Peppercorn House

We didn’t expect any good Chinese restaurant in a suburb. And we were very wrong. We didn’t make reservation and turned out waiting there more than an hour. A lot of customers were enjoying their food there already. A LOT of takeout waiting for people to pick up. The foods were very good. Just 1 minor issue, no one use pickled ginger at the ginger & scallion seafood dish. And the price was VERY VERY reasonable. Portion are not small. We ordered 4 main dishes and an appetizer. Included tips, less than $100! They even serve sashimi and sushi. And the waitresses there were very nice and some can speak my language. Big plus.

Absolutely amazing, authentic Chinese food. The pineapple shrimp was so delicious we finished it in a matter of minutes. The fried fish filet were so crispy and spicy. Everything came out piping hot and fresh - we ordered our food and within 10 mins most of our dishes arrived. Service staff are very friendly, kind, and attentive. 10/10 would recommend to anyone who wants to have a relaxing and tasty meal with friends and family.

1. Sichuan Spicy Beef Udon Noodle Soup ($12.95) at @peppercornhouse_ma. Asking for it extra spicy gave me what I would call spicy. The broth was excellent and it was mala. The beef was of good quality, not beef with icky bits that you get in the Taiwanese places. The green stuff was cooked but still had texture. I'm a big fan of udon noodles and really enjoyed these. It was a bit of a fight to eat them since they were really long. They have an really extensive lunch menu. 2. Lunch Malaysian Shrimp with Green Beans (9.95) from @peppercornhouse_ma. "Sauteed shrimp and green beans with a spicy Malaysian shrimp paste". For my app, I picked Wing (2) which is for once correctly described. "Wings" are not correct for this. The wing was perfectly cooked, juicy on the inside and crispy on the outside. A good amount of good-sized shrimp. Unfortunately, there were dry and had the tails left on. Is this finger food? Don't think so. The beans were excellent, nicely charred, and still crunchy. A tasty lunch! 3. Lunch General Gau's Chicken (9.95)from @peppercornhouse_ma. Wing again, and this time with brown rice (no upcharge). I saw this option on my last visit and still ordered white rice. Go figure! The wing pieces were extra crispy today. The brown rice is delicious. There was a good amount of chicken in a very sticky sauce. Extra spicy didn't work. Some pieces were chicken with a nice thin batter, and some were mostly batter with a hint of chicken. However, all of them were crispy to a fault and were even hard to cut with a knife. For this dish, I'll stick with Mandarin in Reading. Only failure here so far. 4. Seafood Udon Noodle Soup (13.95) at @peppercornhouse_ma. "Japanese style or Tom Yum spicy". Tom Yum Spicy, of course. It had some heat but wasn't really spicy. It was, however, super tasty. Three perfectly cooked shrimp, plenty of scallops and squid. Unfortunately, all the squid was severely overcooked. I love udon noodles, and they were cooked perfectly. Despite the overcooked squid, I really enjoyed this. Using the default utensils, I cut the noodles into bite-size pieces, which made eating them so much easier. 5.Sashimi Lunch (14.95) at @peppercornhouse_ma. (9pcs) 3pcs tuna, 3pcs sake, 1pc yellowtail, 2pcs saba. That's all the menu said, so I was going to order a small bowl of sushi rice on the side. It turns out that's included already. The rice was at the right temperature, and it was properly seasoned. The fish was super fresh, and the pickled ginger was tasty. I swapped the miso soup for the H&S soup, and this time I remembered to ask for black vinegar, which really improved the soup. This was a very nice light lunch.

I got the cilantro beef dish, which was rated as a triple hot dish. It indeed was really hot! The food itself wasn’t really flavorful in my opinion. The drink I had was pretty strong, which was lovely. Service was wonderful. Overall pretty good experience. Parking is easy unless you can’t parallel park. In that case I’d probably try the bowling alley lot.

To be honest, my expectations were modest for an authentic food experience in the suburbs (is Woburn a suburb?) and I was proven wrong. Some locals recommended we give this a try and I am glad they did. Of course Peppercorn House has to cater to the demands of their clientele so you can get the usual Chinese American fare but if you are craving real authentic Chinese (Cantonese as well as other regional styles), you can satisfy that craving here at a very fair price for the quality and experience. The service is great and the staff are friendly and helpful with suggestions. We had chow foon rice noodles and chose shrimp as the protein versus the traditional beef and they managed to deliver the wok hei without the usual grease like many places. It takes chef talent to be able to make this dish without the grease to prevent sticking. The wok must have been hot hot hot. Delicious. We also had pan fried noodles topped with shrimp, beef, velvety chicken and mixture of vegetables- scrumptious! Like the chow foon, the noodles were not drenched in oil but still came crispy and stayed crispy despite the topping with gravy. Highly recommend as well. Lastly, we had the Peppercorn spicy chicken with shrimp (I forget the official name) and you can get a fish filet version. This is what other places call salt and pepper. The version here comes with just the right amount of chilis but they add mushrooms and sweet peppers and onions to go with the dried chilis. This is dried fried with these items after the proteins are deep fried in a very thin batter so sensational flavors. Despite the deep frying and then stir frying to embed the seasonings, also little grease. They are popular. They have a sushi bar which was full at 330p on a Saturday. They had a lot of take out orders being picked up and the restaurant had steady traffic. They have lunch specials until 3p every day but I’m glad we ordered off the menu to get the authentic food we needed. We look forward to our next meal here.