Peking Restaurant, Columbia, MO Review

Peking Restaurant is my favorite Chinese restaurant in Columbia.

I've never had anything bad there. You know how, with most Chinese restaurants, hell, with any restaurants, there's always something on the menu that's not so great? Like, the egg rolls are good, but the hot and sour soup is bad? Not so with Peking. Great egg rolls. Great soup. Great crab rangoon. Great entrees.


Not fancy. Reasonably priced. Clean. Fast. Friendly. I'm not the type to ever be a "regular" anywhere, so I don't know the woman's name who owns the place, even though she talks to us every time we come in, and is always very friendly. Everyone there is nice.

Somehow I got on this Springfield-style cashew chicken jag. When my wife first ordered it, I said, "What the hell is that?" It's basically fried chicken pieces and some cashews over rice with brown gravy poured over it. But of course I had to eat some off her plate, and it was pretty good. It's a lot more Missouri than Chinese, but if you read this book, you'll see that there's not that much authentic Chinese on most Chinese-American restaurant menus. If you're like me, you don't care if a dish is Chinese or Canadian or Moroccan, so long as it eats good.

So one day I ordered Springfield-style cashew chicken at Peking. Waitress came back and told me all they had was white meat--would that be okay? Hell yes, it would be okay. And it was the best Springfield Cashew Chicken I've eaten. Now I always order it with white meat there. It's better. Try it out. They'll set you up.

I've been to most of the other Chinese restaurants in Columbia. Some of them are closer to my house. Most of them are closer, actually. I don't want to run down any of them. But if I'm going to eat Chinese, I'd much rather drive all the way across town to Peking Restaurant.

If you've been in Columbia, you've probably eaten at Peking. If you haven't, you need to go check it out. Here's their address and phone:

Peking Restaurant‎
Columbia, MO 65201
(573) 256-6065‎