In a city with a remarkable number of Chinese restaurants, the original Peking — a locally-owned eatery hidden away in a converted Burger King on the I-55 Frontage Road — was our favorite. Whenever we ate there — and we ate there often — Mr. Joe, a jolly proprietor with a knack for remembering everyone’s name, would seat us. His daughter, Sherry, would bring menus, keep our drinks topped off, and chat about life in general.
After a steaming bowl of Dragon and Phoenix Soup, we’d munch handmade egg rolls (so flaky, you’d think Joe made ’em with pie crust) and dine on heaping plates of fried rice and egg foo yung. While a tiny buffet lurked in one dark corner, the made-to-order dishes (especially the shrimp with onions and spicy red sauce) were always the main attraction.
But years pass. People retire. Institutions close their doors. The day came when Mr. Joe sold Peking to entrepreneurs, and, for months, the restaurant went dark.
Peking reopened a few years back, and we still visit the new incarnation at least once a week. The cool darkness of the original is gone; today, Peking has joined the ranks of gleaming, shiny, neon-gilded restaurants that have popped up in every Southern city.
The star of the show is the buffet: two steam tables offering a modest spread of mushroom chicken, Singapore noodles, General Tso’s chicken, chopped steak, green bean chicken, and fish cooked in butter and paprika. A cold table (salads, fruit) and a dessert rack (soft-serve ice cream, cream puffs, and maccaroons, usually) are just steps away.
Unlike Sun Koon, the larger buffet just two blocks down that dishes up massive amounts of bland,predictable, prepackaged food, the Peking buffet’s operators love to surprise us. One week, the fried wontons were replaced by piles of smoked sausage and tiny steaks. The next week, the same space was occupied by stuffed shrimp. The next, fried chicken.
Instead of Sun Koon’s prefab trays of gelatinous California rolls (actually made, I believe, in California and shipped here on a slow truck), the Peking sushi bar offers fresh rolls made to order. The original sushi chef, who always looked trapped and unhappy, didn’t last long; now, the new owner and his wife do tag-team duty behind the bar, whipping up tasty crab sticks, fresh salmon, whitefish, and eel.
The bulk sushi, in addtion to the usual crab and California rolls, is also handmade, and includes the occasional surprises, too. I’ve never seen pimento cheese rolls, baked ham rolls, or assorted fried seafood rolls anywhere else. (I don’t eat these, but the spirit of experimentation delights me.)
In the end, we enjoy the friendly, energetic owners almost as much as we do their food. If you’ve been to Peking even once, you know the folks I’m talking about: this amazingly slender, hard-working husband and wife team are the heart of the place. He regularly polls our table for suggestions, brings us heaping plates of new dishes to sample, and even indulges my occasional request for a custom dish from the kitchen. She whips up sushi, manages the register, and keeps the staff hopping.
The owner has even turned us on to one of the restaurant’s best-kept secrets: the individual egg custard desserts are handmade on the premises, not frozen. If you spy them on the dessert table, scoop up as many as you can carry … they’re exquisite. (The Sysco pecan pie, a distant second-place favorite, ain’t so bad, either.)
Do we miss Mr. Joe? Absolutely. Would we like to travel back in time and have one more dinner at the old Peking? Absolutely. But we confess we also enjoy the guilty pleasure of the reincarnated Peking, where the dishes are hot, the kitchen is consistent, and I can still practice the two or three Chinese phrases I know with the very friendly, extremely accomodating staff.
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