Peter Chang Descends on Richmond

Peter Chang's lamb chops with *cough* a few dried red chili peppers.

He came. He saw. He cooked 25 different dishes, and like a bedraggled pack of wild animals we ate all of it, stopping only briefly to wipe the sweat off our brows while marveling at the fact that our lips had gone completely numb. The ever-elusive Peter Chang has done it again, swooping down on some poor unsuspecting Southern village with his army of Szechuan peppercorns, red chili peppers, chili oils, scallions and black vinegar, and with the deftness of a cleaver splitting open a freshly smoked duck, successfully made the whole lot of us his personal food bitch.

There were steamed Shanghai-style dumplings filled with ground pork-- so light and delicate yet still yielding to the tooth served with a pucker-up sour dipping sauce redolent with vinegar, ginger and garlic chives. Peter Chang's wife, Lisa, is a pastry expert in her own right, so perhaps these delightful bamboo steamed purses were one of her unique creations?

The beauty of Szechuan cooking is the careful marriage of its seven basic flavors: pungent, sour, hot, bitter, sweet, aromatic and salty. It's culinary balance in its purest form. It's an experience. From tickling the lips with numbing Szechuan peppercorns to drying the tongue with bits of tannic bitter melon, flavors arrest the palate in symphony's not quartets. It's playful cuisine designed to challenge the senses with seemingly infinite variations of texture, taste and sensory hot followed by cool.

Dry fried eggplant is crispy on the outside yet melts in the mouth once its outer shell has been broken. Chili peppers and peppercorns become almost prickly on the tongue yet subside as the soft, mild vegetable settles in. Classic shrimp toast is accented with spicy salt and freshly ground shrimp resting atop bread that is expertly deep fried while crispy spring rolls are far from the regular stuff and are filled with coriander and fish. Hot and numbing dry beef does exactly that, yet still retains its signature Sichuan jerky-that's-been-deep-fried quality, which results from a laborious four-part cooking process.

Those were just some of the passed appetizers and snacks we sampled. There was still dinner.

And, what a meal it was. Arriving family-style, with one seemingly endless dish passed around after another, our senses were teased again and again. Slippery Dan Dan noodles, which one well-known Richmond chef comically renamed "Jesus noodles" because they're that stinkin' good, arrived to the table swimming in a broth of chili oil, preserved vegetables, black rice vinegar, sherry and ground pork topped with minced scallions.

It wasn't long before a hand swooped in to stir the entire concoction (that hand belonging to Mary Lee, wife of Chang's business partner, Gen Lee).

And so it went. Course after course, hot pot after hot pot, it just kept coming, and we couldn't get enough of it. From a spicy sour chicken soup that we were instructed to top with rice a la chicken gumbo to the milder "House Special" fish filet, which married meltingly tender tilapia in a subtly hot broth laced with ginger, wood ear mushrooms, cabbage and broccoli.

Hot pot of sour chicken arrives.

Ate it gumbo-style.

A pork rib and wild mushroom soup cleansed away the heat with bits of on-the-bone braised meat swimming in a umami-laden clear broth of mushrooms and mini dumplings.

Jumbo shrimp were butterflied and topped with a three-pepper mixture and were beautifully presented with scattered bits of cilantro and scallions.

Alas, all good things must eventually come to an end, so we wrapped up our meal with a particularly stellar sesame bun filled with sweet red bean paste and called it a night.

To wit, Peter Chang's latest venture, which rather ironically sits front and center in one of Richmond's least adventurous eating destinations forcing it rather sadly to compete with 1500 calorie slices of brownie sundae cheesecakes and faux Chinese chain food conglomerates begs the question: how will Richmond ultimately respond to the arrival of the man Todd Kliman from The Washingtonian calls "the perfect chef"?

Without question, foodies of all shapes and sizes will flock to Chang's latest west end eatery, but will anyone who actually lives there be pulling up a chair on a regular basis (which is an important factor when it comes to the longevity of a restaurant)? Part of me wishes that the Short Pump crowd will rise to the occasion while the other half, the really selfish half, wants the whole kit and kaboodle to move closer to the city. Here's to hoping for a happy medium.

In the meantime, enjoy a few more tasty photos from last night's event and get thee to the Chang stat.

The man, the myth, the generally happy guy, Chef Chang.

Details: 
Peter Chang
11424 West Broad Street
(804) 364-1688
Sun-Thur 10:00 am - 10:00 pm
Fri-Sat 11:00 am - 10:30 pm

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