While at a recent conference in downtown Atlanta I was lucky to find Hsu’s Gourmet, a gloriously old school American Chinese restaurant.  Depending on which part of their web site you believe, Hsu’s opened in 1989 or 1983.  Hsu’s on the street level of a parking garage building and, because it only has windows on one side which have closed shades on them, it feels like you are eating in a dimly lit underground bunker. As you enter the restaurant take a minute to check out the wall of photos of celebrities posing with the owner – Betty White ate at Hsu’s, as did Spike Lee.   Hsu’s serves the classics of American style Szechuan and Cantonese dishes and they have a great hot and sour soup which comes with fried wonton chips on the side.  This area of Atalanta is not great for food – a taco place with lots of fried food, a Hooters, a Hard Rock Café, a faux Irish pub… – but Hsu’s is really worth checking out.

The Dumplings:  I was there for lunch and the lunch menu includes Shantung Dumplings, fried chicken dumplings, vegetable steamed dumplings and wonton soup.   The Shantung Dumplings are your basic pork and veg dumplings with the option of having them steamed or grilled.  The grilled version is the classic gyoza style dumpling that are pan-fried on the bottom surface, and were juicy and quite tasty.  The menu describes the dipping sauce as a “Ginger Soy Vinaigrette Dipping Sauce”, which is just the traditional soy sauce and rice vinegar mix with a little crushed ginger. 

I also got the wonton soup which came with two shrimp and pork wontons in a clear light, but tasty, broth.  Both wontons were missing part of the wrapper (you can see this in the photo) and I suspect they had been pre-made and sat in a refrigerator, such that the skins had stuck together and then tore a little during cooking.  But the wontons tasted fresh, with the shrimp providing a slight sweet counterpoint to the savory pork.  The soup came with fried wonton skin chips to add to the soup, which I liked a lot.  When I first moved to NYC, wonton soup always came with fried wontons chips, but it seems like this is becoming less common these days.

The Location:  Hsu’s is on the corner of Peachtree Center Ave and Andrew Young International Blvd, with its entrance on Peachtree Center Ave.  The building is otherwise a parking garage.