Our waiter suggested we get an order of the “Chef’s Fried Rice” — “Fried rice with finely diced pickled vegetables” — which was on the third tier of Hutong Miami’s $39 three-course brunch menu.
Located at 600 Brickell Avenue, the restaurant’s website claims this is where “Chinese ‘yin' meets Miami ‘yang’ - 100 year old Chinese bricks mingle with vivid pop-art colors, smooth dark chocolate mousse rub shoulders with heady Sichuan peppercorn ....”
Unfortunately, we found the place to be more “Yin,” (negative), than “Yang” (positive).
Take, for example, this fried rice dish. Although its origins are uncertain, it is believed to have been created in the city of Yangzhou (China), during the Sui dynasty (A.D. 589–618). And while recipes vary, it’s certainly not a complex or difficult dish to make. You’ll typically find included some chopped baby carrots, green peas, vegetable oil, eggs, soy sauce and sesame oil.
In addition to it being exceedingly mild, we couldn’t find a lot of vegetables in this mix. But despite it being more of a “taste-deprived” ... and “vegetable-starved” ... fried rice, it still rated a not-too-shabby “B-.”
[Again, I thought this dish should have scored lower, around a “C+” or “C,” but was outvoted. (It was a mound of utter blandness, in my view.)]
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