Right now, there are a bevy of national food media peeps cavorting around our city. In the midst of this, news of Peter Chang’s return to Atlanta has turned food enthusiasts from here to New England inside out and upside down. It seems that there’s a bit of a “Where’s Waldo?” game going on. Luckily, I had the chance to get my hands dirty and see what was what. As dumb luck would have it, today I made a quasi-planned lunch trip over to Tasty China, the epicenter of all this bru-ha-ha.
Peter Chang was absolutely there and in the flesh. However, reports of Chang’s permanent return to Atlanta seem a bit premature at this juncture. In fact, I’m not entirely sure he is even in the kitchen at TC. While the food today was freakin’ delish, I didn’t actually see The Sichuan Don until after I had consumed a good bit of the food in front of me. He didn’t appear to be in cooking mode … so who knows? It’s possible he had just arrived when we showed up right around noon. According to the elusive man himself, he’s just in town for a few days on a little vacation and his return to Virginia is imminent. [UPDATE: PC did cook our meal today, however, there is no guarantee that he will be in the kitchen more than one or more days].
What all this essentially equates to is a hodgepodge of unconformable rumors. In the world of print media – nothing merits a mention in print because it’s apparent that nobody is 100%. A couple of members of Atlanta’s food media made a trip over to TC just a few hours after me, so we’ll have to wait with bated breath to see if any of this actually adds up to anything. So again … here’s what we know:
- Peter Chang is in town
- Peter Chang is spending time at Tasty China
- Peter Chang may or may not be is cooking at Tasty China, but only for a short while (possibly just a day)
- Peter Chang is not back for good … but may be shortly.
And with that – here’s some lame excuse for food porn:
The pork meatball in clay pot was a kick ass adventure in glass noodles, flavorful broth, and juicy pork. Meanwhile, the Dan Dan noodles remain the best in the city!