Peking Express Chinese Restaurant

I don’t care what anyone else says, this place is amazing. Being a college student at Berkeley limits the amount of cash one can spend and this place is not only great for my pocket but it also hits the spot.
Of course I don’t expect fine dining at a place that has a buffet line as soon as you enter through the doors, but no duh people, you get what you pay for!

I went to this restaurant because I recently acquired the Moocho app. They gladly accept Moocho, which is awesome! For this, they earn one star.
Their food is, um, not very good at all. Everything tastes the same because everything is chock-​full of salt and MSG. I felt physically sick after eating here. Honestly, the only way to make the food better is by supplementing it with plain rice to decrease the sodium content in each bite.
Another star for being really cheap (Huge plate of food for under $ 5).

4 stars for speed, value and green vegetables.
Sorry these guys moved away from Center Street. It was the only place you could reliably get a lunch with fresh vegetables in the 10 minute break you get with long BCC classes. Nice ambiance? No, it was a terrible setting. But you could take out terrific chicken chow fun, decent salt and pepper shrimp and spicy green beans (or freshly steamed veggies) for under $ 5.
The ladies kept smiling even through the considerable grief that the rude high schoolers caused them. Let’s hear it for the places that work hard to keep students fed cheaply. It’s the best of the lot. Good luck to them on Durant St.

I love this place! I have been eating here for years. The food is always good. The prices are easy on the pocket. I’ve even ordered from them to bring to parties and events. if you’re looking for good Chinese food for lunch, dinner or an event… DO GO HERE!!!

we love this place! We usually order our food to go so we can enjoy it at home watching movies. The salt and pepper chicken is the BEST. Can’t find it anywhere else.
BTW they have moved! New address is 2518C Durant Ave, Berkeley

This place is alright. I eat here quite a bit because I attend BBC and Peking Express is next door. The only food that is tasty is the lemon chicken other than all the other food is filler. The price and the convenience is what keeps me coming back

Avoid this place at all cost. The only reason I was drawn to this place was the line of people waiting during lunch time. Portions are small for the price. Food was sub-​par for take-​out chinese.

The food is good and cheap. Great deal for a poor college kid. If you can get past the décor and the rundown look and feel of the place.
The food is good and cheap. Great deal for a poor college kid. If you can get past the décor and the rundown look and feel of the place.

Them salt and pepper ribs is like delicious bites o’ dynamite.
(Everything else is cheap but «meh»)

Simply put, DON’T EVER GO HERE. I’m pretty sure all the people giving this place high ratings are previous or current workers.
FIRST — Any one visiting this place will notice that there are no set prices marked for any of the items sold except the little written sign about the 2 and 3 item combo on the door. This is because THE OLDER LADY who has been working here for years WILL CHARGE DIFFERENT PRICES DEPENDING ON THE PERSON/​DAY ETC. I have visited this restaurant once yesterday to oder a pork bun, which was $ 0.80 each. I asked for a cup of ice for water and it was handed to me no problem. The next day (today) i ordered two pork buns and she then charged me $ 0.90 each and also WANTED $ 0.75 FOR THE WATER (WHICH IS ILLEGAL). Needless to say I took my pork buns and left without the water. The main older lady who works here generally has a smug attitude and takes advantage of her customers.
SECOND — I’m pretty sure the food gets left out overnight, only to be reheated the next day. Any person can observe and come to this same hypothesis by looking at any of their soups one day and returning the very next day at the same exact time. There will be a solidifying crusted film forming over the egg flower soup and all the others and sauces will look chunky and disgusting. In general the food quality is extremely poor.
If you want cheap chinese, there is a little mandarin place across the street on Shattuck to the left. The combos are cheaper and the service is tons better.

This place is awesome. All the people complaining about the quality of the food are doing too much. This place serves fast, good chinese food. It’s that simple.
Almost all of the dishes or items are between $ 1-​$ 2, the food is thoroughly cooked, well prepared, and generously given in each container. My favorites: the orange chicken, the sesame bean balls, and the chicken chow mein. All delicious.
In addition to the downtown convience, the extremely low prices and the great food, the employees are wonderful. They are efficient and always friendly.
I go here frequently and have never once felt disappointed in the service or food,
One star off for occasional crazy people in the restaurant.
:)

«Good, Cheap, Fast; Pick two.»
This place is definitely cheap and fast. There’s not much to it. If you’re hungry and have zero time, you can run in, throw them a couple of bucks, and leave with something with which you can use to punish your whining stomach.

The food is generally fine, especially the lemon chicken, eggplant, The curry c hicken w. potato, is sometimes great but the last time the potatoes definitely tasted mushy and not so fresh.
The one thing that gave me serious pause on a recent visit, was to see an employee dumping used food containers in a trash bag, and the manager ran over, scolded her in Chinese then said «recycle, recycle!!» and began frantically scraping the food into one trash bag, and stacking the containers into another. The manager was so emphatic that I got an unsettling feeling that «recycle» might mean that the combo containers are rinsed off, then used for the next customers to save money… The PE restaurant folks don’t seem terribly ecofriendly … I also notice is that you never EVER see any of the workers eating there, and they probably get free meals… I don’t plan to go back.

I don’t like this place anymore. I would come here at times when I was very hungry because it was right next door to school, but the guy at the register is too damn rude.
I ordered a medium box of sweet & sour chicken and it came up to $ 4 and I said, «Never mind. I’ll take the smaller box.» This dude got hella mad and was cursing say the F-​word under his breath. I mean you actually see him mouth the words. I told him he was hella rude and at my job I would’ve been fired for pullin that.
Their food isn’t good anyways, so I won’t be missing anything and neither will you.

I eat here occasionally because my high school students absolutely love this place. Many of my students refer to it as «Chino» and it is their everyday hangout when they’re allowed to leave campus for lunch. As their teacher, I make every effort to eat what they like as a method to bring what they already know into my classroom practices. This place carries a wide variety of entrees to choose from, ranging from a nice selection of vegi stir fries to egg foo young to those that are more Pandaesque. To my liking, this is also the only restaurant in the area that carries Chinese breads and egg tarts.
My lunch today was solid but otherwise unspectacular. I was craving for steamed rice so I ordered the three items combo with string beans and barbecue pork and a side of egg flower soup. The little amount of string beans received was fresh and delicious, but it became a turn off when I saw that the ends were not cut off. The barbecue pork was juicy and tender, but it needed more marinade in order to bring out its true flavor. My soup could use more flavoring and starch to thicken, but it gave my meal a real nice balance especially when the rice was not as soft and sticky in the way I usually make them at home.
I think my students will be pleasantly surprised once they learned about this review. They would probably give it a 10 star rating, but since they have yet to fully develop their lobbying skills; I will give it a generous three stars for being solid and versatile.

I see a lot of reviews comparing this place to to Panda Express, and I think that’s a pretty big insult to Panda (which is actually edible).
The daily special sounded good: veggie chow mein, shrimp fried rice, orange chicken and an egg roll for $ 5 flat. It was SOOO greasy and borderline unfit for human consumption. My water glass was dirty.
The only reason to go to Peking Express is to remind you of how horrible bad Chinese food can be, so that you can better appreciate good chinese food when you get it.

This place should get 5 stars for being the cheapest and best dirty/​greasy/​convenient chinese food.
I gave it 2 stars because it is indeed dirty, greasy, and convenient but it does hit the spot for when you are itching for this kind of stuff.
I take mostly night classes at BCC so this place is convenient to go to when there is a break in-​between classes.
The mongolian beef is super spicey and the pork fried rice is good for what it is.

The marketing line of this place, «Dollar Chinese Food» should tell you enough… just like you wouldnt go to the Dollar Store to buy a wedding ring, don’t go here if you want fine chinese cuisine
This place gets two stars only because its über quick and convienent…
and truth be told, I’ve eaten here several times… so there must be some reason why I go back… I just have to figure out what it is
as far as the people who frequent this place, they seemingly look like a mix of methadone clinic patients and juvenile delinquents… its really depressing… but hey, misery loves company
if you like dirty chinese food, that grease dripping, satiating, I just ate five big macs in five minutes feeling, this place is for you!

Please don’t tell my mom I ate here. I’d get a nice Taiwanese smack for making her lose face. She’d wail on me even harder in admitting that it wasn’t actually all that bad. *ducking for cover*
Blame it on convenience. The buffet line is mostly sad, but if you’re on the go, point to the most fresh looking and dart. The crowd won’t entice you to stick around.
This is no five-​second-​rule kind of place. Even if you triple dare paid me ten bucks I wouldn’t touch anything off their grimy floor. Same would go for the tabletop. But if you proffered their lo mein or baked goods in a pretty package I’d say they were passable. And I’d bet you paid more than a fiver for it too.

I ordered a 3-​item lunch combo with noodles, which I don’t think counted as an item despite what other reviewers say… My items were dished out to me with an easy-​going smile, maybe because at 11:11am they had not yet been hit by the lunch rush.
Then I sat down to eat at a window seat facing Center Street. I was bombarded by so many flies as I ate that I couldn’t finish my meal.
I didn’t die or shit myself silly after the meal, but there is no excuse for that level of nast.