava like chocolate custard.

They also have a Dim Sum menu available daily 12-5pm, and with Ian Keegan having been in the wine biz, there’s an extensive list, including Chinese wines.