[REVIEW] Hunan Dynasty, Levittown

Hunan Dynasty Chinese Restaurant in Levittown, NY

When it comes to finding a good neighborhood Chinese restaurant, usually you get the same old same old, and they tend to cater to the lowest common denominator.  We would classify Hunan Dynasty as a neighborhood Chinese restaurant.  And as far as neighborhood Chinese restaurants go, this one in my humble opinion was above average.  Typically in these types of restaurants, you find bland, “safe” dishes.  The dishes we had this evening had a nice taste to it, the presentation was above average, and the wait staff was friendly and eager to please.

Hunan Dynasty is located in a large strip mall anchored by the Tri-County Flea Market at 2993 Hempstead Turnpike, Levittown, NY 11756.

By today’s standards for neighborhood Chinese restaurants, it’s VERY large.  And there was quite a good number of diners for a Wednesday night, and a good flow of patrons coming in to pick up take-out orders.

They must have known that were could be a little, shall we say, boisterous at times?  Well, boys will be boys, and thankfully, I guess, they sat us in the back half of the restaurant, up a few steps.  We had our separation from the other patrons, and enough privacy to allow us to just be ourselves, and we got the complete attention of our servers.  Wei (pronounced “Wee”) was very happy to serve us, and took great joy in planning out an authentic Chinese meal for us.

My one recommendation when ordering is to stick with the seafood and vegetable dishes.  Those were oh so good.  The beef and chicken?  Not so much.

They had the usual assortment of drinks (red and white wine, Tsingtao beer, and of course, my favorite, Mai Tai (the more I have the better EVERYTHING looks 😉 ).  While Wei pondered what to make of us, we placed an order for our standard starter dish, spare ribs.  We were an odd number, so figuring out the correct size to order.  Of course, being Jews, we factored out the cost per rib, and concluded that two LARGE orders of spare ribs was most cost effective.  Figuring that we could take home whatever we couldn’t finish.  It should be noted that there were NO spare ribs left over.  They weren’t sweet.  They were greasy.  But, the Mee’s seemed to enjoy them heartily.  Thank goodness someone (probably the Chinese) invented wet-naps.  I think I’m going to have to research the origin of wet-naps and write a future article on the subject.

By the time that we devoured the spare ribs, and were working on our second round, Wei lined up the following assortment of dishes for us.  She did ask if we wanted them brought out all at once, or if she should stagger them so we could try each one separately.  We opted for the latter.  But, got the former.  Go figure!

Here’s what we ate:

• The aforementioned spare ribs

• Hunan Jumbo Shrimp (pictured) – I loved this dish!  Nice Hunan spicy taste, succulent shrimp, tasty veggies.  What wasn’t to like?

• House Steak (pictured) – A pepper steak.  Mee thiniks that the Chef accidentally dropped the entire pepper shaker in to the wok.  This was too overwhelming with the pepper, and perhaps the Chef was trying to fish some of the pepper out and was having a hard time as this dish seemed to be overcooked too.  It did have a nice sizzle and aroma when it came out.  The taste didn’t match.  Sometimes it just isn’t the sizzle that sells the steak.

• Chicken w/Garlic Sauce – Umm, Did you pay attention to what I wrote earlier about sticking to their seafood and vegetable dishes?  Well, if not, jump right to the next two items we were served.

• Ginger Scallion Lobster – HOMERUN!  I could have eaten the entire lobster if the other Mee’s could have kept their forks out of the serving dish. Oh well, I liked the tasty morsels that I managed to get.
• Sauteed String Beans, Eggplant, Broccoli w/Garlic Sauce – Clearly they like to use garlic in their dishes.  And these veggies were off the hook.  Lovely dish.  Nicely presented too.

• Yong Chow Fried Rice – It was fried rice.  Not dry.  But, nothing extraordinary.

Dessert was on the house… five scoops of ice cream (two of pistachio, and one each of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry — have you voted in our poll regarding ice cream?), a little bit of orange (not enough to go around), and Fortune Cookies (see below).  Now, we had no real intention of ordering ice cream (as we planned of course to have the buy one get one sundae free at Carvel’s.  But, free IS free!  And we couldn’t pass up buy one get one free at Carvel either…. so, umm, I’m stuffed beyond belief, and I couldn’t finish my Carvel sundae.   Yes, I know.  THAT is a sin!

Here are our Fortune’s:

Your income will increase.

Confidence isn’t something that you get.  It’s something that you are.

A person is not wise simply because one talks a lot.

Constant grinding can turn an iron rod into a needle.

Every day there’s sad news, but each day itself is glad news.

Here is our rating of Hunan Dynasty Chinese Restaurant:

Humbly submitted for your consumption,

—Mee Magnum  (“Chop!  Chop!”)