Petals of a Peony

In the heart of Germantown, but all the flavors — and freshness — of a genuine Chinese home.

by

During my recent visit to Petals of a Peony, the Sichuan restaurant off Germantown Road, I felt transported to the welcoming, cozy spirit of home.

Though I’m of mixed European ancestry, the snapping of beans reminded me of summers on my grandmother’s farm in Nebraska, where my family would do much the same thing. And it certainly indicated how fresh the produce in the meals was likely to be. But the homespun feeling didn’t stop there.

The room’s décor provided an unpretentious, minimalist backdrop for the tableaux, this seasonal keeping of time through shared labor over green beans. It being late afternoon, I was the lone customer, though I’d heard that evenings there can be crowded. In any case, this was a perfect space for some solitary rumination.

The first of two menus the waitress handed me said it all. There, in a place of honor at the top of the menu, was a dish dubbed “Mom’s Noodle Soup.” Petals of a Peony takes the flavors of home very seriously. Under a photograph of an enormous bowl of soup dotted with fresh greens and beef was this introduction:

“I remember Mom and I used to eat noodle soup. We didn’t have a lot of money when I was a kid. Noodle soup is cheap and easy to make. It kept me full and warm. When big celebrations happened, she would put beef in the soup. Now, my mom is thousands of miles away, but I miss her and the flavor. She let me know the recipe and our chef made it for me. I also want to share the flavor and my mom’s love with everyone else.”

Signed by Bo Zou, the restaurant’s general manager, it was a lovely sentiment that, in my mind, went hand-in-hand with snapping beans at the table. I ordered a bowl immediately. And to complement that opener, I ordered the most intriguing-sounding dish on the appetizer menu, the black wood-ear mushroom salad.

When they both arrived, I was struck by the paradox of unfamiliar comfort food. Is that an oxymoron? In any case, my experience was of the most earthy, nourishing sustenance, yet found in forms and flavors that were new to me.

Of course, noodle soup is noodle soup, and this had all the basic elements that make such a dish beloved across cultures: large, smooth, succulent wheat noodles swimming in a beef broth blended with the spicy chili-pepper oil sometimes served as a condiment in its own right. Nestled in all that were tender beef strips, as savory as a backyard grill, along with cabbage and fresh cilantro sprigs.

Bo Zou’s words struck me: “It kept me full and warm.” My soup was certainly doing that, especially since I’d ordered the “spicy” version. I look forward to ordering it again once the cold weather returns — this would be perfect for a chilly, overcast day. And they aren’t kidding about the “full” part, either. The soup is served in a large bowl that would be perfect for sharing. (I took half of mine home.)

Then there was the salad, which brought all the sensory contrasts that a salad should. The cool crunch of lettuce, however, was replaced by the simultaneously chewy-but-crisp texture of black wood-ear mushrooms, bathed in a light, slightly tart soy dressing, flecked with scallions and pickled, tingly Sichuan pepper bits that greatly enlivened the flavor profile. The blend of the mushrooms’ savory nature with the zing of raw scallions and pickled pepper was exquisite. This dish was perhaps my favorite part of the meal.

That made it all the more difficult to order an entrée. Tempted to simply choose another delicious salad, I instead forged into more flavorful adventures. It should be noted, for the record, that there is an adventurous side to the homespun, rustic way of eating in any culture, and that held true at Petals of a Peony. While there is plenty of more conventionally approachable fare, made with the freshest of ingredients, a wide range of other choices might appeal to those seeking more of a culinary journey.

In any case, that’s how I interpreted such fare as spicy beef and tripe, pickled pepper with chicken gizzard, fish head with pickled pepper, or the Chongquing Mao Xue Wang, described as “duck blood, ham, beef tripe, bean sprouts, tofu, lotus, wood-ear mushroom and cilantro in spicy soup.” (If you are more in the mood for Kung Pao chicken — never fear, that’s here, too.)

Wanting to dabble a bit in the more authentic, rustic style on offer, I carried on with my “down home” theme and ordered the Mao Family’s Braised Pork, the description of which simply read “thick cuts of braised pork belly.”

When the entrée arrived, I did not regret my choice. The glistening pork mingled with the freshest of fresh tatsoi greens in a savory sauce, and sat beautifully on a bed of rice. True, I do not eat a lot of pork belly, and this finicky Westerner was moved to cut the fat from each piece of pork and set it aside. Yet the meat, having been cooked with that fat, was the most moist and tender pork I’ve encountered in some time.

The Mao family was clearly onto something, and the experience got me wondering about them. Wolfing down the balanced elements of the dish, the dark pork complemented so perfectly with the tatsoi, I had a glimpse of the kind of inspiration one could glean from a perfectly executed rice bowl.

Carried away in a culinary reverie, I slowly came to my senses and it dawned on me that no, I wasn’t sitting in a treehouse overlooking the Yangtze River, but nestled in between a Party City and a Chili’s in Germantown. That mattered little, though. For one thing, the owners confirmed that Petals of a Peony would be opening a second location in Midtown’s Overton Square this summer — closer to my home. But beyond that, for a delectable moment, I had taken a trip far from the city I knew, sampling the subtleties of a place my hosts called home. That, I realized, was the best feeling any meal can offer.

Petals of a Peony is located at 1250 N. Germantown Parkway #105 and plans to open a second location this summer at 2110 Madison Avenue.