Now that my son is off to college he will not be going to church with us on Sunday, and that means when we go out to lunch afterwards (which we do on occasion) we can select places and cuisines that are not his favorites but that my wife and I enjoy. One such place is Pei Wei, so we decided to celebrate my son's absence by going there for lunch. We pass by the Creve Coeur location on our way home so we turned in towards their lot to go eat there. Unfortunately they were resealing their front lot and the bank lot behind them, so we had to park in some poorly maintained empty lot further down Office Parkway. Luckily it was a nice day, although my wife did have to walk through the grass in her flip flops. We are just thankful we attend a casual church where we can wear flip flops and tennis shoes to our service!
We had not been to Pei Wei since they started serving their sushi items so I had to try them. I selected the Kung Pao Shrimp sushi (8 pieces) for my lunch and my wife selected the chicken lo mein. We picked a table and I headed off to the restroom to wash my hands after shaking hands with lots of people at church.
I noticed my shoes adhered to the floor and made loud noises as I walked down the hallway to the restroom and in the restroom itself. Someone obviously must do a better job mopping the floor. The handle on the sink was odd, requiring you to press it to turn it on, and then twist it to change the temperature, which did not seem to change much for me (my wife later said the sink water was too hot in the ladie's room and did not adjust either.) The paper towel container in the men's room was also broken with just a stack of paper towels sitting on top.
When I returned after my restroom visit, my sushi had already arrived but my wife's lo mein was not there yet. I sat for a while staring at my sushi trying to use my mental powers to make the sushi and shrimp grow larger as we waited for the lo mein. For eight pieces of sushi with shrimp, the portions were tiny. After waiting a few minutes and the lo mein not appearing I decided to go ahead and try my sushi. The rolls themselves were not bad, especially when dipped in soy sauce with wasabi, but the Kung Pao shrimp were just barely warm and with just a little Kung Pao sauce on them. They were okay but nothing special as well as being microscopic. When my wife's lo mein finally appeared she started eating it but she noticed it was also a bit off. I tried it and what it lacked was flavor. It was sitting in a flavorless broth and although it did have a good mix of chicken, vegetables and noodles it needed some type of sauce to make it more interesting.
I thought I would at least finish off the meal with a fortune cookie with some weird saying inside, but when I walked over to the condiment area to pick up a couple, they were not there! So they have stopped giving out fortune cookies too? Overall, the lunch was not as good as I had remembered previous visits to Pei Wei (more typically the brighter and better maintained location in Ladue Crossing.) Next time we come I will order a more typical "tasty meat with rice" dish which seems to be their specialty and I will save my sushi cravings for some place that can actually do sushi better.
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