Mission Hunan Serves Up Good Times, Family Style

Your typical rice plate at Mission Hunan

Me, I love a good family-style Chinese meal with friends, filled with great conversation, MSG, and good omens from fortune cookies. It’s a great way to catch up or just hang out and enjoy each others’ company when you’re all going through that whacky phase called your twenties, a time when your friends are your family. Mission Hunan is the kind of place I like to go for good times with good friends, at a reasonable price. Oh, and they have a table with a Lazy Susan. Gotta have that table with a Lazy Susan, otherwise there’s no way it’s authentic.

You might miss this hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant, located less than a block from the 16th Street-Mission BART. There’s not much to catch your eye from the street, and the inside isn’t much flashier (except for a feng shui enhancing fish tank). But that’s what I dig about the Mission: eateries with delicious, greasy food that aren’t trying to impress you with any frills. The atmosphere is laid back and open, with elderly Chinese couples, big Hispanic families, and overworked cubicle slaves all digging in to some quality Chinese food.

Entrees can be served individually or family style. They’re usually in the six to ten dollar price range and can easily be split between two people. Both the chows (mein and fun) are excellent, and you can’t go wrong with most of the meat entrees. For vegetarians, you can’t go wrong with the garlic eggplant. The exception is anything sweet and sour; their sauce is suspiciously ketchup-based. As for beer, Tsingtao and Coronas are three bucks, and Bud Lites are $2.50. And of course it comes in a frosted glass. They know what’s up. Hunan cuisine is known for packing lots of capsaicin into a dish, and Mission Hunan will turn up the heat if you ask for it. However, it hasn’t been spicy enough to satisfy some of the people I know with more masochistic taste buds. But since I do not view food as punishment, at Mission Hunan, the spice is right. So if you’re looking for a place to share some good food and good times with friends at a pretty reasonable price, Mission Hunan is worth giving a try.

 The world’s best fortune cookie.

Mission Hunan
2960 16th Street (@ Capp)
[Mission]
SF