**** You can find an updated takeout post here.
The Missus has been craving some spicy Chinese food. Sadly, the state of Hunan and Sichuan cuisine in San Diego seems to have gone down over the last few years. Taste of Hunan came to mind, but in the end we decided on Village Kitchen for takeout. I've learned my lesson with ordering from Village Kitchen; online is never ready on time and there's an extra charge. When I tried to call in my order they answered in Mandarin and as soon as I spoke English, they hung up on me. So, I decided to drive on over. Hard to believe it's been a year-and-a-half since I last visited!
The menu these days is on QR code, which I'm very comfortable with; though some of the dishes were only written in Chinese. Luckily, the one person at VK I like, the former Server from Kangxi is Coming was working. She's wonderful! Sadly, the one dish the Missus wanted, the La Rou with Cucumber Skin is no longer on the menu. And after not enjoying the Eggplant and Green Chili with Preserved Egg the last two times we tried it…..well, the Missus didn't want that either.
I did find two dishes that I thought the Missus would enjoy, both with La Rou (cured smoked pork) and both featured crunchy, preserved veggies which is what the Missus was craving.
So I got the preserved dried long beans with La Rou and the preserved radish skin with La Rou.
The Missus preferred the version with the dried long bean as it had a nice salty "crunch" to it and while the pork was a bit overly chewy and hard, the smoky flavor came thru nicely. This was also much more spicy than the radish version, and the nice and pungent whole cloves of garlic went well in this dish.
We didn't enjoy the radish skin version as much.
This wasn't quite as spicy and the radish skin, while crisp, didn't have as much bright briny-savory-saltiness as the long beans.
Still, the Missus had been craving some spicy-smoky Chinese, so that's what we got. Man, I haven't been eating as much spicy food since the pandemic started, so I got those sweat glands going! Luckily the weather has been on the cooler side and the Missus got Her "fix" in!
Village Kitchen
4720 Clairemont Mesa Blvd
San Diego, CA 92117
This worked–pictures and all.
Post and pictures look ok to me. I’m kind of afraid to try this place since I’m not very familiar with Hunan/Sichuan food and can’t read Chinese. The radish skin sounds intriguing!
Thanks for letting me know, Wendy! I appreciate it!
If you don’t mind spicy/salty I think you’ll do fine Sandy! Thanks for letting me know everything is loading ok.
Thank you for the post Kirk, I also saw the pictures and am happy to get all your great foodie updates again!
This is the first post I’ve been able to see for the past few days but I can see it just like before.
Thanks so much Laurie!
Awesome! Thanks for checking in and commenting RD!
All good, Kirk — just like the old days! 😉
Interesting — when I posted the above comment, Typepad came back with an error, so I tried again. Then it came back with an error again, but it ended up posting both “error” comments.
Thumbs up, Kirk!
Hi Peter – Yes, I noticed that. I’d rather have comments posting twice then not at all….I can always clean up. Thanks so much for your observations and taking the time out to comment.
Thanks alnc!
Both the photos and writeup are showing up on my screen. Been missing your posts so thanks for the extra work it is taking.
glad you guys got your fixes even if a lot of your favorites are no longer on the menu
Thanks so much for letting me know Ko! I really appreciate it!
Yes, it “did the job” Kat!