Peking Duck in Beijing - 北京烤鸭
November 19, 2012
Don't miss the famous Peking duck when you come to Beijing as it's a 600 year old tradition started in the imperial era and one of China's national foods that has spread around the world.
We were lucky enough to be treated to this most scrumptious famous gourmet cuisine of Beijing at one of the most expensive, well respected and exclusing restaurants in this city on one of our first days here. We have been totally spoiled with endless, fit-for-a-king meals in this center of China as food is essential to Chinese culture.
In the same way the culinary specialty foie gras in France is made from a unique process, Peking duck also uses an ancient culinary technique that involves a particular type of duck, raised in a certain way.
The duck is roasted in an open oven ( that alone is fascinating to watch and I have video and photos coming on that), interestingly hung up along the sides inside, and using fruitword logs to add to the taste and fragrance. They pull them out with a long stick thing and hang them in a different area, then onto- the-table demonstration.
The chef cuts the duck for you at the table and the whole process has a beautiful, enticing presentation. The flavorful duck is served with warm Mandarin style pancakes, sliced cucumber, spring onion, radish and a delicious bean sauce made with sesame oil and peanuts.
The Chinese eat just the skin, but since we are foreigners they gave us some meat, as they know Americans expect that. They show you how to combine the ingredients and make a kind of "Chinese burrito" with your chopsticks dipping the duck into the bean sauce as you make it with a bit of radish, onion and cucumber enfolded in the thin pancake.
I'll write more on this topic, but the food has been so amazingly delectable here in China, I wanted to give you a "taste" through this sweet photo of the duck platter and decorations on the table.
Don't miss the famous Peking duck when you come to Beijing as it's a 600 year old tradition started in the imperial era and one of China's national foods that has spread around the world.
We were lucky enough to be treated to this most scrumptious famous gourmet cuisine of Beijing at one of the most expensive, well respected and exclusing restaurants in this city on one of our first days here. We have been totally spoiled with endless, fit-for-a-king meals in this center of China as food is essential to Chinese culture.
In the same way the culinary specialty foie gras in France is made from a unique process, Peking duck also uses an ancient culinary technique that involves a particular type of duck, raised in a certain way.
The duck is roasted in an open oven ( that alone is fascinating to watch and I have video and photos coming on that), interestingly hung up along the sides inside, and using fruitword logs to add to the taste and fragrance. They pull them out with a long stick thing and hang them in a different area, then onto- the-table demonstration.
The chef cuts the duck for you at the table and the whole process has a beautiful, enticing presentation. The flavorful duck is served with warm Mandarin style pancakes, sliced cucumber, spring onion, radish and a delicious bean sauce made with sesame oil and peanuts.
The Chinese eat just the skin, but since we are foreigners they gave us some meat, as they know Americans expect that. They show you how to combine the ingredients and make a kind of "Chinese burrito" with your chopsticks dipping the duck into the bean sauce as you make it with a bit of radish, onion and cucumber enfolded in the thin pancake.
I'll write more on this topic, but the food has been so amazingly delectable here in China, I wanted to give you a "taste" through this sweet photo of the duck platter and decorations on the table.
« previous | | next »
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00e5502a95078833017c33ac5802970b
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Peking Duck in Beijing - 北京烤鸭:
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
The comments to this entry are closed.
Could you give the name of the restaurant? I have often been sorry that you don't include the names of good places you go to.
Posted by: Vicki | November 20, 2012 at 09:26 AM
北京烤鸭 is one of my best memories from China, but we tried it in Guangzhou which is called "the south gate" of China. And, we like it so much that we bought one from in Nevada shipped from SFO in the States for our last Thanksgiving table ^_^
But we NEED to taste one from a local restaurant in Beijing someday, and I can't imagine how divine that will be!!
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family in Beijing!!!
Posted by: Connie | November 20, 2012 at 01:33 PM
Sounds wonderful! I am not sure how much it varies outside of Beijing, but this was pretty spectacular.
I'll be writing more about this, but just doing short posts while we are touring here.
Posted by: Jeanne @soultravelers3 | November 26, 2012 at 06:39 AM
Thanks for the feedback Vicki, I do try to give the names of places.
We're moving fast now in China so it's hard to blog and travel, thus I am just doing short posts.
I didn't have the name of this one in front of me when I wrote this, nor do I have it now.
I WILL do a proper post about it through, and probably a video too...and THEN I will name it...as I will have the time to find that card and put everything down correctly.
Posted by: Jeanne @soultravelers3 | November 26, 2012 at 06:48 AM