Eat Great Cheap 2015Peter Chang—no, not the Peter Chang who has made a triumphal return to Washington with a new Szechuan restaurant in Arlington—is a seventh-generation restaurateur, scion of the original Duck Chang, a Chinese chef whose claim to fame was having cooked the preparatory banquet dinners Nixon and Kissinger sat down to before embarking on their historic trip to China. Chang is justifiably proud of that connection, but even though that history ought to enrich your experience, it’s not why you’re here. You’re here because no other Chinese restaurant in the area makes food quite like his. One moment you’re inhaling a salad of crumbled tofu and chopped egg with sesame oil, cilantro, onion, and thousand-year egg (a piece of esoterica familiar to Chinese expats); the next you’re trying to figure out the inspiration for Shrimp Pepperada, an unlikely concoction that summons mapotofu, Manwich, and sweet-and-sour shrimp and that somehow, for all that, is excellent. Then there’s the whole duck, prepared two ways, Peking and Szechuan style, each crisp-skinned and marvelous.
Cuisine: Chinese
Where you can get it: 4427 John Marr Dr., Annandale; 703-941-9400
Also good: Duck-bone soup; duck fried rice; taffy bananas.
Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Petworth.
Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
