THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 4, 1996 TAG: 9607020133
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: On the Town
SOURCE: Sam Martinette
LENGTH: 69 lines
Sylvia and Min-Jer Yang have plenty to celebrate this Independence Day.
Their Peking Restaurant on East Little Creek Road just celebrated its 15th anniversary.
To say their clientele is loyal is an understatement.
One of their customers, Ken Murphy of Wards Corner, wrote me a letter praising the couple and their restaurant.
``Mrs. Murphy and I take most of our meals out,'' Murphy wrote. ``Not any of the many restaurants we frequent have bothered to learn our names or to give us the service we receive at the Peking. Min-Jer's forte is in the kitchen. Sylvia concentrates on the customers in the dining room and the attentiveness of the wait staff. The personalities and competence of this dynamic duo and a desire to provide their clientele that extra measure have been the key to the 15 years of success of this now Norfolk landmark.''
This is high praise - and aptly earned based on my observations during a family visit last week. Sylvia Yang did seem to know most customers, greeting them with the easy familiarity of a long-established friendship.
It's a long voyage from the classrooms of the Yangs' native Taiwan, where he taught biology and she the Chinese language, to business success in a new country. Min-Jer Yang came to America in 1971, taking a job washing dishes at the old Blue Hawaii. He learned to wait tables and cook, and rose to a management position at a Chinese restaurant by the mid-'70s. His wife Sylvia then came from Taiwan and by 1981 the couple was able to purchase the Mai Kai, which operated briefly in the old Nassau Inn.
Their three daughters worked with their parents.
``We started them in seventh grade, helping a little bit,'' Sylvia Yang recalls. ``When in high school they hostess, cashier, wait on table. After (they) went to college, (we) don't want them to work so hard, so they come back and manage so we can take a vacation back (to) Taiwan.''
The Yangs' oldest daughter, Kim, has a degree from Stanford, and Loretta will graduate from the University of Virginia in August. Marilyn, the youngest, is still at Cox High School in Virginia Beach.
``We took them to Taiwan two years ago for their grandparents' 60th anniversary,'' Min-Jer says. ``We want them to know their heritage and their culture.''
Peking specializes in Mandarin, Szechuan and Cantonese cuisines. Beef dishes include beef and broccoli or beef in oyster sauce ($6.95), Mongolian or orange beef ($7.29) and beef curry ($6.69). Poultry includes a very spicy General Tso's chicken (hunks of tender chicken in a rich brown sauce, $6.99) or an equally spicy and rich-tasting garlic chicken ($6.69). A half-duck, roasted, is $8.29, and the house specialty - a whole Peking Duck - is $19.99.
Seafood includes a variety of shrimp dishes (with snow peas, in black bean sauce, in lobster sauce, or Szechuan-style) priced at $7.59 and under, and lobster in black bean sauce or Szechuan-style (spicy) is $12.39. Pork dishes include moo-shu pork ($7.29), sweet and sour pork ($5.99), and roast pork and snow peas ($6.99).
Peking specialties are served with soup, egg roll and fried rice, and include prawns sauteed with snow peas and mushrooms ($9.99), beef and scallops ($9.29), and chicken and shrimp sauteed with Chinese vegetables ($8.29). Other specials include the hot and spicy Ma Po bean curd ($5.89) and shredded beef Szechuan-style ($7.29).
Daily lunch specials are in the $3.69-$4.89 range (with soup, egg roll and fried rice), and include the traditional, such as chow mein or sweet and sour pork, to the unusual - General Tso's chicken or orange beef.
Peking offers a buffet ($4.95 at lunch, $6.99 on weekday evenings, and $7.99 Friday and Saturday). ILLUSTRATION: Photo by SAM MARTINETTE
Sylvia and Min-Jer Yang recently celebrated the 15th anniversary of
their Peking Restaurant. by CNB