A. THE PLACEGreetings from our favourite restaurant… anywhere.

[Kimberly King. July 17, 2023, Pimlico Road, Borough of Chelsea.]

Just an 8 min walk south of the SLOANE SQUARE Underground Station (Circle and District Lines), HUNAN is, to Kimberly and myself, unlike any other.

This tiny upscale restaurant serves serious and elegant Szechuan cuisine. [Ed. Note- Don’t be confused by the apparent cuisine contradiction. “Hunan” is an homage to a Chef/mentor that inspired the founder of this spot.. That was the father of current owner, Michael Peng.]

B. THE FOOD

Whether enjoying lunch or dinner, at HUNAN you simply advise the server if you have any allergies. From there, they start bringing out numerous tiny plates of deliciousness and amazement.

The only other input they request is whether you want duck, fish or lobster for the main dish. Our choice is almost always the same…

We have been fortunate to dine at HUNAN anout 10 times. We are so grateful to have the wherewithal to be able to travel to this spot. We take none of that for granted…ever.

This was our second visit this year. We brought our daughter Hannah in May.

C. THE STORY

Here is Hannah King sat at HUNAN on May 19: 2023. Note the location of the guest wearing blue at the table behind her.

It was from that seat a gentlemen stood up near the end of our lunch in May of 2016 and approached our table. He politely asked us where we were from in Canada. He then explained that he was originally from Montreal. He was a lawyer who worked in London in the summer and Argentina in the winter months. He explained he was dining with his mother who was visiting from Montreal.

Kinda cool.

Fast forward to May of 2017. We return to London, and, of course, to Hunan. Again we go for lunch. This time we are sat at the opposite front window table- the one where the lawyer was the year before. (For perspective, here is the view from that table taken yesterday.)

Mid meal I say to Kim, “I may be crazy, but it looks like the man and woman behind you are the lawyer from Montreal and his mother.

Sure enough it was.

It was a stunning moment. It still gives me chills.

I approached this time. The gentlemen was equally stunned. He explained that he lives close to the restaurant and his mother visits every May. However he added that he believed he had eaten at HUNAN on JUST ONE other occasion in the YEAR that had passed. Yowsa.

D. THE SONG

At first instance the song today would be obvious given the focus on China, I would select a song by the only band in my collection from Hong Kong. But I can’t. I will let you speculate as to why…

So, I have decided to do just the second randomized posting ever over the 562!days of gwilliamrexunderground365

[Ed. Note- The first was last August when I randomly met Carl from Florida (at a Tigers 🐅 game with DJ Drew) who was born on the exact same day as me! If you would like to see this post, let rex know.]

Anyway, the only caveat this time was the random song had to be by a British outfit. I hit random play m on my Plex system on my phone. [Ed. Note- There are approximately 140,000 songs in my collection.] The first song was by Mancunians A CERTAIN RATIO. It is a new song and it is a dandy.

Here is ‘SAMO’ from their 2023 LP entitled “1982.”

SPOTIFY- https://spotify.link/jzng3g0LxBb

(SONG 562)

Play Loud Or Perish

7/18/2023