Hometown Taste 乡味源 (Previously Hunan Restaurant)

This North County Restaurant Highlights One of China’s Gastronomic Centers | Eater San Diego

In Rancho Bernardo I saw a longtime Chinese restaurant remodeled and revamped as Hometown Taste, a showcase for regional Yangzhou-style (Huaiyang) cuisine run by Bruce Bu, who took over the space at the end of 2023 while keeping the previous waitstaff after Hunan Restaurant closed following 41 years. Bu, who ran his own restaurant in Yangzhou for 15 years before moving to the U.S. in 2013 and spent the last decade cooking at local spots like Double Happiness, Chin’s, and Taste of Hunan, is highlighting dishes he misses from home and introducing lesser-seen regional specialties to San Diego. On the chef’s menu I found standouts such as Shanghai soup dumplings, osmanthus cakes, and Yangzhou items like boiled dried bean curd shreds and “absolute sauce steak,” a tender, marinated pork bone dish; other offerings include dim sum, stone pot rice casseroles, chef’s specials, and an assortment of cold prepared dishes like chicken in rice wine and Mr. and Mrs. Smith (spicy beef and ox tripe in chili sauce). The menu nods to the wider Yangzhou tradition—known for Yangzhou fried rice, minced crab meat and pork balls, braised shredded chicken with ham and dried tofu, sweet-and-sour Mandarin fish, and pingqiao bean curd soup—and Bu says he hopes to eventually open a second Chinese restaurant in San Diego. - Helen I. Hwang