Peking Garden, Calgary

One of the hardest things to find in a new city is a great Chinese restaurant. Luckily, my cousin Wynne and her fiance Ralph have been in Calgary for a year now so they did the scouting for us.

Admittedly this was their scientifically proven method: “We were driving around at night, the lights in this restaurant were still on, and it was full of Chinese people.”

We met them at Peking Garden for brunch on a Sunday. The menu focuses on Shanghaiese specialties but there’s also a small selection of dim sum dishes too.

Peking Garden, Calgary

We got a little overzealous ordering two baskets of siu lung bao, signature Shanghai dumplings filled with broth and ground pork. They were good but Jason said, “Not as good as the ones in Shanghai.” Yeah, he’s a little spoiled.

The shredded duck hand-pulled noodles were amazing. Super fresh and tasty with huge chunks of duck meat.

Before we knew it, our table was filled with:

  • curry pancakes - like green onion cakes but better
  • shrimp and chive dumplings
  • spicy wonton soup - super garlicky and delicious
  • panfried rice roll - usually so plain but here so goood

Peking Garden, Calgary

Wynne was very excited about the fried sweet buns. They’re basically deep fried balls of sweet dough that you roll in condensed milk. I usually hate Chinese desserts but these I can eat, like Krispy Kremes.

By now, there was a lineup at the door. When we arrived at 11 am, right when the restaurant opened, almost all the tables were already taken. It’s a clean, modern place with some lovely (not cheezy) artwork on the walls.

Best of all, Peking Garden hit the Big Three: good, filling and cheap. There were ample leftovers and the total for four of us came to about $42!

Peking Garden, #416, 4625 Varsity Dr. NW, Calgary, Alberta, (403) 286-0488.