Peking Duck in Beijing

I had a very tiring day a Jinshanling climbing the Great Wall of China. I was only too glad to have made it there and come back in one piece. I was a bit disappointed that I had to spend extra for the transporation to an from Jinshanling as transport was not easy getting one there. In Beijing, I quickly made my way back to the hostel to get some rest and then went out for dinner.

Having the hostel behind Ghost Street is both a blessing and a curse. Here, it was easy get nice food, unfortunately, for solo travelers it won’t be very easy on the pocket to eat here. However, after declaring myself a “good Han” for reaching the Great Wall, I felt I owe myself a treat. And what better treat than to have Beijing’s signature dish – Peking Duck 北京烤鸭. I was a bit reluctant to order it but I felt I needed to try it at least once since I’m already here. The famous Peking Duck Restaurant Quanjude was way beyond my budget, so I figured that there has to be good Peking Duck in Beijing that won’t break my wallet.

Picking a restaurant along Ghost Street wasn’t easy but I eventually settled on one which looked classy and while still has an affordable looking menu. The Peking Duck at this restaurant was priced at CNY 59 which was far off from the CNY 108 at Quanjude. However, I found out that I needed to order the other stuff separately. The pancake was worth CNY 10. The onions and cucumber were CNY 1 each. To have the duck cooked in a second way was another CNY 10. So I ended up with a CNY 89 duck. Still not the CNY 108 but was awfully close.

So how was the duck? Peking Duck is basically roasted duck, but the difference here is in the preparation even of the duck itself. The duck is supposedly kept immobile until they are ready to be cooked, this still keep their meat tender and fat. The cooked duck is roasted a nice golden brown. The traditional way of eating Peking duck is to put the skin and some meat into the pancake, some onions and some sauce and eaten. Some restaurants will offer to prepare the leftovers of the duck and turn it into a second dish. In my case, I asked that the duck be deep fried with chilli.

The duck with pancake was a bit underwhelming, as I probably expected it to be exploding with all kinds of flavors, but it taste rather like the Peking duck I’ve had elsewhere. The skin wasn’t particularly special nor the meat wasn’t tough either. But it wasn’t really mind blowing in my opinion. However, what saved the day was the deep fried duck with chilli. This one was quite memorable as the duck was cooked very well. The think of it as fried chicken. The spices added to the duck greatly enhance the taste of the duck, and although the duck was very greasy, it was really that tasty. In the end, common sense got the better of me since I should not be eating so much oily food. However, if I were to eat Peking duck again, I will not hesitate to have the second order cooked that way again.

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