Peking Duck (& Six Other Duck Dishes) @ Duwang 都王

It wasn't until my fourth night in Beijing that I ate what could be considered local food. In other cities (like Hong Kong or Singapore) I would have stomped my foot like a spoilt six-year-old if I had to wait that long. But I don't mind waiting in Beijing because it's, with the possible exception of Shanghai, the only city in the world where one can sample food from every corner of China. For instance I ate Cantonese, Shanxi, Buddhist vegetarian, Xinjiang, Taiwanese, Sichuan, Shanghai and (more) Shanxi food before pitching up at Duwang 都王 for some local fare.

Duwang specialises in the Chinese capital's most famous dish: Peking duck (Beijing kaoya 北京烤鸭). While the crispy skinned duck is the restaurant's headline act, the support acts are pretty damn good, too. Opening up this veritable festival of all things duck was a cold starter of mustard duck webs. These had been deboned leaving just the skin, web and cartilage. I really enjoyed the crunchy cartilage, with the mustard giving it a nasal passage-clearing quality.

Next up was a rather theatrical dish of duck hearts served with a flaming teacup of baijiu 白酒. Here the hearts were skewered then placed in booze-fuelled flames. This may seem gimmicky, but the effect of crisping up the duck hearts enhances both the taste and texture. At around the same time out came a dish of duck liver, which was a bit like a pâté. This was OK, but to be honest, I can barely remember anything about it – never a good sign.

Over the years I've pretty much eaten most parts of a duck, but the meat from the jaws was a new experience for me. Served in a vat of red oil infused by chillies and Sichuan peppercorns, these Sichuan-style duck jaws were revelatory. The meat on the jawbone was remarkably tender and had soaked up the numbing heat of the Sichuan peppercorns. What's more, the tongues were still intact – a bonus! Also bobbling alongside the jaws were lotus root, potato slices and mooli. These had also absorbed lots of flavour from the red oil. I was so engrossed in this dish that I missed out on taking photos of the chef carving up the Peking duck.

By the time I'd finished my assault on the duck jaws, the Peking duck had already been carved up into slices of crispy skin and tender meat. As is the modern way, the crispiest bits of skin are set aside and dipped into sugar. The rest of the skin and meat are then used to fill pancakes or even better, sesame buns (zhima shaobing 芝麻烧饼), with the usual spring onion, cucumber and sweet bean sauce. The duck was very good at Duwang, and the meat was kept moist and tender by being served on plates over a tealight.

You can opt to reserve some of the duck meat for a stir-fry, but we eschewed that option, as the restaurant usually diddles you by not using all of the meat. Instead the carcass is usually bagged up and taken home to make stock. However, in this instance it was used to make an extra course of deep-fried duck bones tossed in garlic chilli salt. This was a fine accompaniment to my beer and I enjoyed hoovering up the last remnants of meat off the bone! There was also one last course of duck soup, but this was a bit bland.

There were also some non-duck dishes such as cucumber salad, stir-fried greens and other bits and bobs, but I can't remember much about them. Besides, who cares? Restaurants like Duwang stand or fall by the quality of their duck dishes.

There's a lot to like about Duwang: the good service, the traditional 'red and gold' décor, but above all, the pride in the food it knocks out. The thing is, though, Beijing (being a city of 20 million inhabitants) isn't easy to get around, and a restaurant has to be really exceptional to schlep across town for. Duwang just falls short of falling into that category, and I consider it to be an excellent neighbourhood joint rather than a must-visit. Mind you, it is close to the Olympic complex, which remains a popular tourist attraction.

The easiest way to get to Duwang is to hail a taxi, and show the address to the driver. As the restaurant doesn't have English signage, look out for the characters 都王 on the shopfront.

Duwang Roast Duck Restaurant 都王烤鸭店
Address 地址: 北京 朝阳亚运村慧忠北里201号
Tel 电话: +86-10-6491-9665 or +86-10-6491-9667

Other Peking Duck Joints in Beijing
For a similar old school duck-focussed feast to Duwang, I recommend Ya Wang (鸭王), which has branches dotted across the capital. I've probably been to this restaurant more than any other in Beijing, although my last visit was way back in 2009. More recently, fellow blogger Hungry Female enjoyed Liqun, a charming, if slightly run-down, joint in a Beijing hutong.

For an upmarket Peking duck experience, the consensus choice seems to be Da Dong (大董). Here the focus is as much on modern Chinese cuisine as the duck. I was blown away when I ate there in 2010. Other posh places that people rate include Duck de Chine and Made in China.

One last word of advice, lots of guidebooks and websites still mention Quanjude 全聚德 as a place to try Peking duck. However, many are of the opinion that this famous restaurant group is trading on past glories, and my colleagues in Beijing consider it to be a tourist trap.

Peking Duck @ Zen China

Does it matter where you eat a particular dish? If Beijingers are to be believed, it does. To them, the only city on earth to eat Peking duck (北京烤鸭 Beijing kaoya) is the Chinese capital. For want of a less pretentious word, it's all about the terroir. After all, the top Beijing restaurants use only locally bred birds that are roasted in a special oven fired by fruitwood from local orchards. Before roasting, the duck is pumped with air, coated with maltose syrup, and left to hang to dry. This process takes a day and some restaurants even go so far as to prepare their ducks in climate-controlled 'hanging' rooms. Needless to say, this obsessive attention to detail is seldom found outside of Beijing.

Over the years, I've had the good fortune to eat some mighty fine Peking duck at restaurants such as Ya Wang (鸭王) and Dadong (大董) in Beijing. The memories from these meals remain seared in the memory, unlike the rare occasions that I've sampled this dish in otherwise exemplary foodie cities such as Hong Kong and Singapore.

With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that until a couple of weeks ago, I'd never risked eating this dish in London. But I'm glad I did because the Peking duck (£42/whole duck) at Zen China is as good as can be expected outside of China. Juicy and succulent on the inside with flavoursome lacquered skin on the outside. My only criticism is that the skin could've been crispier, but I admit that I'm being slightly churlish on this point.

The duck was served in two courses, with an abundant helping of skin and meat for the first course alongside plenty of hand-made pancakes and the usual accoutrements of hoi-sin sauce, spring onion and cucumber. For the second course, the remaining duck (allegedly!) was stir-fried with diced vegetables and pickles, and served in a lettuce wrap. This was OK but I would've preferred just to have the rest of the duck carved up.

As there were only four of us, we were quite stuffed after the duck, so we just went for some dumplings to finish off. All of these were tasty, in particular the unusual combination of pumpkin & sea bass (top right in the photo).

Service was good, although the atmosphere was a bit muted, as the restaurant wasn't very busy. Together with a bottle of wine, tea and 12.5% service, the bill came to a very reasonable £98 between four.

Given its location inside the old County Hall, there are great views of Big Ben and other tourist sights. And that probably explains why most of the diners seemed to be from out of town. But for all that, Zen China is no tourist trap, and I'd be happy to return to check out more of their authentic Beijing/Northern Chinese food.



Zen China, County Hall, Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7PB
(Tel: 020-7261-1196) Nearest stations: Waterloo, Westminster

Crispy Aromatic Duck 香酥鴨

Amongst the most popular Chinese dishes in Britain is crispy aromatic duck but like General Tso's chicken in the USA and dim sims in Australia, it isn't a dish that would be easily recognisable in China. So how did the crispy aromatic duck that the British know and love come into being?

The crispy aromatic duck served in Britain has its roots in a dish from Sichuan that shares the same Chinese name, xiang su ya 香酥鴨. Both dishes are prepared in the same way with the duck marinated with herbs and spices, before being steamed until tender, cooled, and finally deep-fried until crispy. Mind you, many Chinese restaurants in Britain take the shortcut of using pre-prepared ducks that merely need to be defrosted and deep-fried before serving.

Whilst the preparation is similar, the presentation of these two types of crispy aromatic duck is very different. The original version isn't served with pancakes, cucumber, spring onion and hoisin sauce, and nor is it shredded at the table by a waiter or a waitress. Instead the duck is chopped into pieces and is served on its own or sometimes with steamed buns.

I did some more research but I didn't get very far in that I couldn't find a restaurant or a chef who claims to have 'invented' this dish. The only information that I could find is that crispy aromatic duck was first served in London's Chinatown sometime in the last century, which isn't really that much of a revelation. My own theory is that some canny restaurateur wanted to serve a Peking duck style dish served with pancakes et al, that didn't need as much preparation as Peking duck itself.

My feelings about crispy aromatic duck are quite ambivalent. It isn't as bad as some of the dishes that pander to western tastes, but at the same time, I think it can tend to be a bit dry. I prefer Cantonese-style roast duck (燒鴨) and Peking duck (北京烤鴨) as they're both juicier, although it's hard to track down decent renditions of the latter in London.

But for all that, I sometimes eat crispy aromatic duck, usually in the company of friends who adore it. The most recent occasion was at the award-winning Empress of Sichuan, where it worked surprisingly well as a gentle starter before a typically spicy onslaught. And it was during this meal that I began to consider how in many ways, crispy aromatic duck symbolises British Born Chinese such as myself. I mean it's undoubtedly Chinese, but it's undergone a few changes, some good, some bad, to get along in the place it calls home.

The Genius of Dadong

Some blog posts write themselves. This is one of them. The following sequence of photos shows the courses in the order in which they were served.

Poached chicken in chilli oil with fruit salad shot - after eating the spicy chicken, you tackle the hollow tube of fruit salad. I was instructed to suck through the bottom to taste the mango puree first, followed by fruit, and ending with foam.

Spare ribs & sour plum arranged in a Chinese landscape - as our waitress sprinkled the icing sugar 'snow' onto the landscape, she recited a famous Chinese poem by Su Dongpo. This would've been self-indulgent if it hadn't been so damn tasty.

Roast beef with potatoes - I thought it was really clever how this dish looks 'European' but tastes Chinese. The trail of 'dust' consists of ground chilli and Sichuan pepper.

Stir-fried fish fillets – these were arranged in fried fish skin with a spoon of white pepper dip (off photo). Perfectly cooked.

Braised Chinese leaf with chestnuts – usually such a boring vegetable, the rich creamy chicken stock based sauce lifted the humble Chinese leaf to new heights. Apparently this is an re-interpretation of a famous Shandong dish.

Pak choi with braised mushrooms – I'm not sure what type of mushroom (similar to Chanterelle?) featured in this dish but they sure as hell absorbed a lot of flavour.

Chicken consommé with snow fungus & bamboo pith – a super clean tasting soup and a perfect palate cleanser for what was to follow. Students of Chinese cuisine will understand that the two kinds of fungus are there for texture.

With the exception of the ribs and the fish, the courses were served individually 'Western-style'. In some cases, I feared that the Blumenthal-esque presentation might have been at the expense of flavour. I needn't have worried as each dish passed the taste test with flying colours. But for all the excellence of these seven courses, they were merely a prelude to the signature dish of Peking duck (Beijing kaoya 北京烤鸭) at Dadong Roast Duck Restaurant (大董烤鸭店).

Peking duck is a must eat when visiting China's capital and this is the place to do it in style. Roasted in a traditional wood-fired oven, the bird is leaner than most with super-crispy skin and very tender meat. The duck is carved at the table and served with the usual accoutrements alongside the more unusual such as the sesame buns (zhima shaobing 芝麻烧饼), which I preferred to the traditional pancakes. The highlight was the crispy skin, which I liked eating the modern way by dipping into sugar. To round off this veritable feast, milky duck soup was served.

There were desserts but without sounding churlish, fresh fruit and sorbet seemed a bit out of kilter with the previous nine courses. But that's a minor quibble as this was the culinary highlight of my visit to Beijing. Chef Dong is a genius and if he was plying his trade in London or Paris, he'd possess Michelin stars. Big thanks to my colleagues for bringing me here and for ordering so well.

Dadong is quite bling and if you fancy an earthier (and cheaper) Peking duck experience then I recommend Ya Wang (鸭王). Whilst the former is undoubtedly a better all round restaurant, there isn't much in it between the two when it comes to the duck.

Dadong Roast Duck Restaurant 1-2 Nanxincang International Plaza, 22A Dongsishitiao, Dongcheng District, Beijing (Tel: +86-10-5169-0329)
大董烤鸭店 北京东城区东四十条甲22号南新仓国际大夏1-2 

PS: I did take a look at the bilingual menu and it would make a great coffee table book with its amazing photos. However with the exception of the Peking duck, I have no idea what any of the dishes are actually called in English or Chinese.

Review: Ya Wang (Peking Duck), Beijing

The Duck King

If you come to Beijing, you obviously have to try Peking Duck (I’m calling it Peking Duck even though we call the city Beijing). But where to go ? The internet or guidebooks don't help that much as the same old recommendations always seem to pop up. Old school places like Quanjude and Li Qun or more modern places like Dadong or Duck de Chine.

My favourite place, Ya Wang (which translates as Duck King) doesn't get too many plaudits although it is in Beijing Eats and is starting to get some attention on the Chowhound boards. If that’s not testament enough, they have a 'Wall Of Fame' which bizarrely includes Bobby Charlton amongst numerous photos of Chinese film stars. There's a number of branches in Beijing but I always end up at the Jianguomennei Dajie branch.

It's not the most salubrious restaurant but what they've saved on interior design, they've spent on a traditional wood oven. I’ve also heard that the restaurant breed their own ducks that are less fatty and in the case of their Emperor duck, fed on a special diet. There’s no English signage so look out for the following sign:

To whet the appetite, loads of starters were ordered including duck webs with wasabi, duck tongue, duck hearts, duck liver (looked a bit like pate), duck gizzards and fried duck bones. I liked the duck webs and the fried duck bones but I ate only the bare minimum of the rest so as not to offend ! However there was one starter that was different class, duck egg yolk wrapped in seaweed and squid, this masterpiece tasted as good as it looked.

Then came the main event, we went for the standard Peking duck (RMB 168) although you can splash out on the Emperor duck (RMB 388). As a guide, one whole duck serves about 4 people if you order starters and sides. With this option, the whole bird is brought to the table and skilfully carved into slices of meat and crispy skin.

One thing to note is that the pancakes and accompaniments of spring onion, cucumber, crushed garlic, sugar, pea shoots and sauce are ordered separately at Ya Wang (apparently this is not unusual in Beijing). An alternative to pancakes are sesame buns (zhima shaobing).

As usual, Ya Wang didn't disappoint ! The duck was less fatty than in other restaurants and using a wood oven really did make a difference to the flavour. I loved the sesame buns and the effect was like making mini-duck burgers ! But these were very filling so towards the end, I went carb-free and dipped the remaining crispy skin in sugar.

There is an alternative Peking duck in 3 ways - here they'll carve the duck as usual but save some meat on the carcass for a stir fry with a final course of soup made with the carcass. I don't mind this option but I'm convinced that they 'steal' some of your duck to use in other dishes.

Unbelievably, some side dishes were ordered alongside the duck. These non-duck dishes were an eclectic mix of dishes from all corners of China. They were all OK but my fave was the granny fish - fish served in a tureen of soup flavoured with preserved vegetables (suan cai). This was a great palate cleanser after the numerous duck filled pancakes and sesame buns.

The meal then ended with fresh fruit but there was still one final course up for grabs. The table were quite literally fighting over bones as the duck carcasses were being divvied up into doggy-bags !

Verdict: Just in case you're in any doubt, Ya Wang is a must visit.

Other Stuff: If you don't like duck bits then seafood makes a good alternative starter. I can recommend the crystal prawns and steamed scallops.