Peony Kitchen - Bellevue

I love this place! Great food, cozy place and awesome service! The dishes are ready really fast. We ordered some popular dishes, which are really good. duck is crispy and the chicken is very tasty from inside and out. The parking is easy, the entry of itjust next to the restaurant.

TL;DR: great for groups and eating Family Style think: large, sharable tapas. Do not get the tiramisu. Parking: garage or street parking only. Nearby garages have free retail parking for up to 3 hours, which includes Peony Kitchen. Menu: flimsyprinter paper. Descriptive, no images. If you have a large order, you can mark the menu with a pen and hand it to theserver. Atmosphere: feels like a Din Tai Fung. Is a bit dimly lit the further you go in. They will open the glass walls duringsummer so be ware of flies if you wish to dine. We had a couple that kept hovering around our food as we ate Family Style so itwas hard to shoo the flies away with our hands in the center of the large table. Service: order and pay at the table, wateryourself with pitchers provided. Larger groups can be seated in slightly more private rooms. 18% tip included in bill for largegroups. Orange Chicken: was surprisingly really good! The sweet and sour flavor was nicely blended and the chicken had adelightful crunch with each bite. The meat was also tender and not dried or overcooked. Crispy Duck: I like this one! The skinwas indeed crispy like a chip and putting the ingredients in the wrap is a cool thing to do with groups. The flavor is good too.I recommend this one if you have a group of people to dine with. Or, you can get it for yourself too I won't judge.*wink* Cold Tossed Noodles: Serves as a nice palate cleanser or side dish but I wouldn't go and eat a whole bowl to yourself.It's a bit much and your taste buds get tired of it really quick. The cucumber chunks are a nice touch and are so refreshinglycrunchy. Mixed Vegetables: everything is so nicely blanched and tasted very fresh. Lightly flavored and is an excellent palatecleanser between the strongly flavored meat dishes. I really like the al dente snow peas and the lotus roots. Five FlavoredBeef: good flavor but a bit overwhelming on it's own. Packs a huge flavor punch. Use rice or veggies as a palate clean

They looks great but the taste is not that great. The duck is not fresh and its pancakes are thick. The dish feels like that has been cooked a couple days ago and reheated. It is sold for $60. Totally not worth it. The tea smoked chicken is very dry, notjuicy at all and tasteless. The squid ink rice is highly over priced because it is just rice. Very disappointed.

The brisket is really tender juicy ! Goes well with rice. Tea smoked chicken: love the crispy skin. Squid ink fried rice: looks amazing, tastes just okay. The food here is a little too oily for me. But overall I had a great time!

The plating was gorgeous. Favorite dishes included the 5-spice pan fried buns and the duck lettuce cups. The Xiao long bao had some of the tastiest broth I’ve had in the greater Seattle area, but the dough was thicker than what I’ve had at otherrestaurants. We had the crispy garlic chicken which was delicious, but surprised us that even though we could see the garlic, wecouldn’t taste it. Same with the black bean noodles… delicious but couldn’t taste the black bean at all. Service wasimpeccable. Will 100% come back to try other dishes.