CHINESE EATERY OFFERS VARIED, UNUSUAL FARE

When we got to the door of Peking Restaurant, we found a sign saying Closed. Uh oh. Then the door opened, some people came out and the sign now said “Open.” Peking has a habit of putting up the “Closed” sign when all the tables--perhaps eight--are occupied.

We let ourselves in and stood around trying to get the attention of the proprietress, who was about as frantic as an ant on a hot sidewalk. Our waiting may have been a needless formality: While we were trying to get her attention, a family sneaked in past us and sat down at the newly cleared table.

This is definitely not an Americanized Chinese restaurant. No maitre d’, no wine list, not even any fortune cookies. We were the only non-Asian patrons on this particular occasion, and I don’t believe in three times I have eaten there that I have ever seen another non-Asian at Peking.

Peking definitely looks the part of the classic Chinese hole-in-the-wall: It’s decorated with the usual landscape prints, tasseled lamps and advertising posters. Certainly, in most ways, Peking is overshadowed by a far fancier Chinese restaurant two doors away, the huge and very successful Sea Food Paradise No. 2. However, Peking was recommended to me by a woman who teaches Chinese cooking. Order the handmade noodles, she said.

I did plan to order the handmade noodles, but first there was the matter of dealing with the menu. It is larger than you’d expect in a restaurant of this size, and also more varied, less the laundry-list of most small Chinese restaurants. There were items on it I’d never heard of, many involving pickled vegetables and fish sauces.

And cucumbers. This is a cucumber-oriented place. There seems to be a layer of cucumber involved in everything. When we were finally seated, the proprietress (very much distressed that we’d had to wait) brought a delightful plate of mildly pickled cucumbers, flavored with a little red pepper and dressed with oil, as a peace offering.

The first surprise of the meal here was the soup. It’s not the usual dishwater egg drop soup; rather, it’s a darkish brown, rather meaty broth with lots of black mushroom and tofu. Fried and steamed dumplings are specialtiesÿû$ISPL ÿÿ in the appetizer department, and the fried pork dumplings--long, cigar-shaped pot stickers, quite brown on the bottom--really are unusually good. The steamed dumplings have a suave texture but are a little less interesting; the dark brown spring rolls have a somewhat vague mushroom and cabbage filling, but they come with an unusual sweet-sour sauce that tastes like vinegar and honey with a little diced ginger.

Handmade noodles turn out to be a choice in soft-fried noodle dishes (these all involve broccoli, carrots, cabbage, onions and ginger together with various meats). They are irregular in shape, rather thick and luscious, and certainly worth an extra 60 cents. The best dish I’ve had here, though, is the arrestingly named “shredded pork with hot master.” It’s shredded pork with cucumbers (of course) and a curious broad noodle made from pea flour, served with a marvelous sauce that is basically peanut butter mixed with hot Chinese mustard.

Unusual sauces seem to be a Peking specialty. Yu-hsiang sauce, which comes on shredded pork (with cabbage and ginger), is made with garlic and hot pepper and has a rank, brazen aroma like Korean kimchi; I’m sure there must be something like shrimp paste in it. Beef with sha-cha sauce, according to my Chinese dictionary, should be a Hunanese dish with red pepper and tea leaf sauce, but this was in a meaty sauce that the proprietress speculated had something derived from fish in it. It was pretty good anyway.

Not everything is so exotic. Preserved pork with leek is just paper-thin slices of salty Chinese ham with leek greens. Imperial shrimp is in one of those sauces made by doctoring catsup with green onions, ginger and red pepper (not a lot of red pepper, no matter what the menu suggests), but it does start out with far better than average catsup. Is it a Chinese catsup? Is it actually made on the premises from tomato paste? Anyway, it isn’t rackety with excess sugar and vinegar, and it doesn’t seem to have the scorched flavor of commercial catsup. This dish is surprisingly good.

As at any self-respecting Chinese restaurant, you can end up with a steamed fish--in this case a rockfish of some sort, with a beautiful silky texture and mild flavor--in lieu of dessert. Or fortune cookies.

Peking gives the impression of being a taster’s restaurant. The cheerful proprietress has an appealing habit of nodding thoughtfully as you order, as if she were either approving your knowledgeable choice or perhaps savoring the thought of the dishes. Entrees run $3.25 to $7.95.

PEKING RESTAURANT

8566 Westminster Ave., Westminster

Telephone (714) 893-3020

Open for lunch and dinner Tuesday through Sunday. No credit cards.