Hunan Slurp - New York

A little pricey but I really enjoyed the food! Taste felt authentic and very flavourful. We got the wintermelom with pork, stir fried cabbage, and shrimp.

I always walk by this place, and have made many mental notes on how I need to try it due to the inviting cozy-modern architecture and the crowd who frequents here.They were a Michelin guide recommended restaurant in 2020 and 2021, not sure what happened last year smh. I honestly don't know how that works at all so I could be so ignorant on that.I walked in without a res one evening and was seated immediately. Table for 1 perks. Menu is completely digitized, which has become my major gripe post pandemic but I get it. The menu is a bit confusing on how to navigate and could be improved.I got the Slurp Classic Lu Fen, and it was exactly what I was hoping for. The perfect amount of kick on the spicyness level and just an overall phenomenal combination of flavors.I don't even know how to categorize this noodle dish, but I loved it. There is no broth it is just like a noodle based bowl. I have overdosed on ramen a bit and this was a great switch up.

My second time was actually much better than my first experience. Besides the photos we also had the boneless duck feet and a braised winter melon dish. The chicken is definitely my personal favorite, we ordered medium spicy but think that we could probably go up a bit more. It's also great for taking the leftovers home and make noodles with it. The soft tofu rice noodles were flavorful, on the saltier side. The texture of the tofu made the noodles extra silky. The pickled string bean one could use more soy sauce, we just added the soup at the bottom of the chicken dish to the pickled string bean rice noodles and it tasted much better. Service and speed of service was much faster this time around, we last came here in 2021. And the kitchen had clear glasses so you could see into the actions. I think the only part is that the chairs aren't the most comfortable and it's only stools instead of chairs for the communal table towards the entrance of the place, those are really tough to sit in for a long time... but food is good!

Food is good, like really good, and quantities are decent.However, prices are super high. There are very little vegetarian options. I asked for vegetarian rice noodles, and they said I could have the pork and bean one without the pork. Fine, I asked if I could have an extra egg instead of the pork (it already said there was an egg in the recipe . First, it came with only 1/2 egg (if you say one egg in the menu, put the full egg in the dish! and second, they charged me for the extra egg. Like why, you already saved so much money by taking the pork out?? Why not make a vegetarian noodle option first?Anyway. Service is not great but food is good.Also, digital menu are a curse to today’s restaurants.

We reserved a table for 10 and were told that there would be a minimum spend of $40 per person.Overall the food was more hits than misses.My favorite was the duck tongue. The sweetness of the dish was a nice surprise. The pigs’ liver was well made but it was mostly “filler” veggies, and very little protein. The dry pot cabbage was delicious, but not distinguishable from what other places offer.We also ordered a very Cantonese shrimp dish, which was good but definitely not worth the price.The winter melon was bland, and their duck w/ chili and ginger might as well be renamed duck w/ endless sichuan peppercorn, because that’s what it tasted like (not a complaint).I thought the hengyang chicken was just OK, but some of my friends liked it.We also ordered some noodles (sliced beef, tofu, and pickled string bean) to share, but we didn’t like any of them. I did make things worse for myself by asking for my noodle to be made extra, extra, extra spicy. The heat was there, but it was the kind of spicy that you get from a ‘One Chip Challenge’, i.e. very very very spicy but not at all flavorful.The bill came out to be $50 per person including taxes and tips. With just one exception or two, the dishes were quite reasonably priced.