Peking Gourmet Inn

I want you to commit this name to memory, Peking Gourmet Inn. Tattoo it on your arm, send yourself an email reminder, do whatever you must do to sear this name in your memory. I tell you this so that if you are ever in the Washington, DC area, make sure you visit this restaurant. Peking Gourmet Inn has been around since 1978 and is a landmark in the Northern Virginia area, Arlington to be more specific. Eddie Tsui was the founder and went so far as to operate a farm to grow his own spring onions and formulate a recipe for his own hoisin sauce. Their specialty is the Peking Duck, and they sell them by the dozens if not the hundreds over a busy weekend. PGI is in high demand, and I definitely recommend making reservations and not trying to wing it. Full disclosure, I’ve gone by this place quite a few times, but it never seemed like a place I’d enjoy. It’s rather unassuming from the outside and doesn’t seem like a place that would offer up some of the best food around. As the saying goes, never judge a book by its cover.

I was with a friend on the evening I first went to PGI. I try to always go with a person or two so we can order multiple dishes giving me the opportunity to write about more than one item. This evening we started out with an order Chinese Barbecued Spareribs and one order of Sesame Shrimp Toast. You get 4 ribs per order and the shrimp toast is cut into 6 good size pieces. As is mostly the case with Chinese ribs, they are not fall of the bone tender, but have a little bite to them. I’m okay with this, because what you do get are these deep flavors of different spices throughout the rib meat. There was a sweetness to them, which kinds of comes at the end. It’s the savory you get first, and it is delicious. The shrimp toast was unlike any other shrimp toast I’ve had and hard to explain both it’s flavor and texture. I can tell you that I enjoyed every bit of the shrimp toast and dipped in just the slightest bit of soy sauce sends it over the top.

For the main meal we ordered a few items with Peking duck being the start of the night. Along with the Peking duck we added Orange Beef and an order of Chinese eggplant. Let’s talk about the eggplant first. I love eggplant, especially the smaller slenderer Asian eggplant. To me it has a sweeter taste and any sauce you cook it in, it really picks up those flavors. This night was a great night for eggplant as it turned out to be one of my favorite dishes. Do I dare say I liked it more than the Peking duck, I think I did. I daydream about the beautiful sauce the eggplant was paired with, and I still salivate just at the thought of it. There was a sweetness to the sauce as well as a saltiness that just elevated the eggplant as well as me. Never discount a good eggplant dish and if it is on the menu, I’m more than likely to order it, I recommend you do as well if you like eggplant. Even if you don’t like eggplant the dish from PKI might change your mind. The Orange beef was okay, but I think it couldn’t match the flavor of the eggplant on the duck. I did end up taking most of the orange beef home with me, and it made an excellent lunch the next day when I warmed it up in the oven. I try to never use a microwave when heating up leftovers. I think it just leaves the food bland and overcooked. I digress though. I will say the orange beef, if ordered by itself, would be more than adequate and tasty. Had a very nice orange flavor to it, not an artificial one either. Would I order it again, sure, but there are so many other dishes to try, and I want to do that before ordering something I’ve already tried.

Now comes the part where we talk about the duck. What can I say about the duck and the crispy skin that comes with the duck. No matter what I write, it will never express how scrumptious this dish was. The duck is brought to the table whole, and it is sliced in front of you. They not only slice the breast of the duck, but they dismember the legs and thighs which are served on a different plate. Before slicing the breast, they section the skin and place the skin on the plate with the sliced duck breast. The duck is served with pancakes and their in-house hoisin sauce. We ordered the spring onions and the cucumber separately and I highly recommend you do the same. The onion and cucumber add a nice texture to the assembled pancake package and worth the few dollars. So, you grab a pancake, smear some hoisin sauce on it, place some duck breast with a little of the skin, then add either spring onion, cucumber, or both. Roll the pancake up and you have a little package that will transport you to bliss. The duck is perfectly cooked, it is moist, not over seasoned, and just a joy to eat. This is without a doubt one of those perfect bites if all the components are prepared correctly. Thankfully at PGI you have a staff, that is knowledge, friendly, and accommodating which makes the experience so much better.