The Duck Nazi

A new year, a fresh discovery - Liqun Peking Duck. This is the place where foreigners come so that they can eat like the locals. But when so many expats flock over, erm, where are the locals? Case in point: I had French and Japanese as neighbours at adjacent tables earlier tonight.


The reason why foreigners love Liqun is because it is local. It is buried in a hutong (traditional Beijing alleyways), it is squeezy, greasy and presentation is not present. Basically, it feels like China.


Forget exquisite personal servings of sauces and cucumbers. Here, they are slopped on a common plate for everyone. Forget bamboo steamers that can keep your dough skin warm. At Liqun, it is served on a plate, that's that.


But still the customers come and they are happy to be treated as pesky irritants to be brushed off rather than pampered. Here's an actual conversation that I overheard:

Chief Bitch Waitress (CBW): Your bill is 426 yuan.

Japanese girl: Erm, I didn't ask for the bill.

CBW: It's time to leave.

Poor Jap chick: But...but, we haven't finished our meal.

CBW: I told you on the phone that everyone has only an hour to eat. You came at 6.40pm. It is 8.20pm now. Can you see the long line there (pointing)? You have to go. There are kids waiting, they are hungry. You have to go.


The poor Jap girl was seen packing whatever remained of her dinner into plastic boxes. How do you like that for customer service? But for Liqun, this is how it is. When I made my reservation, I was told of their bizarre rule - they accept reservations for a duck, but not for a table. This is so they can roast your duck in time, to be served to you quickly upon arrival since you have only an hour to eat. The 60 minutes countdown starts once you get a table.

I guess when your clientele includes Al Gore, Christopher Hill, Jet Li and just about every known and unknown Chinese celebrity - all their pictures greasily plastered on its grimy walls - you can get away with treating your customers like they are ducks with venereal disease.


It helps that they serve up a fine bird too. But the winner in Liqun's emsemble was the dough skin. It was so amazingly thin it was almost trunslucent. I have been to plenty of renowned Peking Duck places around this city, but I had never seen anything quite like this. The best part about it was that despite its thinness, it did not tear easily. It could still easily wrap up the oily slices of duck meat and skin. Fantastic!


At just 190 for a full bird, including the condiments, Liqun (010-67055578), which is southeast of the Tiananmen Square, is slightly cheaper than Duck de Chine and Dadong. Just put up with the surly service and make sure you wolf down your duck real fast.