Peko Peko

Nestled between some of South Melbourne’s high rise apartments and office blocks sits humble Peko Peko — one of EatClub’s founding partner restaurants. A rousing little restaurant, Peko Peko (which is a charming way to say ‘hungry’ in Japanese) offers Taiwanese food with Japanese and Western influences.  Their menu is renowned for not only its Peko Box, a Taiwanese take on a Japanese Bento Box, but also its Ma Ma Custard Fried Chicken and their Spicy Calamari dish. The restaurant is warm & welcoming and always has a lively flow of diners entering and exiting the restaurant — Peko Box in hand.

Head Chef – Amy Wu

It is however, more than its sensational menu and dark-wood kitschy interior that make this restaurant stand out. Behind every dish that leaves the kitchen’s pass is great chef and loving mother Amy Wu. Since the opening of Peko Peko 14 years ago, Wu has been the head chef, owner and soul of the restaurant. She is a self-taught, home-style cook who has been cooking for over 40 years. Wu is heavily influenced by her Grandma’s recipes and fond memories of her childhood. ‘Her recipes and skills were self-taught through trial and error from cookbooks and cooking shows’, explains her son.

Her signature dishes at Peko Peko derive from authentic Taiwanese street food. Her Spicy Calamari and Taiwanese Sausage is a medley of house-made Taiwanese sausage and lightly battered calamari with a flaming tangy sauce. It’s that and her seasoned crispy chicken cubes, the Pop Chicken, that send taste buds on a stimulating journey through a Taiwanese street food market. The motherly touch and fantastic menu at Peko Peko effortlessly invite business lunchers, curious customers and hungry regulars back time and time again.

Peko Peko remains unpretentious, despite its success as one of Melbourne’s favourite restaurants. After service, once the chairs are up, the lights are off and many of Melbourne’s chefs finish the day with a drink to unwind, Amy Wu’s guilty pleasure is a bowl of 2 minute noodles or anything sweet. Her son tells us lovingly about his mother: ‘Most deserts, she can’t resist!’

 

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Words by Sheridan Butler.

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