The place that offers the best Peking Duck is the Quan Ju De Restaurant, which has outlets at  Qianmen, Hepingmen and Wangfujing. It was established 130 year ago and, if you count from the time when founder Yang Renquan began his duck business, it is 160 years old.
At Quan Ju De, ducks are immersed in condiments unique to the restaurant and are roasted directly over flames stoked by fruit tree wood. The best roasted duck is date-red, shining with oil, but with a crisp skin and tender meat.
The chef then cuts the meat into thin slices, each having a piece of skin. Then the meat is served with very thin pancakes, Chinese onions and special sauce. The way to eat it is to coat the thin pancake with sauce, slap on a few pieces of meat and roll up the pancake. Chopsticks are optional; it is much easier just to grab the thing with your bare hands.
The way to roast ducks:
The ducks are force-fed. So the meat is tender, greasy and fresh. Since it’s roasted with hard wood of jujube, apricot and peach, you can smell the fragrance of fruit from the duck. There are two ways to roast the duck: hang-up roasted and stew roasted. Hang-up roast is, just like the way it is called, the ducks are hung up above the fire until they look shining with oil. Stew roast is to burn the oven first and then put the duck in, put off the fire. The remaining heat will stew the duck. So the cooked ducks are tender inside and crispy outside, oily but not greasy.
The Price of the Roast Duck
The price varies from 59 yuan to 168 yuan for a duck in different restaurants. |
