Went with my cousins Agent 86 and Agent 99 for dinner. Agent 99 really likes Hot Pot and found out recently that Peking House offers an All you can eat Hot Pot. She was really excited and we worked out an evening we were all ree and try this place out. For a Chinese Restaurant and for any restaurant this place is clean. It is nice and bright and seemed to be quite busy which surprised me as I have always driven past it but never went in. The Hot Pot, unfortunately, is not on the menu and you just have to ask for it.
Hot Pot
At Peking House, you get an individual hot pot with hot water and some herbs for $29. If you want to add spice paste to it (which I did) you pay an extra $3. With the Hot Pot you get a sauce, which I didn’t have because it had peanuts in it. So instead I made a sauce of sesame oil, oyster sauce, vinegar and spring onions. With the All you can eat, you get lamb, surimi, meatballs, tripe, tofu, vermicelli, spinach, lettuce and Chinese cabbage. I mostly went with the lamb, tripe, and surimi as it had the most flavour and went well with my sauce. The vegetables and vermicelli were hard to eat because of the chilli paste I had in my Hot Pot as it made these ingredients really spicy and too hard to eat.
Overall, the Hot Pot was good, but the liquid you get in the Hot Pot was just boiling water or boiling water with chilli paste. It is good, but it lacks real flavour and if you had chicken stock in the hot pot instead of just water, it would have made it so much better. It would have also given the vegetables and tofu more of a flavour. Also, I am surprised how the Hot Pot is always at the right temperature setting to cook food with it being a single serve hot pot and using cater fuel.
Steamed Man Tau
Surprisingly you also get some steam buns. These were all right, but I suspect they give them to you as they full it your stomach faster.
Wong Lo Kat
Agent 86 ordered this and Agent 99 asked if I wanted to try one. I had seen this before many a time in Chinese eateries but never knew what it was so never had it and I now know. It is actually a very popular Chinese herbal tea in a can. It is a rather sweet tea but goes really well with spicy food and a good alternative to normal hot Chinese tea.
Overall Peking House is not bad. I do like how clean it is and the service is really good. I didn’t try anything off the a la carte so don’t really know what their food is like. Their Hot Pot offering is alright. If you want other ingredients to put in your Hot Pot, like garlic, beef or fish you need to pay extra. I do wish they had more variety of items that came with the All you can eat hot pot as it does become a bit repetitive. If you want a better Hot Pot offering in Wellington, go to Red Hill, but that is if you are alright with loud university students that enjoy the BYO wine option. Also, it is $10 more expensive but it is worth it.
Address: 15 Kent Terrace, Mount Victoria, Wellington
Website: Peking House Restuarant
Trencherman's Travels 