Yunnan Kitchen — Restaurant in Boston

🍜 Yunnan Kitchen Review - Boston 🍜

📍 Nestled in the South End of Boston at 1721 Washington St #B, Yunnan Kitchen stands out!🌟

🥔 Yunnan Potato Pancake: A crispy shredded potato masterpiece akin to a French fry pancake. A bit spicy thanks to my brother's heavy hand, but a solid 8/10. 🌶️🥞

🥩 Stir-Fried Beef with Long Horn Peppers: This dish offers perfectly seasoned thin cuts of beef paired with seriously spicy peppers. It’s a mouth-watering 9/10. 🔥🐄

🌿 Mint Beef: Thinly sliced beef with crispy fried mint leaves—light but flavorful, earning another 9/10. 🍃🥩

🍚 Stir-Fried Rice Cakes: A best-seller for a reason! Tossed with pickled mustard greens, pork, egg, and tomato—this dish is a must-try if you're new to rice cakes. 9/10. 🌟

🍗 Authentic Yongping Braised Chicken: Generously seasoned with garlic, tsao-ko, scallions, and whole chili—this dish keeps you coming back for more. 9/10. 🐔🌶️

🐟 Lemongrass Tilapia: Stuffed with chili herb paste, jalapeños, garlic, lemongrass, and citrus, cooked perfectly to score a flawless 10/10. 🌿🐟

🥔🍖 Xuanwei Ham and Potato Rice: Cooked in a stone pot, this dish offers delightful crispy bits of rice. Absolutely delicious! 🍚🔥

👥 Ambiance and Experience: It's a small space, but it packs a huge punch with some of the best Chinese cuisine I've had. And even while we were there someone in another booth said it was the best Chinese food they have ever had. The ambiance is simple, rated 5/10, which lets the food shine even more.

💵 Affordability: With reasonable pricing for exceptional food, it scores a 7/10 on affordability.

🍷 Tip: Share several plates with friends or family, order a bottle of wine, and prepare for an unforgettable dining experience.

📈 Overall: Food: 9/10 Ambiance: 5/10 Affordability: 7/10

If you're looking for authentic Chinese cuisine outside of Boston's Chinatown, run, don't walk, to Yunnan Kitchen. You won’t be...

Tried for the first time today and ordered the stir fried rice cake (not pictured). The food is legit. It's what I'd expect Asian food to taste like in Asia, so kudos for that. Can't speak to the Americanization (i.e. sweetend, salted, fried) of other dishes, but this one at least tasted authentic. The rice cakes are soft and have a nice chew, the pickled mustard greens were reminiscent of kimchee, and the blend of spicy and sour was dialed in nicely. Reminded me of a dish a Chinese friend made for me once. Of note, there was very little minced pork, so if you're craving meat this is not the dish to choose.

The reason it's not 5 stars, and the reason I won't eat there often, is the price seems quite high for what you get. It filled me up, but the ingredients shouldn't have commanded such a high price - it's supposed to be inexpensive street food. I'll definitely give it another try though, and they have a lunch menu that's slightly more reasonable. If you're looking for authentic Asian, or specifically this regional Chinese, then this is your best bet in the area. I wasn't disappointed with the food.

Update - tried a second time, ordered from the lunch menu (a bit more Americanized, but not to the extent of most places), beef fried rice with long horn peppers (see photo). Nice medium-low heat that was flavor-enhancing, beef was not high quality (a bit over tenderized, but not mushy). I liked the rice cake dish better, and again, the food felt overpriced for the ingredients, but it was tasty and the portion size was generous, more than enough to fill me up. Will be back to explore more of the menu, but it definitely feels overpriced

Visit #3 - tried the beef with pickled veggies. Flavor was good, but the beef was the same over-tenderized meat they used in the fried rice, low quality cut, which is disappointing for the price. I wouldn't order this one again, as I'm not a fan of tough meat that's...

Food was acceptable BUT, the service was horrible. Extremely unprofessional. Server and hostess were dressed in t- shirt and shirts, respectively.

The restaurant highlights the chef/owner's accomplishment and James Beard award and charges high prices for dishes. However, poor and unprofessional service don't warrant the high prices.

They remind me of old Chinese restaurants were the wait staff lack any sense of customer service with stacks of sodas in the dining area along with any other things that should be out of sight for a restaurant that charges these prices. This is exactly what you will see here!

If any restaurant wants to play with the big boys, they have to act the part. That is, they are trying to be a high end restaurant with a unique and uncommon version of Chinese food while charging high prices and highlighting the chef/owner's renowned culinary background BUT, they act like they are the corner restaurant with family members working the front of the house who appear to have just walked in off the street. The person who took our order, I'm not calling him a waiter because he has no waiter skills, was dressed in a t- shirt and after he took our order, he walked away. I had to call him back so that he could take the menus of the table. We also had to call him over to get boxes for the leftovers and call him over to bring the check.

Even though the food wasn't bad, I'll never eat here again because of the lack of customer service relative to its pricing. I get better and more professional service from places...