Greenvale: Special at Hunan Taste

How I love this dish: shredded pork with dried bean curd and yellow leeks. It’s not on the menu at Hunan Taste in Greenvale; I discovered it when, more than a year ago, I requested that the kitchen make me something that the staff eats for dinner. I could eat this for dinner a few nights a week. The salty porkiness of the dish is tempered by the strips of dried bean curd (which has much more character than regular tofu) and the sweetness of the leeks. There’s very little sauce to speak of—just enough to moisten the white rice that makes a perfect accompaniment. (I’ve had this dish with chicken instead of pork and it’s still very good.)

You can see in the background two terrific vegetables—sauteed snow pea leaves, left, and string beans, right. We began our meal with a seafood soup that could have used a little more flavor (besides the salt), a good special appetizer of shrimp fried in bean-curd skin, meaty grilled shrimp and fried rice that, like the soup, could have used more oomph. (More pork?)

Hunan Taste is at 3 Northern Blvd., Greenvale, 516-621-6616.