Peking Beef Lunch Special from Luo’s Peking House
Item Purchased: Peking Beef Lunch Special from Luo’s Peking House
Location Purchased: Luo’s Peking House / 113 N. Marion / Oak Park, IL
Price: $5.25 + tax
Review: What better way to start off my month-long work exile in the suburbs than to partake in something so very common and mediocre as the local vanilla Chinese restaurant’s lunch special. I don’t mean to come off like a food snob, but is there anything more middle-American suburban than a Chinese restaurant? Especially the kind that offers heaped rice, meat & vegetables in a styrofoam container at rock-bottom prices (between the hours of 11:30AM and 3:00PM).
I picked the peking beef for one reason only. It was one of the very few items on Luo’s list of specials that had a little red chili pepper icon next to it. My motto is to eat spicy food as often as I can until my stomach gets too old to handle it and turns in its resignation and application for COBRA coverage.
Guess what? It wasn’t spicy at all… Big surprise.
Oh, don’t get me wrong! This inexpensive lunch was filling and affordable. The brown sauce was acceptable, but nothing special. The vegetables were crunchy and approaching fresh and the egg roll just was. Even the beef was tasty in its own mushy frozen-dinner Salisbury steak way. But, damn it! Where is the burning sensation that causes one to reach frantically for a refill of green tea?
It’s just my guess, but I’d wager that most people in the Midwest don’t know that there is such a thing as great Chinese food (not you… you know better) because we’ve been inundated with average buffets our entire life. We view average and acceptable rice and noodle concoctions over a butane heated steam tray as authentic just because there is a lucky cat waving to us from the front window or cheap green wallpaper hanging all around a dining room.
Fortunately, I also know better and it only makes me enjoy the output of a hard-working average strip mall restaurant that much more. One needs a whole lot of average to make the extraordinary seem so. This kind of food, served by Chinese people, oddly reminds me of my midwestern, suburban roots more than a dinner of meat and potatoes. For that, I applaud it. Averagely.
Of course, filling up on five bucks and change isn’t a bad thing either.
I will view Luo’s as a staple… A lunch-break foundation that I will venture out from and return to for comfort.
But, please! Luo! Start living up to your tiny little chipotle pepper icons or I’ll be forced to move Alfred and the batsuit to the Mexican restaurant down the street!
Rating: 2.75 / 5
October 1st, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Might I suggest you consider investing in a bottle of Sriracha for when the midwestern Asian cuisine isn’t living up to that scorching standard?
https://www.huyfong.com/no_frames/sriracha.htm
The stuff is pretty inexpensive, can be found at many grocery store chains now in the “ethnic” aisle, and is completely in theme if you’re going to the low-end of asian fare (the middle grade will usually have it available)
-transiit
March 11th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
May I suggest you to request EXTRA spicy when you order next. This is typical for any restaurant. Customers need to specify how they like their food. I ordered my extra hot and love it.