Suhan Restaurant on Heathcote Street in Nottingham has recently opened up serving up a lot of Sichuan , Authentic Chinese, and Hotpots. It is located in the same space that was formerly occupied by Hometown Cuisine.

I had often walked by and seen Hometown closed up but a couple of weeks ago I was passing and saw that they were sprucing the place up, so when I saw the ‘OPEN’ sign this weekend I shot in there to see what was going on, well actually I went in to hunt out some noodle soup

Southern Sichuan Style Braised Beef Noodle

I chose the Southern Sichuan Style Braised Beef Noodles, a very popular and traditional Sichuanese dish, both at home and on the streets. I was playing it slightly safe in that I know I like Braised Beef Noodles.

When this dish arrived the broth was so red it looked fiery, and that was before I had even started to delve into the depths of the bowl! Was I worried about the ‘heat and spice’ and whether I could handle it? well yes just a little bit, the contents of this bowl seemed to be swimming in chilli like Dante’s Inferno.

The base of the dish is doubanjiang sauce an often hot and spicy condiment, known colloquially as ‘the Soul of Sichuan cuisine’. The stock flavour is built up with that chili bean paste, sichuan peppercorns, cinnamon, coriander, star anise to mention just a few of the ingredients. I do wonder though if the soup stock base comes from a packet as I can’t imagine that they cook loads up each day when there is a massive menu. It would not bother me if it did though I do that all the time with the ones they sell in the local asian supermarket 🙂

There was a fair amount of fatty but tender braised beef sitting atop of the noodles, which were also plentiful and generous. I liked that there was half a vinegar soaked duck egg as well floating in the bowl, it adds to the presentation and also adds a little creaminess to the first few bites.

There were a few green leaves floating about and as you got near the bottom of the bowl you started to find more fresh red chilli and sliced scallion and other dried spices. Be careful you don’t want to chew a clove. If you use your chopsticks you are fine as you can navigate all those dangers, but if like I you cheat a bit and get a spoon to slurp stuff up with? well then you have to watch out for the odd bit of spice flotsam and jetsam 🙂

I enjoyed eating this bowl of noodles, it started off being quite a gentle spice but after a while I was sweating away, especially once I started to spoon up the broth. I might have regretted drinking so much of the spicy broth later in the day but at the time it was great

I would eat this again and highly recommend it

Noodle Dish Menu

After I had ordered I went back to the Noodles Dishes page of the menu to see what else they had , I was bombarded with options, too many to be honest. There were enough different dishes on there that I have not tried before like the Yibin Speciality noodles and the Chilli Oil Soup Dumplings, that I just know that I will have to come back!

I liked that the inside of the restaurant was bright and light, it felt very traditional . I loved the red tables and benches and I could just imagine it full of the local asian Chinese community on a busy evening.

It is located at 36-38 Heathcote Street next to Suede Bar and on the junction with Cranbrook Street and Lower Parliament Street. They don’t seem to have any social media but they are still linked to the Tripadvisor pages for Hometown Restaurant so that seems to be a good place to start to check them out