Meatless at the Peking Inn

I happen to be a vegetarian. My philosophy is, it can taste like the real thing, look like the real thing, but as long as it’s not the real thing, it doesn’t matter who you’re fooling. But save for establishments exclusively out there for the vegan, it’s rare to find such faux meat items on a menu these days, especially anywhere easily accessible off the stretch of the 101 that cuts through Ventura County. Chinese restaurants, in my experience, have always been the most likely to offer such alternative fare, and the Peking Inn in Camarillo offers the best “meatless” dishes I’ve had for some time.

The restaurant itself is situated in the Paseo Camarillo, a quirky strip plaza with an eclectic mix of businesses: healthful Chinese restaurant, indie movie house, wine bar, home loan agent, vacuum cleaner salesman, sports bar, and so on ... you get the idea.

Peonies are said to represent prosperity in Chinese culture, and the interior of the Peking Inn is resplendent in the flower’s pinkish hue, from its dim lighting and carpeting, to its booth and table seating, all of which were filled with hungry diners on this Sunday evening, a good barometer of the restaurant’s popularity with the weekend crowd.

As is standard procedure at most sit-down Chinese restaurants, tea and fried noodles, accompanied by spicy mustard and sweet-and-sour dipping sauces, are complimentary, and mine were served up within seconds of taking a booth side seat — a good sign that this establishment delivers prompt, immediate attention.

I first tried ordering a bowl of the egg flower soup, upon which my waiter informed me it would be far too much for one person. I went with his suggestion of downsizing to a cup, and he was kind enough to charge me only $1.50, not $3.95 listed on the menu.

In describing the soup, I can only say it tasted more “egg-like,” the way it should. The egg flowers — the slivered, hard-boiled strands — had a more pronounced flavor than other varieties I’ve tried, with generous cubes of tofu floating about in the broth base.

I decided on an appetizer of vegetarian egg rolls, which, this time, were far too much for one person with a quartet neatly lined up on a plate presented to me. Still, with great enjoyment, I ate them up and marveled at the crispiness of the dough and its ability to withstand a single bite without crumbling. Much like Egg Roll’s Mexican cousin Taco, obliteration under the first incisive crunch of teeth is a common fate.

Now back to the fake meat: This is where the real fun started. It’s more common to see vegetarian chicken here and there, less so with vegetarian beef, and an outright rarity to find vegetarian pork. The last was offered sweet-and-sour style, so my choice was easy despite such other tempting options as vegetarian almond chicken, vegetarian shrimp or chicken with cashew nuts, and a Kon Pao bean curd dish.

The pieces of vegetarian pork were the kind that causes one to do a double take: had they made a mistake and brought me real pork? It tasted so authentic, natural and genuine, that if this were a blind study I’d undoubtedly guess, incorrectly, for cooked swine.

Additionally, the texture of the “pork” was just the right balance of tenderness and crunch. I’ve discovered that many foods of this nature are often too batter-fried and greasy, their consumption leading to an indigestive finish. Not so in this case.

And it wasn’t just the veggie pork that put the “sweet and sour” in the sweet and sour vegetarian pork. Here, the sauce was provided in plentiful proportion, rounded off by large (and fresh) slices of customary pineapple, peppers and onions.  

Of course, for the meat-eaters out there, the Peking Inn’s menu consists of the standard beef, chicken and pork choices, as well as delicacies of duck, calamari, scallops and various fish. À la carte lunches, lunch combos and family-sized package dinners are also offered.

Considering I had no capacity for dessert of any sort, there was no need for it; the Chinese hospitality bestowed with a gesture of both an almond cookie and fortune cookie fulfilled any post-dinner wish I could have conjured up. Like a doughy, baked homage to some vintage heirloom, the almond cookie’s circular shape resembled a pendant, a single nut in the center its jewel. And, as its name implies, the fortune cookie blessed this satisfied patron with some proverbial Asian wisdom until my return, the content of which is unrelated to the point of this review.  

Peking Inn, 330 N Lantana St., # 31, Paseo Camarillo Plaza, Camarillo, CA 93010, 987-8188, $1.50 - $26