Sumiao Hunan Kitchen

Sumiao is a really good restaurant in general and excellent if you like spicy food. I went with my roommates and they absolutely loved it. I enjoyed my dish, but I think you’d get the most bang for your buck if your spice tolerance isn’t as low as mine. Would recommend people to come here and try different noodle dishes.

This Hunan kitchen is different than your standard Chinese restaurant. This place has deep flavors and unique menu items that are worth a trip into Cambridge. The cauliflower is not deep fried, it's cooked in a delicious sauce to perfection and tastes amazing. The Sumiao Hot Dry Noodle is bursting with flavor in a bursting with spice and texture. This restaurant has a section on the menu dedicated to Beyond "beef" and the fire version is great! It's, again, loaded with flavors and spices that are a triumph. This place rocks and I'm looking forward to going back.

First the positives, the restaurant has one of the best thoughtful decors in the category of Chinese restaurants. Unlike those situated in Chinatown, nor like the westernized PF Chang, the design has an aurora of high end setting. You know it when the serving staff wear suits and dresses. Dish presentation is also quite nice, and an added bonus for giving out red pockets during Chinese New Year’s. Now the negatives: authenticity & price. We ordered Kung Pao Chicken & Deep fried horn pepper. KP chicken is a ubiquitous dish in Chinese restaurants and fairly straight forward to prepare. Unfortunately, it was overly salty and filled with pre-made sauces, like those from Panda Express (they aren’t bad if you are into fast Chinese cuisine). And the horn pepper tasted like it was draped in salt. The sample size was small but I was a little disappointed with the dishes. The price, being in Kendall Square and all, is definitely one of the highest priced Chinese restaurants in town. If you are on a budget, this is not recommended. I hope their dishes can get better. Decor and vibe attracts the outside, but it’s the taste of food that captures patron’s heart, or mouth to be exact.

Their owner is a smart guy in grabbing money, but not wise. We asked for a private room to minimize Covid infection, we actually got an open curtained space. But they charged me $75 room fee for that "room". Even worse, they added 5% admin fee, 3% kitchen fee. I bet you never heard of fees like these from a service business. I hope the owner give all the money charged to me to the server's who were really nice to us. I paid additional 20% tip on the food cost for the service of owner's employees. With such way of collecting money from customers, I hope such owner also treats his employees well. I ate there many time before, and I will never eat there any more. See the images of invoice I attached here.

If you like spicy food, this place is for you. You are welcomed by amazing smell as you approach the restaurant. We ordered purple yam bao which was delicious and scallion pancake which was flaky and nice. For mains we ordered a Sumiao hot dry noodles which was spicy and ofcouse dry. With chili oil it tasted lovely. 3 stars because I wasn’t satisfied with their cocktails. Lychee royale and common speech. All of the food we ordered were vegetarian/vegan

Super good Chinese Hunan dish. Hunan dish is spicy (careful) and they have enough spice to boost the flavor to more than just spicy. Cabbage * This one is pretty average Green pepper (novel) * Good flavored and it’s new to me that green pepper could be a dish by itself (should try this) Pork and spicy green pepper * Spicy, taste great but I’ll also say average Beef slice with golden soup (recommend) * Soup taste great, so as beef * Good enough spice to make flavor strong enough Salty egg yolk shrimp (recommend) * My personal favorite dish * Salty egg yolk and shrimp are such great combo (used to have salty egg yolk and pumpkin but then shrimp makes better) Century egg with spicy green pepper * Century egg tastes decent * Be careful with the green pepper … it’s extra spicy Chicken in chili oil sauce (recommend) * Classic Sichuan cold dish * Chicken is soft and flavored well