Huang Lou Xing - Takeaway from Hungry House

Although Hillsborough doesn't have many restaurants, it does have an abundance of takeaways. And we've been trying to suss them out, but we're already finding ourselves stuck in a bit of a fish n chips rut. So, when hungryhouse got in touch to see if I wanted to try one of the takeaways on their site, I saw it as an opportunity to remind myself that there was more to life than a chippy tea...

With Chinese New Year around the corner, hungryhouse wanted me to try one of the Chinese takeaways. So, one Friday night I invited the girls round, stocked up on some vino and plumped for a takeaway from Huang Lou Xing which is located on Middlewood Road.

The menu is, as with a lot of Chinese places, extensive, so deciding what to order wasn't too much of a problem. A bit of this, a bit of that and plenty of veggie stuff for the meat free member of the group. As hungryhouse have produced a guide on how to celebrate Chinese New Year, I also went with a few suggestions from there.

Apologies for the rather bad picture - I find it really difficult to make takeaway food look pretty - especially after a couple of vinos...

In typical hungryhouse style, the ordering process was pretty simple and the food arrived within the specified time-scale. Hell, the delivery driver even knocked on the back door as requested. (Honestly, you'd think some Sheffield delivery drivers didn't actually live in Sheffield...)

Onto the food... For starters we went for vegetarian spring rolls and sesame prawn toast (doesn't everyone?), BBQ spare ribs in light honey (the honey added a nice sweetness), and Mongolian crispy lamb (think crispy duck and pancakes but with lamb). Pretty standard (although tasty) stuff to be honest, but we were able to try something different with char siu roast pork buns and sui mai pork prawn dumplings. 

Although I've had dim sum on a few occasions, I don't think I'd ever tried char sui pork buns before. They were good - the big, but light, buns were stuffed with a sticky and rich BBQ pork filling. Sui mai dumplings were more familiar and quite a contrast to the buns as they were really quite delicate in flavour.

For mains we had a good selection of vegetarian and meaty dishes to choose from. Beef with green pepper in black bean sauce was dark and rich, but the roast pork in spicy Szechuan sauce lacked heat and was a bit disappointing for the chilli lovers amongst us. However the Singapore style vermicelli with mixed vegetables packed quite a bit of a punch and our other vegetarian options were equally pleasing. Bean curd with mixed vegetables and stir fried bamboo shoots and Chinese mushrooms were packed with freshly cooked veg - there was a decent variety too.

Overall we were happy with the food from Huang Lou Xing. Ok, it's not as traditional as some of the places in town, but, with a good variety of dishes it was a great choice for our girlie night, and one I'd use again on a similar occasion.

And... with Chinese New Year on coming up on 19th February, you might be planning your own Chinese feast! If so, you might be interested in hungryhouse's guide and lantern competition - check out the blurb below for details...

"To celebrate Chinese New Year hungryhouse has dived into the food and the traditions of the festival, to create an interactive guide to help you stage your own Chinese New Year takeaway feast in the comfort of your own living room. The guide includes information on New Year traditions, foods, a special Chinese do-it-yourself cocktail recipe, and it also features step-by-step instructions for people to make their own funky Chinese decorative lanterns to really get into the spirit of Chinese

New Year!

To celebrate the launch of the guide, hungryhouse are asking people to make a lantern and then share a photo of it on twitter or instagram with the hashtag #hungrylantern. hungryhouse will then pick their 10 favourite pictures and award each winner a £25 hungryhouse voucher each. The competition is now open with winners being selected on the 19th!

So get your chopsticks out, dive into the guide, and get snapping for your chance to win some free Chinese food!"

Oh and you might like to try hungryhouse's recipe for a Chinese inspired cocktail too...

Lychee and Peppercorn Mojito 

8 fresh mint leaves

1tsp Demerara Sugar

1/2 lime

20ml Homemade PeppercornSyrup

Ice - preferably crushed

25ml Kwai Feh Lychee Liqueur

25ml Dark Rum (Brugal Anejo is ideal)

In a tall glass add half a lime cut into quarters with the sugar and give it a really good muddle.

Tear up the mint leaves, add them to the glass and pour the peppercorn syrup over the top.  

Half fill the glass with ice and add the rum and lychee liqueur.

Give everything a good stir to churn all the ingredients around the glass to create a balanced drink.

Add a little more ice, and a dash of soda or tonic water to taste.

For a non-alcoholic version you can substitute the alcohol with 2 whole fresh Lychees and 50ml Apple Juice.

Happy New Year!