Hu's House — Restaurant in Town of Colonie

I check out Hu’s House’s menu online and when I saw tripe and intestines and jellyfish I was in! When I see all the “parts” on a Chinese food menu I know they’re not catering to the non-authentic diners. And I’ve been wanting to try jellyfish for a while now. Hu’s specializes in Shanghainese cuisine. But the menu is, honesty, ENORMOUS. Page after page after page. Something for everyone, IMO. You can eat vegetarian or vegan if you prefer.

I do have to mention the atmosphere/physical setting because we restaurant folk DO need to make an effort and I felt a distinct “lack of effort” when I entered. To whit: there are 2 fish tanks in the restaurant. One right at the door as you enter and one beside the bar. Both contain just a few inches of dirty water and dangling fishtanks heaters. They’re giving “abandoned.” Also just, basically gross in a dining space. I mean fine, have fish tanks or don’t. And it you’ve gone over to “don’t” you need to empty those babies out and get rid of them. They do not belong inside a restaurant in their current state.

The second thing is the bar itself. They’re clearly not using it/sitting it and have the entire surface covered with piles of napkins or paperwork or just “work stuff.” Also not a good look. Again, if you won’t want to seat your bar, then don’t. But clear it off, don’t have piles of random stuff all over the place. Put in the effort to tidy your spot up.

I was there mid/late afternoon, so it was quiet with one person handling the front. Unfortunately I had completely lost my voice and do nothing but whisper to communicate. But the ginormous menu also has pictures of every dish. So I was able to point! I have to give my waiter snap for refusing to let me order the spicy Szechuan Fish Stew because he said it was too spicy for my already struggling throat situation. I’m pretty sure he was right. He also felt duty bound to tell me he thought I had ordered “more than enough” food. Again, he was right. But I wasn’t trying to finish everything. Just try everything. And he was down with that. LOL

I started with:

Cold Cucumber with Garlic - DELICIOUS, fresh, I feel like garlic is particularly important when you’re sick!;

Steamed Shrimp Dumplings - served in the stacked, bamboo steaming baskets with delicious dipping sauce, excellent;

Steamed Vegetable Buns - REALLY GOOD. I never had anything like this before. Basically a dumpling made with the same dough you’d use for steamed buns. They were filled with spinach and mushrooms. Very good in the dipping sauce;

Jellyfish with Soy Sauce - Pro Tip: Jellyfish turns out to be pretty challenging to eat. It’s cut into really, really long strips. Like noodles. Only they’re not as easy to bite into pieces as noodles. So you wind up hanging over your plate with a mouthful of jellyfish strips trying to chew off the part that is hanging out of your mouth. I mean it was pretty good. But that was kind of too much effort for me!;

Vegetarian Duck. Yes, Vegetarian Duck. I was like, “I have no idea what that could be. I must have it!” I have no idea why it’s called Duck. But it’s really good. It is baked/cooked Tofu skin layered with a mushroom filling. Think something like lasagne only with extremely thin Tofu instead of pasta sheets and a chopped mushroom filling.

I was CHALLENGED by the Jellyfish and the Vegetarian Duck. And the challenge was entirely me trying to get the food into my mouth…

Then, after my waiter told me I was NOT up to Szechuan Fish Soup I ordered Singapore Noodles and Vegetarian General Tso’s Chicken.

Sinapore Noodles are very thin vermicelli stir fried with onions, peppers, egg, shrimp, chicken and ham and PLENTY of curry. I requested no chicken or ham and so got Singapore Noodles with only shrimp. They were delicious. Plenty of curry. I think next time I might request it a little spicy…

The Vegetarian Chicken was actually big chunks of fried tofu tossed in the General Tso’s sauce. DELICIOUS. HIGHLY RECOMMEND. Perfect comfort food for someone who doesn’t eat beef, pork or poultry but loves the General...

Updating this on 12/9/2018: We've been back several times since the initial review and the experience has ranged from good to memorable. We now engineer our trips to that part of the Capital District to allow for a meal at Hu's House.

Today's trip counts and memorable. I remembered a dish from the original 456 restaurant on East Broadway -- fish fillet wrapped in tofu skin, then fried. I had forgotten the details; my wife finally located it in the Hu's House menu. It was better than I remembered. The fish is wrapped in the skin, then deep-fried. Presentation is the two rolls side by side on the plate, a lovely tan color, the tofu skin crispy like phyllo, the fish meltingly tender inside. It is served with no sauce, but I asked for a small dish of salt mixed with ground Szechuan pepper (hua jiao) and dipped the pieces of the sliced roll in it. Heavenly!

As usual, we had the hot-and-sour soup and fried juicy buns -- today's buns were especially fresh with light, fluffy skin and savory filling. A dish of Shanghai noodles completed the menu. Sometimes a restaurant lives up to its reputation. Hu's House is in that small group. It also takes pride of place as THE PLACE for good Chinese cooking in and about Albany.

We went to Hu's House after I had run across a number of very positive reviews. We went at lunchtime. My wife is Chinese; I am reasonably up on Chinese cooking; we have eaten it in lots of places. And notably: One of our great longings is for good Chinese food somewhere near our present home in Scotia.

We ordered pan-fried juicy pork buns and scallion pancakes to open. We had beef with dried tofu & pepper (listed on the lunch special menu, but we had it as a full-fledged dish), salted veggie with soy beans and tofu sheet and spicy minced pork noodle. This is quite a lot of food for two geriatric types.

The buns were lovely -- just enough bun and just enough filling and a dipping sauce grounded in vinegar and ginger. The scallion pancakes were crisp and nicely tanned -- but not burned (as is often the case in lesser establishments).

The beef with tofu and pepper was a pleasant surprise. The spice comes from the peppers, but it is handled deftly. It is more something lingering in the back of the mouth to underwrite the richness of the beef and tofu in sauce. In short, this is not a fiery dish; the chef is subtle.

The salted preserved vegetables are mixed with sautéed beans and tofu skin sliced into noodle-like strips. My wife is the vegetable-fancier; I'm more meat-&-potatoes -- but this is a dish I like. The beans are crunchy, the tofu skin has a nifty texture and the preserved vegetables provides a muted flavor.

The minced pork sauce on the noodles was different than that I have had elsewhere. Chef uses red onions, and I confess I could have been happier if they'd been cut into a finer dice. But the flavor was nice -- solidly fire over the noodles -- just what one would expect from, say, a street vendor or small noodle shop offering what is a sort of Chinese fast food.

Both brown and white rice were offered; my wife prefers the former while I prefer the latter. My wife especially commented on her brown rice; she said it was cooked better, retained its nutty character better and so on.

The owner was previously on the staff of Ala Shanghai -- and is from Shanghai (unlike the current Ala Shanghai staff, as I have been told). He trained in China and is clearly very hands-on. His colleagues are attentive without being intrusive. Food came out from the kitchen in proper order and piping hot. The tea was red oolong -- a richly flavored and colored tea -- and the pot was refreshed quickly. Best of all, the staff were smiling; that is a good thing, since our experience has been that smiling happy staff produce better dining experiences, in every sense.

We don't eat out a great deal, but when we do, we want near-perfect. We had that at Hu's House. We ate to repletion (and had lots of leftovers...) for less than $50., and plan...

The WORST restaurant service i ever had in my life…and i mean every word of it!!! We went here for dinner becausw Hongkong bistro is close and i Ala Shanghai would be a bit of a drive from where we are and my kid is really hungry…we went here because the reviews are quite good.. i would say the food is almost the same taste as Ala shanghai in latham, same price as well…i usually dont leave any bad review for any establishment especially restaurants especially post pandemic…i tried to be very understanding and empathic to these owners but i just can’t let this pass We are seated in the corner where all sort of boxes are, the bar has an aquarium with moldy water, papers all over the bar, looks like the place needs some cleaning. There are two staff, probably the owners..i understand they may need to cut on staff and we waited patiently cause they look very busy…the guy is the server, cashier, order taker cleaner etc and the girl also does the serving and take outs…so we waited patiently for our order to be taken and serve as well as of the bill…the restaurant is not even full at that time but i guess if its only the two of you doing everything it would really cause staffing issues I ask for napkins and it took me twice to ask for TWO extra napkins. We were given one glass of water and was never even offered a refill until we left I ask containers to go, let me tell you i paid more than $100 for this meal…the guy gave me 4 small round black containers…i have four dishes to bring YES but the two dishes are big servings and wont really fit in the container…but the guy said i will do it, he tried very hard to fit the pan fried noodles to the rim in the small container and i tried to fit the duck in one container and it wont even close…i showed the guy it wont close but just ignored me…i dont know how much is that black round container that this guy wont give just one more despite me asking for it cause the food does not really fit I usually give a 20% gratuity anywhere i dine, i give tip to my cable guy, my hairdresser, i even give gifts to our garbage collectors on holidays because i appreciate all the service worker…BUT this place is the worst in service and they really made me so upset and gave me indisgestion…i gave a $5 tip, yes $5 for my over $100+++ bill…this is not my usual and this is the first time i gave a tip below 15% because i was really offended by this guy over one black round container despite us being so patient and understanding of the wait time and neglect we receive….AND the nerve of this owner to come out and follow me in my car and question why i only gave $5 and telling me it is not even the basic tipping amount, and i said yes i know it is not because gratuity is given for basic service which we did not receive..i have never seen such rudeness in my life…i feel offended and threaten by this guy from this restaurant, i could have called the cops for him following me and my family to our car and acting aggressively over tip he doesnt even deserve

We will definitely not come to this place…If you want the same food just go to Ala shanghai in latham, same food minus the rudeness...