Full disclosure: my family loves Peter Chang. My parents dine at Peter Chang in Rockville at least once week. Actually, my Dad goes twice a week because he goes once a week with my mom and then he also goes there for lunch once a week with his work friends. As a dutiful daughter who often meets them for brunch, I wind up there a few times a month as well. Not that I am complaining – the food is spicy, authentic and delicious. When the more upscale Q by Peter Chang opened I wondered if we should switch it up and visit Chang’s newest location. When they introduced their dim sum menu I stopped wondering and hit it up. Best decision ever.
The dim sum menu at Q is served along with their full menu. I would order items from both, just because there are so many gems on both. Start your meal with a scallion pancake which comes huge and puffed up like a balloon, with a rich curry sauce for dipping on the side.
Then, stuff your face crispy pan fried veggie dumplings, earthy steamed bao, and the crunchiest spring rolls of all spring rolls called the thousand layer roll. The vegetarian rice rolls are also a good choice; they nothing like they sound but are awesome. Delicate rice noodles are wrapped around bright sautéed greens and then drenched in a deep soy sauce. The sesame tofu skin salad is culinary marvel, where tofu is shredded so fine it looks like cabbage and then drenched in a spicy chili sauce. Swirl that tofu around your fork and eat.
Next, move on to noodles tossed in a sesame paste dressing called Wuhan noodles, dan dan noodles which are noodles that come dressed in a sauce of chili oil and numbing Sichuan peppers, dragon eggplant, where the garlic sauce soaked eggplant is so succulent it will literally melt on your tongue, and fried lotus root that is the ultimate in savory crunchy goodness.
This is the Chinese food meal of my life. My plan is to go every weekend until I get sick of it. Which may never happen. The dim sum menu is only available during weekend brunch, and as noted above the main menu is available during dim sum brunch as well. The vast majority of dim sum dishes are $5 to $7 and prepared to order a lot. You’ll want to sample them all.
