Peking Buffet

In our quest to eat our way around the Chinese restaurants in Auburn (and, no, it won't take us long to do that--I believe there are three), we decided to try Peking Buffet tonight. It's located next to Kroger (off of Grandstaff), so parking is not an issue with the big lot right in front.

I really wasn't in the restaurant itself for more than 2-3 minutes as I picked up my take-out, so can't comment too much on that. Other than to say my cursory glance saw no glaring issues or concerns.

Ordered the Chicken with Garlic Sauce (intended to be spicy) and our other order was a combination platter of the Orange Flavored Chicken. The latter comes with Roast Pork Fried Rice and either an Egg Roll or your choice of soup (Soup Wonton, Egg Drop, or Hot and Sour). We opted for the Egg Roll. Can't comment on how good (or not good it was), however, as it never arrived in our lovely little carryout bag of goodies. Failure to provide correct order equals automatic one star deduction.

Overall this food was easily 10x better than the food at China Buffet. The Chicken with Garlic Sauce was at least somewhat hot (spicy), but I did add some hot sauce to it (as it wasn't *that* spicy). Having a dish like that placed in the cute white papery quintessential take-out containers, though, is not a splendid idea. The container was wet and stained before I even got it out of the bag and that's just not overly appealing. Again, at least it was decent food.

The Orange Chicken was pretty good (3.5 stars for that item versus 3 for the Garlic Chicken). I'm told that the Pork Fried Rice was also a thumbs up (especially compared to the other Chinese place).  My white rice was your typical sticky white rice. Tasted fine. Wished I could get brown rice instead.

The woman who took my order (and cashed me out at the restaurant) was definitely of  the expected ethnic background, but was very understandable when repeating back my order. (Perhaps that  may come across to some as racist. If so, then you should probably reread the definition of the word as there is nothing "superior" or "inferior" implied here .) I've certainly ordered from places where I just say "Ok, thanks" and have no clue what was just said to me. Let's be honest, it's helpful to be able to understand the person who works in a customer-service industry, so big A+ for them on that one. The woman was also pleasant, friendly, and efficient. My order was ready and waiting for me when I walked in the door.

I really think for Chinese places, in general, it's a solid 3 stars. For Auburn, though, it's more like a 4 star Chinese place. However, ompared to places elsewhere it's not true "Yay! I'm a fan quality."

They are open later than many places around here (at least 10pm every night except Sundays). The entire order was also just over $13 with plenty of food for lunch tomorrow.

For "true" 4 star Chinese head West to Garret and go to Chef Peng's restaurant!

Thanks for reading!

P.S. If you dine-in kids under 4 yrs. eat free.