Table at Third & Fairfax is a weekly dining column in 2023 where Food and Drink editor Patricia Kelly Yeo will eat her way through the Original Farmers Market. Each column will drop on Thursday for a week-by-week recap of her journey through the classic L.A. tourist attraction. Last week, Kelly tried Phil’s Deli & Grill.
You’d hardly know it by local media’s collective fawning over new-school places like Pearl River Deli, Needle in Silver Lake and SGV hot spots like 19 Town (City of Industry) and Colette (Pasadena), but truly, deeply, unrepentantly Americanized Chinese cuisine is alive and doing quite well, thank you very much. At the Original Farmers Market on Wednesday afternoon, I’m reminded of this fact while having lunch at Peking Kitchen (est. 1960), a simple West Patio counter operation run by husband-and-wife team Tony and Annie Zhou, who bought the stall from a relative in 1988.
Simple and not quite attractively presented, the cafeteria-style offerings at the market’s second longtime Chinese stall—the other being China Depot, which I’ve now also tried—gets straight to the point. All the usual brown-hued suspects are here: orange chicken, which lacks its characteristic glossy sauce, at least until you order it; a thick, cornstarch-rich kung pao chicken; reddish slivers of thinly sliced barbecue pork; thin vermicelli noodles braided with cabbage; chunky strands of light brown chow mein; fried rice, with bits of carrot and pea; and finally, pale-skinned chicken in a light brown sauce, which Annie identifies for me as teriyaki.
Per an online promotional video, Tony prides himself on cooking “healthy” Chinese food, which might account for why Peking Kitchen has such low ratings on Yelp and Google. The three-item combo plate ($15.50) I end up ordering doesn’t look at all like the luscious, deliciously salty flavor bomb you might expect if you’re only familiar with Panda Express. I choose the chow mein with three meat sides: barbecue pork, orange chicken and teriyaki chicken. For a bit of nutritional value, I add a side of steamed vegetables ($3.99), which I know will add a little texture and color to my meal but little in the way of flavor.
“Chinese?” Tony asks me as he rings up my order. As with almost every other time I’ve seen the stall, the other people milling around and contemplating a meal at Peking Kitchen are visibly white.
“Chinese Filipino,” I say in return, well aware my essentially nonexistent Mandarin skills are about to be tested.
“You speak Chinese?”
“Yīdiǎn,” I respond, embarrassed. (A little bit.)
“Maraming salamat,” he responds, smiling. (Thanks a lot, in Tagalog.)
Within two minutes of sitting down, I’ve devoured most of the modestly portioned chow mein and sampled each of my three entrées. The strongest, by far, is the chicken teriyaki. The tender slices of chicken come fully coated in a mildly sweet sauce, and as I proceed to eat the entire portion I’m reminded of my elementary school cafeteria, which used to serve chicken teriyaki over parboiled rice once or twice a month. In contrast, the barbecue pork is lean and rather tough, a shadow of the beautifully marbled char siu slices you might find at Needle, Pearl River Deli and other leading Hong Kong or Cantonese-style barbecue joints in the San Gabriel Valley. Quality-wise, Peking Kitchen’s orange chicken sits somewhere in the middle. It lacks the cragginess of the version served across the market at China Depot, though the tangy sweetness and crunch factor overall make it serviceable.
Compared to shinier-looking options around the market, including the new pizzeria and Pasta Corner, China Depot honestly doesn’t stand out in my book. It also doesn’t stand out among the area’s admittedly paltry selection of Chinese restaurants, which has improved in recent years thanks to the addition of Northern Cafe on Beverly Boulevard. There’s also longtime spots like Genghis Cohen, Fu's Palace and the Twin Dragon, all which seem to be popular within the L.A. Jewish community, but I consider downright mediocre. (If I had to choose between any of these three or Panda Express, I would rather just go to Panda Express.)
This makes me all the more curious as to how the restaurant has survived for 63 years. Subtly flavored Americanized Chinese cuisine clearly has a devoted fanbase, or there’s at least enough curious tourists walking around to sustain the place.
Meals from Table at Third & Fairfax fall into three categories: Skip It, Worth Trying and Must Have.
Vendor: Peking Kitchen
Order: Three-item chow mein combo with barbecue pork, orange chicken and teriyaki chicken
Verdict: Worth Trying. If you’re in the mood for teriyaki chicken and some rice or noodles, this no-frills stall on the West Patio will deliver.