Nestled in downtown McLean, high end chinese food resides right across the street from Chipotle. Award winning chef Peter Chang has had a location here for a while, but a relatively new all-you-can-eat dim sum option has spiced the place up, and given me a new reason to go and taste the delicacies of his design. Available from 11AM – 3PM daily, it offers an affordable 28 dollar per person option to try Chinese food.
As an avid fan of both dim sum and “all you can eat” restaurants, I walked into Peter Chang’s with high expectations, and me and my three friends were ready to devour all the food they put in front of us.
Immediately, I noticed that the traditional dim sum style found in most places was not found here. The classic cart pushing tradition found in many places was replaced by servers bringing plates out by hand from the kitchen. That immediately hampered our ability to get vast amounts of food. However we reasoned that quality over quantity was going to be our mantra, and we dug in.
We started slowly, with a few fish dishes and several plates of the delicious mongolian beef. However, we ramped up the pace quickly, and ordered a variety of rice and noodle dishes, as well as an assortment of meats.
That was when the issues started. A restaurant whose meals usually cross the $100 range for a family of four was not expecting 4 hungry high schoolers to walk in and use the “all you can eat” option to its fullest extent. Our service began to slow, and the plates came out with less and less frequency. They retained their deliciousness, but the lack of speed began to wear on me and my companions, and hunger began to set in.
We repeatedly asked our servers for more expedited service, but the slow service continued. At certain intervals, delicious plates, like the unbelievable black sesame egg yolk bun, allowed us to forget about the delayed service, but in the end, it became too much to bear, and we cut our losses with some plates yet to come.
In conclusion, the offer is amazing, but the place itself does not come prepared to handle the ravenous appetites of ravenous high schoolers hellbent on destroying as many plates of food as possible. It’s a great option for a family brunch and definitely gives the bang for its buck.
