Peter Chang's Arlington

I haven't been in the Arlington area for some time, so when I found myself there at lunch time it seemed like a good idea to hit an old favorite place and try some dishes I haven't had for a long time. Peter Changs was pretty quiet, just one other table but it was a large group. I ordered Wonton Soup as a starter, then ordered three appetizers as my meal, figuring I would be taking a lot home with me at the end of my meal. My appetizers were, in order of appearance, Grandma's Noodles, Crispy Pork Belly and Dry Fried Eggplant, all of which I thought I had ordered in the past. I also noticed the Wu Han Sesame Noodles which I never noticed before. Wonder why I noticed it this time... LOL!

Anyway, the Wonton Soup is a small bowl of light broth with three small'ish wontons that are a nice savory start to a meal. And at $3 they are a bargain. I have always liked this dish, plus I keep the little fried crackers and eat them with the dishes I get later.

Then the Grandma's Noodles arrived, looking pretty demure as usual with all the sauce hidden at the bottom out of sight. Stirred it up and it was a real treat as usual.

Finally, the last two dishes arrived together and I thought the waitress had brought me the wrong dish. The crispy pork belly that I thought I had had here a couple times was a dish with small dark fried chunks of pork belly no more than an inch long and a half inch wide. This dish was lighter in color and was more like long pieces of bacon that were fried whole. Much lighter dish and quite tasty. It didn't come with rice which I thought was odd, I guess I was supposed to order it separately. The dry fried eggplant was as I remembered, light, slightly crispy and topped with a fiery mixture of Szechuan chilis and slivers of scallion. Very nice. I ended up with a very nice package of leftovers that I enjoyed the next day. I think my bill was $31 before tax and tip. Service was good.

Side question: I have been unable to post comments from my MacBook or my iPhone. Is this an issue for anyone else? I had to dig out my old Asus laptop to post this.