There is an actual saying that no visit to Beijing is complete if you miss seeing the Great Wall or dining on Roast Duck. The Beijing (or formerly Peking) Roast duck has been around since the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) and initially was one of the main dishes served for the imperial courts.
But, enough about history! Let’s talk about the Roast Duck dish itself. The roast duck’s pieces are usually wrapped in some sort of pancakes with green onions (or leek), cucumbers, and plum or Hoisin sauce.
The following are pictures from my recent visit to Fung Mei, in Duluth, Georgia. Now, their website does mention that they specialize in Shangdong and Sichuan Cuisine (and nothing about Beijing food), so I didn’t know what to expect.
Here’s what we got:
Notice the black sauce at the side? That is Hoisin sauce (which directly translate to seafood sauce 海鮮醬). On the dish there is also leek and cucumbers along with the roast duck which has been chopped in to pieces). So what you do is you take the pancake they also give you (at Fung Mei, they gave us a mantou-like wrap) and wrap it with all the ingredients and sauce as if you’re eating a Chinese fajita. You are going to LOVE the crisp the roasted duck gives you!
It’s also common to have the bone of the duck and remainder of the duck meat to be made in to a soup with cabbage. So here’s the soup we enjoyed along with our Roast Duck:
To be honest, this was not the best Beijing Roast Duck dish I’ve ever had. It was pretty delicious… but not the best. As I mentioned before, it didn’t look like they claimed it was their specialty either so I guess there was no surprise there. I would say that if you’d like to try some Beijing Roast duck and you’re in the area, you should stop by!
Peking Duck Chef – People Monday « Anthonli PhotoBlog
Monday 8th of October 2012
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