Yipin

70-72 Liverpool Road  London N1 0QD I've already been back to Yipin, which given the number of restaurants on my must-try list, is quite a feat. There are good reasons for this though - 1) the food is fabulous, 2) they're very nice and never empty but never too full, and 3) it's in my neighborhood. Above you can see dry-fried green beans and braised pork belly. Not pictured is the deep fried beef with cumin, which I liked but A had objections to as he's not a huge fan of cumin. On a different visit with my adventurous friend Paul, we went for some more off-piste items that definitely included quite a lot of offal, and we scarfed down every morsel. One thing to note - Yipin is technically a Hunanese restaurant, though they also include Szechuan dishes and some more "regular" dishes that you would typically see in a Chinese restaurant. I'm enjoying the trend in London of more specialised Chinese restaurants, as each region really does have very different flavors. I think it's just a level of care that people are taking with their food now - they want to see and eat things that they might not have had before, and especially amongst food-lovers there's a whole new vocabulary around ethnic food. Anyway - if you're curious as to what Hunanese food tastes like, go check out Yipin - you'll at least get an accurate idea (and hopefully you'll get addicted!)