Beijing Kao Ya (Part 2)

As promised - here is my review of the Peking Roast Duck I had.

My friend took me to a local restaurant which apparently is quite popular with HK people (Unfortunately, I don't know the name). The main reason for this is that, unlike many of the other Beijing restaurants, the duck in this restaurant is less fatty but still very delicious.

The first thing to note is that the Peking Roast Duck you get in Beijing is a very different style to the one you get in HK (assuming of course, that the restaurant I went to is representative of Beijing). Before I go on, I guess I should explain what a Peking Roast Duck is (for all one of you who have never had one!)

To start with, the chef takes a duck and, after appropriate seasoning, roasts it until it turns a nice shade of brown. Then the duck is sliced into even pieces - which is how the dish is served to the customer. The customer takes up a slice (or two) of duck, dips it into the accompanying sauce, and places it onto a pancake. Next are added some sliced cucumbers and onions. This is then wrapped up and scoffed down!

So now that you are suitably up to speed on the HK style, how does the Beijing style differ?

To start with, when they slice the duck, they deliberately slice off a section of skin. This skin, which has no meat on it, is then presented to you for separate eating from the pancake. You pick up the skin and dip it into some sugar. This gives the skin a sweet and savoury taste as the skin melts in your mouth - delish!

The condiments also differ in Beijing. The onions and cucumber are still in evidence - however, they are sliced into very thin slices in Beijing. In addition to this, you also get some other stuff which I wasn't able to identify (with the exception of 1 dish which I managed to identify as crushed garlic).

Finally, the duck bones in Beijing get used to make a soup which is served to you at the end of the meal. In HK, after cutting off some slices of meat, they just take the bones away.

All in all - very nice! Although not the best duck I have ever had (in fact, my friend was disappointed as he said that the duck there is normally better - possibly they were too busy that night?), I still enjoyed it very much - especially with the different style to HK.

Can't wait to go back to Beijing and eat more duck! Next time, I might even get a whole duck to myself!
:)

PS Many thanks to my friend for showing me round Beijing and taking me to so many nice restaurants!