Peking Duck

Last night I went to Dadong in Beijing for dinner.  It is a pretty famous restaurant in Beijing that typically has a 1-2 hour wait (yes, you read that correctly...1-2 hours) for those who do not have a reservation.  I am not a fan of waiting that long so lucked out when some business colleagues had a reservation and invited me along for dinner.

The restaurant itself is quite stunning...very modern and wide open.  I only took a few pictures of the place since I was with business peeps...

We ordered a set menu so they seemed to just keep bringing us food.  We had pork and bamboo shoots and veal and lobster and noodles and vegetables and honestly so much food that I can't remember everything that we had.  It was one of those meals where everything we tasted was better than the last.  There was also a lot of great conversation and laughter and we had great waiters so the entire experience was excellent.

The best part was by far the Peking duck.  I am not typically a fan of duck because it tends to be a bit greasy.  I'll eat it but it never is anything I want to order specially when I see it on the menu.  Peking duck is a completely different story...oh my goodness is it tasty.  They roast the duck in what they call a hung oven.  It is essentially an open oven with a wood fire where they hang the duck to roast.

If you double-click the photo to enlarge it you'll see the ducks hanging in the background ready to be cooked.  There are four ovens like the one you see and these guys roast the ducks as they are ordered...which means they keep pretty busy all night long.

Once the duck is cooked they bring it to your table and actually carve it in front of you...

Once it is carved the waiters actually show you how to eat it properly.  The first step is to take the skin and dip it in sugar and eat it.  I'm not a fan of skin and it seemed a bit odd to dip it in sugar buy holy cow was this tasty.  The skin is super crispy and flavorful and the sugar just makes it all sorts of yummy goodness.  The next step is to put the meat on a thin pancake with sweet bean sauce (tastes like plum sauce) and scallions.  (If you've ever eaten Mu Shu chicken/pork/beef at a Chinese restaurant in the US this is similar.)  The last step is to take the duck and put it inside these hollowed out sesame rolls that are crispy along with julienned radish, cucumber, horseradish and some other things I can't recall.  Our waiter called it the Beijing burger which was pretty funny.

All of the versions tasted so good as did all of the other food.  I'm not sure it is something I would eat often but it was quite an experience and would recommend it to anybody visiting Beijing.