Located in the affluent southwest side of Wichita Falls, Hunan attracts a large customer base with its upscale décor, large buffet, and extremely reasonable prices. Normally I find that this type of Chinese restaurant offers Americanized versions of bland and mediocre food, but having read good reviews of Hunan, I decided to give it a try.

First, the bad news (fortunately, there is not much to report). Despite the name "Hunan," I did not find a lot of dishes that were actually from this Chinese province. All the standard American favorites from various parts of China were offered (and the menu even explained that there were dishes from Peking, Canton, and Shanghai). The buffet was quite popular, and like most buffets, it contained food with MSG.

In ordering from the menu, though, I went with one of my usual favorites-- Family Style Bean Curd. There seem to be as many ways to prepare this dish as there are Chinese restaurants, and the one here had a better than average selection of vegetables, with some small straw mushrooms that I really enjoyed. The tofu was fried only on the outside, with the inside staying soft. I thought it might have been undercooked by a restaurant that probably did not receive a large number of tofu orders, but the fact that the outsides were perfectly cooked to a golden brown made me think this was actually the chef's style of cooking tofu. The sauce, though, was the best part of the dish-- it was light with probably a lower than average proportion of soy sauce. The sauce reminded me of the ones used in hot pot dishes in other restaurants (unfortunately, hot pot and other more adventurous dishes are not on the menu at Hunan). Overall, though, I gave the Family Style Bean Curd a thumbs up-- the sauce compensated for any other faults the dish might have had.

The Hot and Sour Soup was very good, with delicious thick crispy noodles served along with it.

One of the best parts of the meal was the brewed jasmine tea that had a very dark, almost orange color.

Most meals here, even many of the dinners, will be in my least expensive ($) category. With the high quality of food served, Hunan is definitely a bargain.

The smoking area is in a small room with a wall separating it from the main dining room-- I was not even aware that there was a smoking area until I approached the cash register. The restaurant was clean and service was excellent.