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.

Dongs and ducks

The Chinese say that good things come in pairs. So you get yin and yang, Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan, and Gong Li's pair of tuan tuan and yuan yuan. In the spirit of twosomes, I decided to offer another Peking Duck review, coming right after the previous one on Duck de Chine. The restaurant in focus is named Dadong (or Big Dong), which I believe is named after the chef and not Ms Gong's famed assets.


While not many have heard of Duck de Chine, Dadong is a well-known name in the culinary bird circles of Beijing since 1996. It has been frequented by many luminaries including, ahem, Singapore's President S R Nathan (check out his Chinese autograph!) and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.


There is good reason why Singapore's top leaders have been to this restaurant. It, somehow, is the favourite Peking Duck choice of most Singaporeans in Beijing. Ask any Singaporean here to recommend and chances are they will point you in the direction of Dadong. I don't really know why because it's not like Dadong serves Peking Duck with chilli (oh yes, yummy idea...). But anyhow, you know you can trust a Singaporean on birds. We used to have them on our dollar notes, and every kid growing up in the 1970s and 80s has been to the Jurong Bird Park.

Enough bird talk. As I mentioned in my earlier post, most good Peking Ducks taste the same to me. Crispy and fragrant. Dadong claims that its ducks are "super lean" and with half the usual fat of other roast ducks. But I can't really tell the difference. It is definitely good. But what makes Dadong my favourite Peking Duck restaurant is its finer touches and its attention to details. Here is its magnificent 7.

1. A lovely plain duck broth soup, made from the remainder of the duck.

2. Free fruit plate and desserts - the sesame paste is heavenly.


3. A brief tutorial by a waitress on the three different ways in which the duck can be eaten. One, dipping the crispy skin in sugar; two, roll in the pancake; three, as part of a "Chinese duck hamburger with sesame buns" and garlic paste.


4. Cheaper ducks than Duck de Chine (228 yuan). Just 198 yuan per bird here.

5. Thinner pancakes and crispier sesame buns than Duck de Chine.


6. Chic presentation of dishes, check out pictures below.


7. Stupendous dishes to accompany the duck. Dadong's menu was so thick and heavy it was actually a strain on my arms. Its dishes have been widely lauded for its creativity, blending the east and west. Try Chef Dong's braised eggplant (58 yuan, below) and the stewed squid egg soup (26 yuan).


There are two Dadong outlets, but go for the newer one at Nanxincang complex (10-5169-0329), which is a restored 600-year-old Ming Dynasty imperial granary. The chic interior decor of Dadong draws a nice contrast to the old-world exterior charm. Reservations are essential.



PS: In case you are wondering why there are so many pictures in this post, it's because of two idiotic friends who insist that my blog must have more pictures. Who the hell says good things come in pairs?

Duck of China

For any self-respecting Beijing food blog, it would be a joke to have gone so long without a post on the city's most famous dish, the Peking Duck. Thankfully, The Forbidden Stomach is shameless. Still, after a particularly memorable night out with the famed bird dish, I feel inspired to embrace social norms and share with you, my three faithful readers, about the duck.

The Peking Duck is one of the few institutions in this city that stubbornly clings on to the old English spelling for Beijing. The other being Peking University. I believe part of the reason is because the Beijingers don't really care a duck's butt if foreigners call it Peking Duck or Beijing Duck. To them, it is simply "kao ya" (烤鸭) or roasted duck.


But while they may call it by the same name, the people of Beijing love to debate on which place serves the best duck. It is somewhat akin to Singaporeans' incessant discussion on the best chicken rice. But here, there is what I call a "duck divide" in the discussion, a chasm between the locals and the foreigners. The options for the locals and foreigners are quite different, mainly because of the differences in price. A local restaurant can serve a duck for just 35 yuan, while an expat place can easily charge seven times that price. So while locals talk about the cheaper range of restaurants, expats exchange details on the more high-end ones.

Duck de Chine, as the name makes clear, belongs to the latter category. At 228 yuan per bird, it serves one of the most expensive Peking Ducks here. It is also among the newest, hippest and most popular restaurants now. Opened just before the Olympics, it is housed in Hidden City 1949, that cool place which also has the Noodle Bar.


The menu was not extensive, with a lot of dishes that were, erm, duck-related. In fact, the restaurant was very keen on the duck theme. The duck was served on a plate shaped like a duck. My chopsticks stand was also a duck. There were even display porcelain ducks just sitting around. Like sitting ducks. Haha, sorry, I couldn't resist. There were also two stone ducks (below) at the entrance.


To be honest, I can't really tell the difference between different Peking Ducks....unless they are horrible. Usually, if you go to a top place like Duck de Chine in Beijing, you can be pretty assured that the ducks are crispy and the wraps are thin and warm. So to me, it is usually the attention to details which edge a place over the others. For Duck de Chine, that extra splash of sesame sauce added to the standard Hoi Sin sauce gave it a plus. That the sauce was drawn in a shape of a heart (for ladies) was sweet too.


Another nice touch was serving sesame buns (below) as an alternative to dough wraps for the crispy bird. It was something I had not seen in other places. And in terms of ambience, Duck de Chine (10-6501-8881) scores very highly, as it is set up more as a Western-style diner than a standard Chinese restaurant. So it is quiet, dressed with industrial chic (pipes running across the roof) and with exquisite red lamps above each table, offering enough light for you to see your duck while keeping that cosy feel for the restaurant.


A gong that informs me that my duck had arrived was a tad showy I think, but well, it's something which diners would remember. There was a small selection of non-duck dishes, but really, no one comes to a place named Duck of China for the mutton or the pork. Anyway, you can only order a full duck at Duck de Chine (other restaurants usually allow half-duck orders), so better keep your tummy for the bird.