Peking Express
237 Nassau Ave
Now this is what you think of when you think of takeout Chinese food. The kind of place that needs no introduction. The food that blew my mind as a kid, but which I don't think of that often today. Stuff like lo mein... and lo mein. Now that I think about it, the only thing I ever ordered at Chinese restaurants as a child and teen was lo mein. But boy did I love it!
When I took the pleasant walk across the park to Peking Express, it was a wet and overcast day, feeling like fall was truly about to start, though we both know that's not true. Inside, the tables were full, but I was able to walk right up and order. This place gets swamped with construction workers when they take their lunch, but I missed that rush. This place seems to have been around for a while. It's there in the earliest Google Maps street view photo (October 2007), so it may as well have been here since the beginning of time. The restaurant is essentially one room with a counter separating kitchen from seating one third of the way in. After skimming the menu, I decided instead of rekindling my love for lo mein, I'd get a dish I'd had first at 886 on St. Marks and later made myself: Sha Cha Beef.
I was nicely surprised that I got some sort of lunch deal -- the dish with rice and a drink for $9.50. Not bad! The sauce was not as funky as I'd hoped, but delicious nonetheless. It had the starchy gloopiness one expects from stir fries like this. In addition to the beef there were a whole bunch of vegetables: carrots, mushrooms, baby corn, and broccoli. Is Sha Cha Beef an American Chinese menu staple? This preparation seems to differ quite a lot from 886's and recipes online. Does American Sha Cha sauce differ from the Bull's Head stuff? Sha Cha is a Hokkien thing, but English Wikipedia claims that Sha Cha Beef is from Gansu provice, which sounds definitely wrong, and to back it up the article cites a ... restaurant review from 2008 in a Pittsburgh newspaper? I don't know man. I just eat here.
Well, I don't have much to say about this one. It's cheap, and pretty damn good! I'd get lunch there again, so I suppose I'll put it above Mala Project. Though I do keep walking by their happy hour sign and thinking about their rice beer... I want to try that.
Greenpoint Chinese Lunch Current Standings:
- Four Season Joyful
- Peking Express
- Mala Project