The weather had cooled off a bit and the Missus was ready for some Chinese food......just not hot pot or skewers...like all those new places serve these days. Hunan Kitchen had closed and She wanted something with a bit of spice. So we thought why not check out Village Kitchen since it had been a while. We went with a bit of trepidation; we'd heard that they had lost kitchen staff and the cooks were now different.
The service was slow, indifferent, and perfunctory.
We started with what I consider to be the best dish at VK; the Eggplant and Green Chili with Preserved Egg.
Smokey eggplant; roasted than pounded into a creamy Babaganouj like state; with a decent amount of slightly spicy peppers and pidan this time around.
The Missus's Dad is from Hunan, so She really enjoys dried and preserved vegetables. Thus, we went ahead and tried the Pork with Dried Cucumber Skin.
The pork was hard and chewy and this wasn't very spicy though the salty-soy flavors were tempered with an interesting finish....that lightly briny cucumber flavor, which really helped to refresh and cleanse the palate.
The Missus loves Her La Rou; Hunan preserved meat and dried bamboo shoots, so we had to order that. We had started to notice that the portion sizes seemed to have increased.
I'm not the biggest fan of the smoked pork here; it's a bit too hard and has a bit of an artificial taste to it; but I do enjoy the crunch of the dried bamboo shoots. This was hitting the peak of saltiness which was amplified by the smoky tones. It was slightly spicy; but man having it sit overnight made it pretty hot the next day. This is a dish where you'll need a lot of rice.
The last dish was an old favorite; the Preserved Long Beans with Chicken Gizzards.
This was really greasy and gloppy and really salty as well. The gizzards had been sliced thinly giving it a nice crunch; but the long beans were much too salty.....the preserved green beans should be very briny; but man, this was just a greasy-sodium bomb.
So how's VK doing almost three years down the line? Well, the service is a little worse, there just seems to be a bunch of young people working with no supervision. The food now is not terrible there are several pretty good items on the menu, but it doesn't seem to be made with the same skill and attention to detail, though the portions seem larger. VK is basically all we have when we want Hunan style food; so I guess we're kind of stuck with it.
Village Kitchen
4720 Clairemont Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92117
:(
Posted by: kat | Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 12:20 AM
Kid's these days...
Posted by: soo @ hungryones.com | Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 06:30 AM
Yeah, not bad....but not as good as it used to be Kat!
Now you're sounding like me Soo! ;o)
Posted by: Kirk | Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 06:55 AM
You need some beer to wash down all that salt!
Posted by: Junichi | Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 10:28 AM
Have you heard the new restaurant Yummy House that took over Soho on Convoy? I saw their menu had tilapia in Hunan sauce. I'm also curious to try the place since they also have Peking duck that you have order one hour ahead.
Posted by: Elle | Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 11:24 AM
Which is what we do with leftover Junichi! ;o)
I've seen it Elle; but haven't had a chance to visit yet.
Posted by: Kirk | Tuesday, 30 October 2018 at 11:50 AM
That's too bad. =( I haven't been here in a while and was just thinking about revisiting
Posted by: Kirbie | Wednesday, 31 October 2018 at 09:11 AM
It's not terrible Kirbie....just not as good as before and that service was really bad.
Posted by: Kirk | Wednesday, 31 October 2018 at 09:15 AM