My favourite Peking Duck

Dadong Restaurant (大董烤鸭店) is undoubtedly my favourite restaurant for Peking Duck.

Come to think of it, it could even be my favourite restaurant in Beijing. (But I have too many others I like too..)

I try to make it a point to go there each time I go to Beijing to have Peking Duck, which is something you can't really find in Singapore. Well, actually, you can have Peking Duck.. but it will not be in the same class, or even come close to it.

Mostly, I go to that restaurant with the same group of ex-colleagues. And usually, Mr E places our order.

Each time, there are some dishes he'd almost always order. These include:
- 盐水鸭肝 - Salted water duck liver, a cold dish of that is simple but good.
- 奇妙虾球 - Fried prawns coated with mayonnaise, my favourite dish.
- 栗汁娃娃菜 - Baby cabbage with chestnuts in an egg-like sauce. Yummy.
- 风味豆豉辣鱼片 - Mr E's favourite chilli fish slices. Spicy and very smooth fish slices.
- 大董烤鸭 - The must order - Dadong's Peking Duck.

Dadong's Peking duck is a lot less fatty and oily than the Peking duck served in other restaurants. There are 3 ways to enjoy it. One is to eat the skin, dipped in a little sugar. The skin is so crisp that it'd melt in your mouth. The other way is to eat it with the little sesame bun, with both the skin, meat and garlic paste. The third way is to eat it the "traditional" way, which is the duck slices wrapped in a little round piece of "flour paper", with cucumber, some onions and sweet sauce.

This time, we didn't go to branch we always frequent at 东四十条 (which is really nice because the restaurant is in an area where the buildings are built the traditional way with a little twist.. and has a nice ambience to it. Address: 东城区东四十条甲22号南新仓国际大厦1-2楼).

Instead, we went to the newest branch at 金宝汇 (Address: 东城区金宝街88号金宝汇购物中心). The new restaurant is built in a super swanky and modern setting. There is even a central "stage-like" area where the ovens are kept and you can watch the chefs roast the ducks. I especially like all the Chinese words which are projected onto the dark walls, because they give a bit of a scholarly feel to the place.

I didn't manage to take a picture of all the food we had this time.. but here are some of them...

红烧肉 - This is a cold dish. The waitress recited
some poem as she served this dish. Of course,
I couldn't hear a word she said.

奇妙虾球 - Really yummy and in my view,
better than the wasabi prawns at The Humble House风味豆豉辣鱼片
豆腐两吃 - Nothing special, really
My favourite Peking Duck - they'd slice it in front of you

Crispy duck skin slices

The crispy sesame buns, to go with the duck slicesThe complimentary dessert - iced chestnuts.
Yummy, though personally, I prefer the frozen
persimmon they sometimes serve.