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Xiang Wei Lou is a small Hunanese restaurant located in a ubiquitous Asian plaza on Valley between Del Mar and New. It was just after the dinner rush, so we were quickly seated at a recently vacated the table. I’m not that familiar with Hunanese food, other than knowing that it’s spicy, so I was unsure of what to order.

We started off with a cold plate as appetizer: spicy shredded potatoes. These were crispy, garlicky, and had the perfect amount of heat for an appetizer, meaning it didn’t burn my tastebuds off. The potatoes could have used more salt, but other than that, I was pleased.

Next, we got stir fried string beans, which might seem like a boring dish. I like ordering this at Chinese restaurants because it’s a good judge of the chef’s stir fry skills. The dish itself is simple with only a few ingredients, but the magic comes from the high-heat gas burners in restaurants giving the dish the signature wok qi flavor. This version from Xiang Wei Lou wasn’t as oil-puckered as others I’ve tried, but the flavor was good and savory. Certainly better than anything I can do with my puny gas burner at home.

For the BF, we ordered a slight variation of the four-mushrooms hot pot. The normal version comes with ground meat, but we just asked them to leave it off after the waitress assured us that the sauce was vegetarian as well. The mushrooms were tender and I especially liked the stalks of the smaller brown mushrooms. For being such a mushroom-packed dish, it was surprisingly light on the savory umami taste — a good thing according to the BF. We ordered this dish medium-spicy but other than the couple of red chili peppers, it was quite mild.

Unfortunately, halfway through eating this, the BF found something like a half-dissolved bouillon cube in the sauce. It might have been chicken bouillon, but the waitress said that the dish doesn’t usually have it in there, so we couldn’t be sure either way. Suffice it to say, that turned the BF off of eating the rest of the mushrooms.

Determined to order something more typical of Hunanese food, I asked for a dish off the chef’s special section of the menu. I love most offals, so the spicy pig intestines with pickled vegetables sounded perfect. The dish was slightly more spicy than our other dishes, but still nothing to sweat about. Flavorwise, the intestines were delicious with an appetizing tartness from the pickled vegetables. Even though I was getting quite full, I couldn’t stop eating just one more bite of this.

Perhaps because this was our first time here, or they didn’t want to overwhelm the round-eye boyfriend, but nothing was that spicy. I was prepared for a roaring fire in my mouth. Instead, I got a puny 4th of July sparkler. Despite the lack of heat, all of the dishes were still tasty. We had plenty to bring home for leftovers. Xiang Wei Lou is certainly a place I wouldn’t mind visiting again just to try out a few more dishes. Next time, I’ll be sure to order the spicy eggplant which I later heard was fantastic.

Xiang Wei Lou (aka Lou Wei Xiang)

(626) 289-2276
[map]

Louise absolutely LOVES filthy, cheap places! (See more of her posts). You can also find more of Louise's writing at her own website NakedSushi.