Peking Alley — Restaurant in San Mateo

Love this place, it’s my favorite Chinese restaurant on the peninsula. When I get homesick and miss my grandma, this place always delivers what I'm looking for. The food here always tastes fresh, flavorful, and is never too greasy. They have a large menu and everything I have tried here has been fantastic. This place is also excellent for takeout/delivery (see photo- the food arrived securely packaged and with generous portions). Also, I sometimes get a headache and feel super thirsty after eating Chinese food from OTHER places, but that doesn't happen when I eat here. To me, that speaks volumes about the quality of the ingredients Peking Alley uses- their food definitely tastes freshly made.

I'm not sure how they do it, but their string beans are always cooked to absolute perfection- satisfying texture and flavor, and it's always consistently great (never mushy nor overcooked like at many other places). I always get their black bean sauce noodle dish- one of my favorites because it’s so hard to find at restaurants, and Peking Alley does the fish well. Their meat dishes are very flavorful and come in generous portions- make sure to order a rice dish to accompany it (I suggest their house special fried rice).

One thing that I really loved getting in-person at the restaurant is their specialty whole deep fried fish! They use super fresh fish, tastes great, and looks impressive- it's quite a production and is definitely something to order with a large party/for...

Ignore the "Grand Opening" sign in the front if it's still there... lol. It's been up for over a year...

I believe they Peking Alley relocated last year; hence the "Grand Opening" This is definitely a mom & pop neighborhood small business. We saw some patrons inside that were interacting with the staff like they were regulars. Good Chinese food; you know it's legit when most of the other patrons inside are Chinese.

The venue is bigger than it looks from the outside with a good amount of seating inside. The service was a bit slow when we went, the restaurant was about 75 % at capacity, so I didn't think the service would be that slow. I reckon the restaurant is run by owner and his family or perhaps they are struggling to find help...not sure. I did think they need to hire some more staff. Parking is a bit hard to find. I think there is a lot behind the restaurant. We just walked over, so parking was not something we had to deal with.

#Chinese: ~ Cumin Lamb - 4/5 This dish didn't look like much, but was simple and tasty. The Lamb was cooked perfectly and had some good Cumin flavor.

~ Pork, Black Bean Sauce Over Noodles - 4/5 Not what we were expecting. We initially thought everything would come in a one bowl, instead we got a deconstructed version or rather a build your own bowl version. The Black Bean sauce is very concentrated, so be mindful when spreading and using it.

No issues returning and trying other items...

Got take out from Peking Alley today because we wanted to try some of the weekend specials. The only dish we liked was the eggplant. The worst was the sesame bun with beef. The beef was good but the bun was the most horrible thing we've ever tasted from any restaurant. Couldn't even finish a bite. Had to spit it out. It was dry and hard with unappetizing dark brown colored dough swirled in. If we were in the restaurant, we would have sent it back. I'm surprised they weren't embarrassed to serve it. (I posted the photo of the sesame bun in the clear container it came in, and the brown mess in the off white container is what the bun looks like inside). The other dishes weren't great either. Tasted very one note. The Jian Bing Guo Zi was a bunch of flavorless fried dough wrapped inside a crepe with egg. Nothing like the Jian Bing I had from the neighborhood street cart growing up. We ended up making our own dipping sauce and added the eggplants in there to make it semi enjoyable. It's going to be hard pass next time someone suggest getting food here. Would not recommend this place at all. Save your money. There were plenty of other options...