23632 El Toro Rd #E
Lake Forest, CA 92630
(949) 860-2001
http://www.peiwei.com
We were on Pei Wei's email list, and received coupons to try their new Caramel Chicken for free with the purchase of one entree. We headed to Pei Wei on a Saturday night. The restaurant was packed. While we were waiting in line to place our order, a server helped us reserved a table. That was nice service.
Spicy Korean Steak ($8.50)
Korean hot pepper sauce, garlic, white mushrooms, onions, carrots, long beans, toasted sesame seeds
We decided to get two entrees and two free caramel chicken. Yeah, it was A LOT of food. But leftover Asian food is always good. For my entree, I picked Spicy Korean with Steak. When I had my first bite, I thought the dish was a bit salty. But I guess it was meant to be eaten with rice. When I ate it with rice, then it was alright. The beef was really tender. I liked the green beans and mushroom. The dish had good flavor, although it wasn't spicy nor Korean, but I enjoyed it. I asked for brown rice with the entree, but somehow got fried rice. No complaint here. The fried rice was great.
Mandarin Kung Pao Chicken ($8.25)
Chile seared soy sauce, scallions, garlic, snap peas, carrots, peanuts
Dr. P picked Mandarin Kung Pao with Chicken as his entree. He liked it. I thought it was just alright because I like my Korean Spicy Steak a lot more.
Caramel Chicken (
Pineapple, ginger, garlic, lemongrass, and mint tossed in a tangy caramel chile sauce and topped with a fresh salad of cucumbers, red bell peppers, carrots, cilantro, red onions, and Fresno chile peppers tossed in a Vietnamese vinaigrette, on a bed of crispy rice sticks
Caramel Chicken was a Vietnamese inspired dish, but honestly, I couldn't tell anything Vietnamese about it. The closest thing was probably the pickled carrot and cucumber on top of the chicken. Nevertheless, it was still a yummy dish. I thought it tasted more Chinese than Vietnamese. The chicken was savory but had a slight sweetness to it. Lots of pineapple, and everything just tastes good when sauteed with pineapple!
Portion at Pei Wei is huge! A mom with 3 teenaged boys sat next to us. We all know how much teenaged boys can eat. They couldn't even finish their entrees. We ate a lot, then took home 4 big boxes of leftover, and ate Pei Wei for the next 3 days. $20 for that much food was a great bargain! If you like Pei Wei, remember to sign up to be on their email list on their website. They often send out exclusive coupons (lots of buy one get one free offers) to their email subscribers.
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I remember having visited Pei Wei at their Newport Beach location once to have Mongolian beef and the food ended up to be extremely salty. It got to the point where eating with white rice wouldn't help, and the next day, I boiled the leftover beef with two cups of water and it still came out salty! We haven't been back to the chain since then. It's interesting how authentic Chinese food is usually not so salty.
ReplyDeleteThat's too bad. I think it depends on "who" cooks the dish, too.
Our two caramel chicken looked different, too.
One had way bigger portion with more pineapple.
Dr. P said "I'm going to request this cook next time." haha...
Pei Wei is one of my favorite "To go" places in L.A.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I love authentic Chinese food,
I think their Americanized Chinese food is quite good!