The Hot 10 2014: Hot Joy, San Antonio, TX (No. 7)

Chef Quealy Watson has never been to Asia. Everything he knows about Chinese, Japanese, Indian, or the rest of that vast region’s cuisine he picked up from cookbooks and the Internet. But who cares anymore? Authenticity and rigid adherence to tradition are overrated. Deliciousness is king. That’s the only way I can explain the wide-ranging, irreverent, and profoundly irresistible menu at Hot Joy. Twenty years ago, dishes like Szechuan beef chili with Fritos or dirty fried rice with chicken liver would have gotten you kicked out of culinary school. Today they’re called “dude food” or “stoner snacks” (or, as I like to think of them, the kind of over-the-top eats you crave after a long night of drinking). It’s all part of a growing subgenre of ethnic cuisine (see: Mission Chinese Food and Mott St) that, when executed with passion and skill, rewards the pleasure center of the brain just as much as some preciously foraged $100 tasting menu. The vibe also helps: Hot Joy is a helluva time. That, combined with its Chinese-restaurant-of-yesteryear pastiche decor, is what ultimately won me over. A meal at Hot Joy is a trip, whatever your state of mind (if you want to hang with the cool kids, go any time after 11 p.m., when cooks from other local restaurants head over to Hot Joy for snacks, drinks, and late-night revelry).