The suburban areas are full of Chinese restaurants, and sometimes it is hard to know which are worth trying, especially from outside appearances. House of Hunan is a name I have seen in various locations, and it looked as if it might be a small chain of restaurants. The House of Hunan in Edmond, though, has been operating at least as far back as 1995 (when it won a Daily Oklahoman Readers' Choice award), and is apparently independent from any restaurant of the same name in Oklahoma City or elsewhere in the metropolitan area. If the other restaurants do turn out to have an affiliation with the Edmond restaurant I think this would be a good thing for them, since I thought House of Hunan was far better than the average suburban restaurant.

Most suburban strip mall Chinese restaurants are constrained in what they can serve by customer expectations, that the familiar "Cantonese" dishes (which are really Americanized versions) would be available and that prices would not be too high. I think all the restaurants named "Hunan" also try to add a good number of spicy dishes. House of Hunan in Edmond has a good mix of dishes so that most customers can find what they want.

I was alerted by Boogie Y, one of my best souces for finding authentic Asian food, that House of Hunan also had a Chinese menu of more traditional (non-Americanized) dishes, and that this set it apart from most other suburban restaurants. It was a good thing I knew about the menu since the waitress did not volunteer the information. Over the years, though, I have discovered that it is usually a good policy to ask Chinese restaurants if they serve anything that is not listed on the regular menu.

Green beans from the Chinese menu

Of course the regular menu, with sweet and sour items and spicy Hunan dishes, is also available. The specialty here, though, at least on the "secret" menu, seems to be authentic Cantonese and Hong Kong style dishes, most of which are not spicy.