Hu's House

This was delicious! I can see an adventurous eater being in their glory at this place, I am not so much adventurous. I was able to try several dishes in my comfort zone such as steamed buns, Shanghai noodles and beef scallion pancakes. It was a last minute, ravenous impulse stop and worth it. The service was attentive without being overbearing and our meals was started with fresh tea.

I love that this place has lots of vegetarian options. Their steamed vegetable buns are quite popular nowadays and I loved them ever since I had them. Looking forward to trying out more dishes from here!

I check out Hu’s House’s menu online and when I saw tripe and intestines and jellyfish I was in! When I see all the “parts” on a Chinese food menu I know they’re not catering to the non-authentic diners. And I’ve been wanting to try jellyfish for a while now. Hu’s specializes in Shanghainese cuisine. But the menu is, honesty, ENORMOUS. Page after page after page. Something for everyone, IMO. You can eat vegetarian or vegan if you prefer.

I do have to mention the atmosphere/physical setting because we restaurant folk DO need to make an effort and I felt a distinct “lack of effort” when I entered. To whit: there are 2 fish tanks in the restaurant. One right at the door as you enter and one beside the bar. Both contain just a few inches of dirty water and dangling fishtanks heaters. They’re giving “abandoned.” Also just, basically gross in a dining space. I mean fine, have fish tanks or don’t. And it you’ve gone over to “don’t” you need to empty those babies out and get rid of them. They do not belong inside a restaurant in their current state.

The second thing is the bar itself. They’re clearly not using it/sitting it and have the entire surface covered with piles of napkins or paperwork or just “work stuff.” Also not a good look. Again, if you won’t want to seat your bar, then don’t. But clear it off, don’t have piles of random stuff all over the place. Put in the effort to tidy your spot up.

I was there mid/late afternoon, so it was quiet with one person handling the front. Unfortunately I had completely lost my voice and do nothing but whisper to communicate. But the ginormous menu also has pictures of every dish. So I was able to point! I have to give my waiter snap for refusing to let me order the spicy Szechuan Fish Stew because he said it was too spicy for my already struggling throat situation. I’m pretty sure he was right. He also felt duty bound to tell me he thought I had ordered “more than enough” food. Again, he was right. But I wasn’t trying to finish everything. Just try everything. And he was down with that. LOL

I started with:

Cold Cucumber with Garlic - DELICIOUS, fresh, I feel like garlic is particularly important when you’re sick!;

Steamed Shrimp Dumplings - served in the stacked, bamboo steaming baskets with delicious dipping sauce, excellent;

Steamed Vegetable Buns - REALLY GOOD. I never had anything like this before. Basically a dumpling made with the same dough you’d use for steamed buns. They were filled with spinach and mushrooms. Very good in the dipping sauce;

Jellyfish with Soy Sauce - Pro Tip: Jellyfish turns out to be pretty challenging to eat. It’s cut into really, really long strips. Like noodles. Only they’re not as easy to bite into pieces as noodles. So you wind up hanging over your plate with a mouthful of jellyfish strips trying to chew off the part that is hanging out of your mouth. I mean it was pretty good. But that was kind of too much effort for me!;

Vegetarian Duck. Yes, Vegetarian Duck. I was like, “I have no idea what that could be. I must have it!” I have no idea why it’s called Duck. But it’s really good. It is baked/cooked Tofu skin layered with a mushroom filling. Think something like lasagne only with extremely thin Tofu instead of pasta sheets and a chopped mushroom filling.

I was CHALLENGED by the Jellyfish and the Vegetarian Duck. And the challenge was entirely me trying to get the food into my mouth…

Then, after my waiter told me I was NOT up to Szechuan Fish Soup I ordered Singapore Noodles and Vegetarian General Tso’s Chicken.

Sinapore Noodles are very thin vermicelli stir fried with onions, peppers, egg, shrimp, chicken and ham and PLENTY of curry. I requested no chicken or ham and so got Singapore Noodles with only shrimp. They were delicious. Plenty of curry. I think next time I might request it a little spicy…

The Vegetarian Chicken was actually big chunks of fried tofu tossed in the General Tso’s sauce. DELICIOUS. HIGHLY RECOMMEND. Perfect comfort food for someone who doesn’t eat beef, pork or poultry but loves the General Tso’s flavors…