Sang Kee Peking Duck House — Restaurant in Philadelphia

Overview: Good quality ingredients but missed the perfect combination of timing, cooking technique, and ingredients to make the flavors marry together for a memorable meal.

Hong Kong Wonton Soup: This was the biggest disappointment. Sang Kee, years ago did this right. Now? It’s a total bust. The broth had very little flavor. It was missing the perfect elements of soy sauce, sesame oil, and flounder that are the signature elements of this dish. The duck (bone-in pieces) were forgettable. Even worse, the roast pork was tough, making a work out for the jaw and again lacking flavor. The wontons were completely forgettable lacking any succulent flavor of pork juices melded with shrimp. They also dumped a ton of vegetables- carrots, mushrooms, snow peas, Chinese broccoli - into the soup, which was great for nutrients but completely confounding to anyone who knows the true power of traditional Hong Kong wonton noodle soup.

General Tso’s: They tried something new here. But it didn’t work. If you order general Tso’s you’ll end up with a dish that looks more at home in a Japanese Restaurant. It’s basically panko chicken with general Tso’s sauce. The problem is General Tso is venerable for it’s wok hei flavor, which there is none of. It’s usually made with dark meat and a breading that gives a unique texture and crunch. What they deliver here should’ve never been sold as general tso and should’ve stayed in their cooking lab. Panko chicken is much better done in a Japanese Restaurants and if I wanted it like that I’d go to a Japanese spot.

The Roast duck was another disappointment. At a table of 10 a plate of half duck, 20 minutes after it was delivered still had plenty of duck on the plate. Either something is wrong with the people or something is wrong with the duck. Good roast duck would’ve disappeared in 5 minutes or less. Here, I think it was lacking the right balance of honey sweetness with the magic of Chinese 5 spice. It also may have been a bit old.

Singapore noodles: The Singapore noodles were an example of how the right ingredients were used but the execution of the dish made it a fail. My first bite of this dish left my mouth dried out with curry powder. The curry powder needs to be infused with the cooking oil which then melds into the dish and creates the aromatic and flavorful power that this dish should deliver without drying out the mouth. Instead it delivered what felt like a burst of dry powder into my mouth leaving my tongue coated in dry curry powder.

Sang Kee seems to be trying to find it’s way amidst the re-iteration of culinary cooking but based on this dining experience they’ve lost the fundamentals of great Chinese dishes. You need to build on the fundamentals to make a truly great...

I went on a date to this place. It was my first time there( which I made clear to our waiter) I was excited. Unfortunately the experience wasn't as I expected. The employees had little to no enthusiasm towards telling us anything about the menu or best items... nothing. We even asked if it was byob which alot of places in Chinatown are... not them. Cool. No problem with that... but our waiter didn't inform us that they had alcohol drinks in the restaurant 😕 Would have been nice to have a few drinks with our over priced food.

We started with soup dumplings which were better than a few places I've tried in Chinatown but I digress it was still not worth the price. We also got calamari and coconut shrimp as our staters... The calamari OH MY STARS!!! BEST CALAMARI I'VE EVER HAD HANDS DOWN!!! There was this mixture of pepper, onion, garlic fried on top... so delicious!!! However for the price there should have been more in my opinion. It was a very small amount. The coconut shrimp was a total fail for me.. it was way too breaded and the shrimp was so mashed up you couldn't taste anything shrimp flavored at all. And again for that price... no!! Just NO!! Get bigger shrimp and give more than 4... because just 4 shrimp is ridiculous for that price. Sorry.

Our main course , we ordered the three meat combo. Which came with pork, chicken, and duck. Also an order of house special lo mein. The three meat combo was delicious. The meat was cooked perfectly. The white rice had no sauce but it still tastes delicious. Unfortunately the lo mein wasn't as good. The noodles were fried extremely hard it was hard to eat. I don't recommend it.

Overall our expensive was ok. We'll probably give it...

5/31/2016 my mom knew about this place when she used to live in Philly, 20 years ago. just going off of her memory, we found it! ive had peking duck before, but now im hooked on roast duck. its tender, juicy and flavorful. its easy for to find peking duck, but if you swing by here get the roast duck. we also got pan fried noodles and those were so good, im still thinking about them; cripsy, salty and balanced out with steamed assorted vegetables. instead of lobster, we got the mussels in black bean sauce which was as equally satisfying. lastly, we ordered chinese broccoli and the server brought it out marinated in garlic (my mom didnt specify osyter sauce), so he quickly brought out the correct one. it was a little meh compared to the other dishes, and we all agreed later that we should have stuck with the garlic marinated chinese broccoli (so if your torn between the two stick with the garlic vegetables). another plus about chinese dining is that all the food came out SUPER quick. overall the bill came up under what we would normally pay for a party of 4 for peking duck back home. also since we arent from the area, we paid $12 for parking in a lot across the street. i went during the daytime so it wasnt too sketchy looking and there was a gentleman manning the...