Control freaks, look away now. For at Hunan, Mr Peng's venerable Chinese restaurant in the rarefied environs of Pimlico Road, where it rubs shoulders with eye-wateringly expensive galleries and antiques shops for people who have to buy their own taste, you're not allowed to do much deciding. You can't even decide what food you'd like. There's a barked question "Anything you don't eat?" but that's it. And you can't really decide how much you'd like to pay, either.
Years ago, when I lived in Pimlico, I also lived at Hunan. I got to score the seats near the window, not the ones at the dark, cramped back of the room. I was never patronised with a menu. And I got regularly shouted at by Mr Peng himself mostly, "Don't smoke. Filthy things. You kill yourself!" (yes, it was a while back). The food was a revelation, a million miles from the gloopy offerings of Chinatown. I had dreams about their hand-pulled lobster noodles.
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