Positive Press

(Hunan Yuan)

Today, my family took me out to lunch to my favorite Chinese restaurant in California, Hunan Yuan of Redwood Road, Oakland. Szechuan Palace is my other favorite, but I’m not sure if it’s still there. In Park Slope, Brooklyn, in the late 1980s, they served the best sesame chicken on the planet.

I hadn’t been to Hunan’ in years, but we had one of the same servers from years ago. The people at Hunan Yuan are very kind and professional. I jokingly call it Hunan Juan, the world’s best Chinese/Mexican restaurant, but they only serve Chinese food.

The food was splendid: I ordered pork fried rice, and my family ordered sesame chicken and an eggplant dish. The fried rice was great, but not heavy on flavor but we didn’t order white or brown rice, and the fried rice was a great foil for the tasty sesame chicken and the succulent eggplant.

Afterwards, we headed down the hill to Piedmont and enjoyed Fentons, a storied creamery about ten minutes’ drive from our lunch destination. The ladies had sundaes, and I went with the apple pie a la mode (vanilla). The crust of the pie was heavenly; it almost tasted like a fresh buttery croissant.

I chose the pie in deference to my CKD, but did not eat much of the bottom crust. The top was delicious and the apples were fantastic.

Later, I got to hug my family before I headed to the freeway to go home. There was a terrible traffic jam on the way, but I got home unscathed, and grateful.

If you’re ever in the Oakland Hills, check out Hunan Yuan, and if you want death by ice cream, Fentons is the bomb.