Sautéed beef with pickled peppers at Chef Jiang in Farmington.

For everyone who thought a trip to Queens was needed to get authentic Chinese food in the area: this one’s for you. Everyone who thinks Chinese food is lo mein and General Tso’s from a strip mall: you, too, because it is, and this place has both. I bet they’re very good. As for me, this was a chance to take a chance. To see if the name I’d heard somewhere, read sometime, fading out and then back into memory, could be what I hoped.

I was looking to be reintroduced to flavors and concepts I’d only had in Queens, yes, but also in New York’s Lower East Side, and Atlanta’s Chinatown. I found it again, fresh from Hunan, in Connecticut.

First, I had to get very lost. Your car’s navigation, like mine did, may tell you Chef Jiang is in the sprawling semi-metroplex of the Farmington Westfarms mall. You, forewarned with your excellent choice to read this article, will not spend 30 minutes wandering around and asking uncomfortable strangers inside where said restaurant is, and be repeatedly and incorrectly directed to P.F. Chang’s, which is another place entirely.

Chef Jiang is located in another strip, just before the big mall, and now that you can find it, you should go there.

 Chef Johnson Jiang, of the restaurant Chef Jiang in Farmington.

Although it’s possible, Chef Jiang is by no means a stand-up and take-out establishment. Tables run deep into the space, split by a wooden walkway. There’s barely a neon light in sight.

Pickled daikon, sugar-coated peanuts, and a large can of Sapporo arrive on my table immediately, a large step up from the men’s shoes section at the Westfarms’ Nordstrom, although I’m sure they had some very nice deals.

The menu, split between Chinese characters and English letters, is expansive, and helpfully heavy on photos. Chili peppers abound. Diced red peppers sprinkled with green onions cover a whole tilapia in one photo, a triplet of red pepper emojis elsewhere on the menu warn that the top of your skull may be removed via the stir-fried yellow beef.

Crispy cucumbers at Chef Jiang in Farmington.

There are many clues this is not your average weeknight take-out spot: sour & hot gizzard, leap frog in yellow pepper sauce, a “Fire Palace” preparation of stinky tofu, the Latin name “monopterus albus,” which my phone told me is a kind of eel, in a spicy clay pot. This was it, then, I was here. But how did this food arrive in Connecticut?

Chef Johnson Jiang grew up learning to cook from his grandfather, a well-known chef in the province of Hunan, China. Surrounded by amazing chefs and their love for cooking Hunan cuisine, he knew from a very young age that becoming a chef and bringing this wonderful food with him was his calling. 

Changsha shaomai (shrimp) at Chef Jiang in Farmington.

More formal culinary classes made him a chef in Hunan, and a Hunan/Szechuan restaurant became his kitchen in New Jersey before he and partner Mei Qin Lin, the decade-long owner of a small Asian grocery store in New Britain where many customers are restaurant owners, spotted a Farmington-shaped hole in the Connecticut Chinese-restaurant scene, and opened Chef Jiang in November 2021.

“The food in Hunan is known to be heavy in flavor, mixed with a handful of different spices and seasonings,” Chef Jiang tells us. “In China, Hunan cuisines are known to be “下飯” which translates to ‘good with rice.’ The best way to enjoy Hunan cuisines is with a big bowl of rice.”

What does Hunan cuisine mean? Hot iron plates of grilled shrimp and garlic, spicy shredded squid, and black pepper ribs. Griddle dishes of beef, fish, tofu and cabbage, and pork served in metal dishes suspended by harps over open flame. Cold plates of lamb in cumin, pork in garlic, bean curds and scallions. 

Spicy and sour ribeye pot in pumpkin sauce at Chef Jiang in Farmington.

A shredded kelp salad makes a fantastic start to the meal. Spicy soy and sesame sauce coat thin strips of firm, crisp kelp, set off by additions of cilantro and sweet red onion, the whole dish twirled together like a nest of fragrant, green pasta. 

Dishes popular in Hunan’s capital, Changsha, are represented by spicy braised beef, chicken and vegetarian plates such as lotus root, but I elect to try the Changsha shaomai: steamed pork dumplings topped with tiny, intensely flavorful shrimp.

Crispy cucumbers at Chef Jiang in Farmington.

I enjoy these so much I debate keeping the seafood theme going — maybe the steamed perch in soy sauce, or the whole tilapia in peppers?

The decision is made: a hot pot. Spicy and sour ribeye in pumpkin sauce arrives, served in a large ceramic bowl. The pumpkin is not overly noticeable apart from a rich, yellow hue to the broth, and the topping of lightly charred lemon wheels are the first thing to hit the nose, followed by sweet, sharp lemon on tongue. 

“It’s a little spicy, OK?” the server asks. 

Yes, that is exactly what I had been expecting with gleeful anticipation. Chopped habanero adds attention-getting bite to each mouthful. Sweet, sour and hot, with the umami of beef and enoki mushrooms, this dish hits most every happy button food can push. It is joy in a bowl. 

 The interior of Chef Jiang in Farmington.

Just when you think you’ve discovered everything this dish has to offer, you find a heap of glass noodles hiding underneath the buttery depths.

“So far, we’ve received a lot of love from this community,” Jiang tells us. “Everyone has been super supportive, we’ve been having locals back every week, which we love to see,” adding he realized opening Chef Jiang was the right choice when he saw people return again and again, joined by guests from other towns, and visitors traveling from Massachusetts to have Hunan cuisine.

I also think he made the correct decision. And I’ll be back.

Chef Jiang 1600 S. East Road, suite 6, Farmington 860-352-5353, chefjiang.com, @chef_jiang on Instagram Open daily for lunch and dinner Wheelchair accessible