When I made my first visit to Peking Garden on Resler Drive this was certainly not my first experience with the restaurant. I had made frequent visits to the Peking Garden on Trawood Drive during lunch hours from my office, so I had a general idea about what to expect. Unfortunately, the best feature of the east side restaurant was a waitress who always tried to ask the cooks to prepare the food the way I requested it, but it seems that the kitchen always had a way to make it fall below my expectations. Even though I liked Peking Garden when it was one of the city's few Chinese restaurants, the food is too Americanized and too inconsistent to be very attractive to me nowadays.

The good news about the Resler location is that it seems to be improved from the Trawood restaurant. I understand both restaurants have the same owner, but I do not think they are exactly the same in terms of the food served. For one thing, I frequently received food with MSG after I requested it with "no MSG" at the Trawood location, but so far this has not a problem on Resler. An equally important factor, though, is that when I asked for traditional Chinese food on Resler (not American style) they were at least partially able to accommodate this request, while I did not feel that I ever got "real" Chinese food at the Trawood location.

I am sure most readers understand that despite the name, the food at Peking Garden really has nothing to do with Beijing cuisine. The menu is all Americanized, although I did find that I could order food not listed on the menu at the Resler restaurant. At the Trawood location most of the dishes with the best flavor were Hunan and Szechuan style dishes (anything that was spicy). I have not yet tried any of these same dishes on Resler, but it is probably a safe bet that these would also be some of the best choices.

Combination noodle soup

The restaurant is very small, and seems to concentrate on take-out business. Located across the street from a high school, I would guess that it has a large lunch crowd. Although the food at Peking Garden was good, I would also have to point out that it is in the same shopping center as Oriental Cafe, which I consider to be one of the top three Chinese restaurants in El Paso (and thus the explanation of why I have made so few visits to Peking Garden).