The cuisine of Hunan province is less well known here than some of the other Eight Great Traditions of Chinese cooking, though more famous than others — ever heard of Anhui or Zhejiang? It’s very different from the milder dishes of its neighboring Guangdong province, home of the Cantonese style, and is usually compared to Sichuan. Hunan dishes are “often spicier by pure chili content” than Sichuan’s, says our favorite encyclopedia, but less oily.
At ShiangMi, opened in January, dishes are rated with zero to three chili peppers, to indicate spice levels. Most I tried were 2s, and very few are 3s. I found all the 2s quite bearable on the tongue, not a test of derring-do at all, with plenty of room for other flavors to shine through, sometimes remarkably.
Personally, I’m always happy to see gizzards, jellyfish, and trotters on a Chinese menu, although I won’t be ordering them. It shows the place is appealing to an audience that knows its stuff. At ShiangMi, servers will readily tell you which dishes are popular with Americans and which are “Chinese popular.” One tried to steer us to fried rice and General Tso’s chicken, but we ignored that advice. Don’t come here seeking boneless almond chicken or sweet and sour pork; the emphasis is on authentic Chinese dishes, not American-Chinese.
Prices are high. But if you can afford it, you’ll be eminently happy with a couple of steamed fish dishes, each of which is big enough for two people. Steamed Fish Fillet with Chili Sauce is an enormous deboned basa, a type of Asian catfish sometimes called “panga,” served in a candle-warmed dish. It’s Christmassy to look at, what with the snow-white fish and red and green chilis, floating in a sauce you spoon over the faintly sweet-nutty meat.
Even better is Boiled Basa Fillet with Pickled Cabbage, a little closer to a soup — with the best citrusy broth. It uses lots of red chilis and the famous lip-numbing Sichuan peppercorns, along with bean sprouts; though you don’t see that much going on, it’s really a complex concoction, and throat-tickling at least on the first few bites.
I was also very happy with “Chinese popular” Braised Pork Belly. The belly literally melts in your mouth (I am using the adverb correctly), and it’s dressed with red, yellow, and green bell peppers, which should be dull but aren’t here.
Two-chili Pork and String Beans with Hunan Sauce is also fine, with the beans cooked within an inch of their lives, but it’s light on pork. And please do not go to a Hunanese restaurant and deliberately order bland, as I did to appease one reluctant diner. In the no-chili-peppers Steamed Pork Rib with Taro, the taro cubes had the consistency and featurelessness of over-boiled potatoes, with not enough pork. You’d think you’d uncovered a pork morsel and it would be more taro.
For appetizers I enjoyed Wood-Ear Mushrooms, with their weird rubbery texture and vinegary sauce. They’re decorated with lots of cilantro. Cucumber & Lily Bulb Tossed with Red Chili is very fresh, mostly cukes with the occasional sweet bulb for contrast.
Other possibilities are garlic shrimp, Steamed Dried Tofu with Chitlin, wind-cured pork belly (LaRou), and one dish I really, really wish I’d tried: Steamed Smoked Fish and LaRou. There are plenty of vegetable dishes, too; they run $18-$22, presumably enough for an entrée. The staff says among the most popular with customers are the braised pork and steamed fish dishes described above, and Happy Family soup, which is chicken broth with pork and quail eggs.
If you pre-order you can get clams, crab, or lobster, for up to $158 for a three-pound crustacean.
White or brown rice must be ordered separately, not a good policy.
The one dessert I tried was a disappointment: flavorless rice cakes in a sugar sauce. The sauce didn’t even penetrate or cover up the extreme non-taste of the half-dozen patties. It made me hesitant to try other desserts, no matter how authentic. In Tremella and Lotus Seed Soup, for example, tremella is a gelatinous jelly fungus, which sounds intriguing, but not for $20.
A short beverage list includes beer from China (“old Chinese craftsmanship, refined German technology”), Japan, and the U.S. Eight cocktails tend to the tropical, with passionfruit, chrysanthemum flowers, and pineapple among the ingredients, also a rye infused with black tea. I liked a “spicy, numbing” Mala Margarita with a salt rim, composed of tequila, Sichuan peppercorns, mango, and lime. It wasn’t all that numbing, but I liked the idea of more than one definition of insensibility through alcohol.
ShiangMi (the Mi is for Michigan) is lovely to look at, décor attempting to set the same standard as the prices. There’s a display of crockery in the foyer and pale blue walls in the big dining room, which features a giant screen with pictures of Chinese scenery.
Don’t skip the free hard candies in a bowl on your way out. I can’t read the label, but there’s a subtle layer of salt over the citrusy sweet, one more way to give the customer a tiny treat of a surprise.
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