Old duck Vs Popular Duck, Beijing

When one is in Beijing, the first meal that comes to mind would be Peking Duck.

But Peking duck is served everywhere in Beijing, almost every other tourist friendly street has a 'kao ya' (roasted duck) restaurant.

So where to go?

Googled a little and led me to 2 places,

Bian Yi Fang

This is the oldest Peking duck brand in Beijing, with over 100 years of history.

I didn't find my way to their first branch, but there's a branch fairly near my hotel, hence this was my first dinner in Beijing.

Almost packed to the the brim, we were still rather lucky to get a seat. It was 730pm and we had just missed the peak hour for dinner (yes, Beijingers have their dinner early). We ordered their special Peking Duck, which cost about RM140 per duck. We were warned that we had to wait for almost an hour for the duck, I guess to keep us anticipating and maybe the duck would taste way better than it should :p

Other dishes stave us from hunger, there were some hits and some misses..

Started off with a cold and warm appetizer..

I once had an excellent version of cold beancurd and ear wood fungus in Shanghai, so I ordered it. Alas, it was just mediocre as the five spice powder flavour was just too strong in this.
The warm, sweet lotus stuff with glutinous rice was also rather disappointing as the rice and the lotus root was a tad hard. A rather unrefined version of this dish.

Luckily for us, we hit jackpot with the stir fried fresh bamboo shoots with mushrooms. The wok hei was perfect, making this dish a delicious one.

Before I was in Beijing, one friend reminded me to try Beijing's version of sweet and sour meatball..

I obviously heeded his recommendation, I just wanted to know what's so special about a meatball? And gosh, these balls were absolutely lip smacking! Smaller than the average meatballs, it was moist, slight crisp on the exterior and coated with sticky, tangy sauce. Very addictive and wonderful with white rice.

The prawns were delicious too, but a tad miserly on the serving (they halved the prawns to make it looked like a whole prawn!*shakes head*). Deep fried and coated with sour plumish- spicy sauce, this was another hit amongst my friends.

The mutton was to me, very delicious as it was extremely gamey :p. Juicy, tender meat that went well with their chili powder. Tofu on the other hand, was forgettable...

And the piece the resistance after almost an hour's wait..

Hmmm, they actually serve the skin with duck meat. With different methods of cut. The meat was well marinated and tender- very succulent indeed. The skin, crisp- had a thin layer of fat which melts when you bite into it. Was it good? Yes. Did it blew me away with it's flavours and texture? No.

And to differentiate themselves with the rest of the kao ya dian, they do not serve the duck with sauces. They proudly told us that the duck is tasty on its own. So we had it plain with the pancake and bunsn (which did not score any brownie points from some of my friends)

Quanjude

Now, this is a restaurant that you can find at most of the famous tourist spot. Only 9 years younger than Bianyifang, Quanjude also shared over a 100 years of history in Peking duck making.

But their selling point was their open oven roasting (compared to the rest which are closed oven) using fire from lychee tree branches.

We went to the branch at Houhai Lake, which was an excellent location for dinner (be early though if you don't have reservations).

While we had to wait a long time for the duck in Bianyifang, Peking duck (RM100) in Quanjude was readily available and soon enough, the master carver was already serving us parts of the cuts.
Wangfujing was different, we were served with a piece (each) of the fattest part of the skin (sans the meat). Just dip a bit of salt to savour the fragrance of the skin.

I was, admittedly, taken aback by the texture. The skin was so fatty, it almost felt like I was biting into a sachet of crunchy oil! Lard lovers, you will fall deeply in love with this piece of baby :p.

The duck itself however, was rather bland, though still juicy. I guess that's why we were given plates of thick sauce to eat with the duck and pancake wrap.

The rest of the dishes came trailing in right after we devoured the duck..
The beef rack grilled with black pepper was a supremely top notch dish. Marinated until tender, it had hints of japanese teriyaki, smokiness and black pepper all rolled into one. Each piece was so moist and melting- we had to fight for these few pieces :p. The chicken with cashew nut was also a delicious one, tangy chicken bites coated with a generous amount of crunchy cashews. The pork with knotted beancurd was rather popular among my friends. I thought it was nice (as I've tried a very good version in Shanghai), nothing to shout about though.

The remaining non meat dishes were very tasty...

The fried lily bulbs with ginko and mix vegetables were light, filled with sweet flavours and fresh, crisp texture. The fresh bamboo shoots were also good, though some of my friends do not enjoy the flavour (or smell) emitted from the bamboo shoots. And as some of my friends have never been to China before, I ordered the ever popular apple toffee- something that needs to e devoured immediately as once it's cooled, it will be stuck rock hard on the plate.

If I do have to choose between these 2 restaurants, I would have chose Quanjude for an overall enjoyable meal. Most of the dishes were well executed. But please take note, each Wangfujing branches serves different variety of dishes- I've tried another branch which was not as good. Go for the one at Houhai or the main branch.

As for the duck? If you want to enjoy a more flavourful meat, Bianyifang is the place.

If you want to savour the duck skin, do Quanjude for the lardy, fatty but scrumptious skin.

There's a 3rd place popular for ducks, it's called Dadong, which most unfortunately, I did not have the time to try :(.

Oh, and do note, the Peking duck in Beijing is served as 1 dish, unlike in Malaysia, where after carving, they will cook another dish from the remains of the carved duck.

Bianyifang and Quanjude has quite a number of branches around Beijing city, just google for the one nearest to your hotel/ tourists attraction you plan to visit. Overall meal is not cheap, but hey, its Peking duck in Peking!

Brilliant Beijing!

My dear, dear readers!

First and foremost, a thousand apologies for not updating my blog for the longest time!

Hope you guys didnt get the impression that I've stopped blogging for good :p

I've been busy for almost a month and when it was time for updates, well, I decided to procrastinate instead..hehehe.

Well, the title of my blog post gave it all away.. yes, I was off for a nice holiday in Beijing (and Xi'an) recently, to pay homage to mother of all walls :p, the Great Wall..There were 3 main gates to the Great Wall, we went to the JuYongGuan Wall, in which our driver declared, was the nicest of the 3 gates (I cant verify since this was the only one we went for :p). We were blessed with wonderful weather and beautiful autumn colours during our time there, I was so pleasantly surprise! The climb was ardous, but we defintely had loads of fun :D.

The grand Forbidden City was too humongous for me to absorb all it's rich history..

Overview of the Forbidden City from Jingshan Park

The calm moat surrounding the walls of Forbidden City

Sadly, this place was my least favourite..

And being so near Forbidden City, how can we miss Tiananmen (and Tiananmen Square)..

Zhengyang Gate at the front, leading us to Tiananmen Square and Chairman Mao Masoleum

Crowded with locals and tourists (on a weekday! dont the locals work??), forming a long queue to visit Chairman Mao.

The Temple of Heaven was lovely though..

It was packed with activities, there were lots (and I do mean freaking truck loads of them!) of locals exercising, dancing and singing in the rose garden and cyprus park. Ironically for me, it still feels tranquil amongst all the bustling.

Summer Palace was a hit among us..

We love the slow stroll, the cooling weather, the breathtaking scenery, the lush greeneries...Time really did seem to slow down there.

And for a structure build during our time, we popped by to the Olympic Park..

The Birdnest was the most popular landmark here. We were told that the oblong shape stadium represents the Heaven (and Yang and male element) while the Rectangle shaped stadium(The Cube) across the Birdnest represents the Earth (and Ying and female element). It's all about Fengshui, baby!

There were plenty of parks in Beijing, we dropped by to Beihai Park..

I had an awesome time there, it was relaxing to stroll under autumn trees, watching the sun set..

We popped by to Yonghe Temple..

It's the largest Llama Temple in Beijing and the structure seems very similar to chinese temples. I guess the only tell tale sign that it's llama temple was the scattering of spinning prayer wheels around the temple.

And how can we miss the infamous Wangfujing Street where there's a stretch of street (fear factor) food for everyone to indulge in?

There's other places that we've visited (Beijing is way too huge), but I wont wanna bored all of you, would I? Overall an extremely tiring trip (I've never walked so much daily for a long while now), but thanks to the fantastic company, I had plenty of fun! :)

Chinese Food, Harbin

Recently, I've received an email from a reader, requesting for me to share some of the food I've tried in Harbin as he is planning to visit Harbin early next year. Since I did write about the Russian foodI've tried there, I guess it's only fair to share on some of the local food I've had too..

We managed to try a range of Chinese food in Harbin even though we were there in the middle of a very frosty winter.

Lao Chang Chun Bing (Laochang Spring Pancake)
This was our first meal in Harbin. We were freezing and was travelling out for the night Ice Sculpture Exhibition and our driver insisted that we must have a hearty meal, else we wont be able to withstand the night temperature outdoors (it was reaching -35 by night). We didn't know where to go and he dropped us at a large shopping arcade. Looked around and saw this place was packed- a good indication of decent food..

As the name suggest, the main meal here was the spring cake. Well, to me, it was somewhat like a cross between popiah skin and roti canai..

We'll just need to order the spring cake, get some dishes as our wrap's filling and wahlah, absolutely tasty meal. We were given a bowl of congee like stuff made of beans- which was absolutely bland. Locals seems to like it though. Just like popiah, we spreaded some bean sauce and onions before topping it with the dishes we like.

Clockwise frm top left- Smoked pork, scrambled eggs, stir fried pork strips with dried chili, stir fried potato strips.

We ordered a number of dishes as our spring cake 'filling'. The smoked pork was served warm and it was very tender. The pork had a light smokey flavour, luckily it was not salty at all. Nice. The scrambled eggs was normal to me, but Alfred said that we should be glad they served us real eggs. Apparently, some restaurants serves 'fake eggs'- don't ask me what it's made of. The stir fried potato strips were refreshing- it was slightly crunchy, unlike the potatoes I've taste. Great as a base compared to the ubiquitous sengkuang (jicama) in Msia. My fave was the pork strips with dried chili. The pork was extremely fragrant from the spices and the dried chili was deep fried to crunchy bits. So very good!

We snacked on stir fried small ribs with salt and pepper..

Good stuff to go with the local Harbin Beer. The beer? Quite light and crisp flavour. Excellent to warm up the body on a cold winter night I guess :p

Dong Fang Jiao Zhi Wang (Eastern Dumpling King)

The bad breakfast served in our hotel led us to venture out for our breakfast..

No, we're not having noodles/ congee/ rice- we decided to have plates and plates of dumplings. Boiled, steamed, pan fried ones- dumplings filled with mince pork, with mince pork&cabbage, preserve cabbage with shrimps, mutton etc. Don't think I've ever eaten so many dumplings at one go. Quite decent dumplings, the skin was smooth (though a tad thick) and the filling was freshly wrapped upon ordering . The dipping sauce of vinegar and hot sauce complemented the dumplings well.

I read something funny in the menu- Hand Pulled chicken.

Curious and wondered how it would be, we ordered a portion. Here's the dish...

And you know why it's called Hand Pulled Chicken? Literally, the chef used his bare had to break the chicken parts, instead of using a cleaver to chop the chicken to smaller pieces. Hahahaha. Taste wise, well, it's a cold dish- feels like eating smoked, salted chicken that was just removed from the fridge.

Xiang Chun Xiao Yuan

We decided to get the driver, a local of Harbin, to recommend us our last meal in Harbin before we left. He asked if we have any preference- we just wanted dishes, at a reasonable price.

He led us to a restaurant tucked at a more quiet end of the town, but when we entered, it was extremely noisy and crowded. We seemed to be the only foreigners, the locals very boisterous and yakking away in their dialect which I could not understand. We were led near the kitchen to order and we led upstairs for our meal. One stark contrast I noted here was that the waiters were wearing the communist uniform. Alfred explained that these were government owned restaurants- hence it'll be cheaper, but yes, you will see them in such uniforms.

When we got our first dish, we knew immediately we have over ordered. The portions here were humongous!

Our chicken stir fried with wood ear fungus. Although the ingredients were chopped into an unrefined portion, the flavour was still good. I really liked their fresh wood ear fungus, every bite had a little spring and gave great texture to the dish. The sauce was a tad salty though.

The Mah Lat Beef..

It looks like a portion for 10 pax. Crazy. And the amount of peppers in this dish? Irrational. Too spicy (even for a winter day), too numbing, we could only finish a quarter of this portion.

Their Savoury Homemade Taufoo was excellent though..

The steamed Taufoo was served in a cute bucket and you can mix your own condiments into the taufoo. Smooth and utterly belly warming dish.

Our Omelette seems to have more vegetables than eggs..

Yes, by now, I realise that eggs are quite scarce (and expensive) in China :p. Wonderful dish, the vegetables were fresh and sweet, again, I really like their wood ear fungus :).

One of the more common sweet dish here- Stir fried dates with yam, apple and sweet potato slices. Though it looks like a cooled dish, it actually retained very high temperature. I burnt my tongue eating this. The sugar coating had hardened and crystallised, hence we get a nice crunch while biting into the hot warm centre of the fruits. Delicious!

And while we're eating, the waiters were all gung ho and went up the stage to entertain us with their local songs and one even recited poem...

Lao Chang Chun Bing (Laochang Spring Pancake)
No.180, Zhong Yang Da Jie, Dao Li District, Harbin, China.

Dongfang Jiaozi Wang (Eastern Dumpling King)
No 39, Zhongyang Dajie, Harbin, China.

Xiang Chun Xiao Yuan

No 2, Da Shun Jie, Harbin, China.

International Cuisine, Shanghai, Part 1

Shanghai, being one of the regional hubs for Asia, has it's fair share of tempting international cuisine and Alfred (our host) recommended some of his favourites to us...

Japanese: Kagen teppanyaki

I believe Kagen played a Big part in contributing to Alfred's 10kg in weight gain since he came to Shanghai to work :p. This was our first dinner in Shanghai, which was unexpected- I was thinking of Chinese food throughout my stay there..

Kagen is tucked in a quiet, chic area of Shanghai, reminiscence of Bangsar. What's their specialty? Teppanyaki buffet.

We were ushered to a room, seats about 10 customers per room, facing the teppanyaki table. Just get the menu and order away. Only one item were limited to one plate per table- the sashimi- other than that, we were given free reign to order anything under the teppanyaki menu..

Some starters..The sashimi was very fresh. Shishamo was pickled, so it was sourish and sweet, a first for me to try such a method of cooking for shishamo, but lovely nonetheless. The unagi on cucumber was nice and the deep fried baby octopus tentacles was delicious.

For RM110, I must say that this buffet was good value for money..

We had multiple orders of plump scallops, juicy jumbo tiger prawns and sirloins..Cooked to perfection, each item was oozing with juices. Absolutely lurved the scallops and prawns. Simply divine.

The teppanyaki chicken came unexpected scrumptious, crisp skin and tender, luscious meat. The Saba fish was delish as it was browned just to my liking :). The beef wrap was wonderful too, we had it with enoki wrapped or foie gras. And some tricks to entertain the guest, the teppanyaki master asked us to sit back and suddenly the stacked onions on the teppanyaki table were set on fire in our darkened room. Huge ball of fire rose up to the ceiling. Such drama..

End the meal with endless cups of cold and hot sake..Bliss :)

Modern European: M on the Bund
Reading mixed reviews of M on the Bund, I was on the fence on this one. Finally did pop by in the end, we were at the Bund anyways, so heck, might as well have a meal here. We were there for lunch and well, menu was not so extensive, we only had the choice of a healthy, light lunch set or a full, heavy lunch set. As we had a heavy breakfast, all of us decided to have the light lunch..

Started off with a pretty glass of carrot, lemon and parsley juice..

Refreshing and good way to whet our appetite..

Freshly baked bread with creamy butter.

For starters, there's a choice of chicken broth with fresh herbs or a salad of roasted eggplants and tomatoes flavoured with cumin and coriander finished with yogurt. Both had very contrasting flavours- the former was mild and gentle on the palate, very much flavoured liken to chinese chicken soup while the latter was robust and strong and woke up my tastebuds immediately :p. I preferred the latter.
Mains was a choice of :

1) Char grilled baby squid with pilaf of brown rice, marjoram and tomato with lemon wedges..Slightly too charred, the burnt flavour fell into the rice, there were hints of bitterness in some bites. The warm, slight gooey rice was a welcoming sight on a cold winter day. Quite a nice main, but not to shout about.

2) Kuku Ye Sabri- or to simply put it, an iranian herb frittata..Looks pretty, but lacking in flavours. Though it was described to be filled with feta cheese and olives, it just tasted rather bland.

We finished our meal with an extremely moist carrot cake..Good portion to end the meal with a sweet note.

Our lunch costs us approx RM50 per pax- I guess it's real good value for money for the service and the breathtaking view that we got from M of the Huangpu River and Pudong (new shanghai). Food wise, it's just ok.

Kagen Teppanyaki: 28D, Taojiang Lu, Near Heng Shan lu, Shanghai, China.

M on the Bund: 7F, No 5, The Bund (corner of Guangdong Lu), Shanghai, China.

If it's just a day in Hangzhou

It's not a If for me..I really did only allocated a day in Hangzhou when I was in China early this year. But when I reached Hangzhou, I regretted my decision....Hangzhou definitely needed more than a day, with it's breathtaking scenery and fantastic food.

And with only a day in Hangzhou, I've only got 2 main meals to spare :(..so I had to seek the more popular and raved about eateries in Hangzhou.

In between exploring the humongous Linyin Temple, to the majestic Feiyang Pagoda, the tranquil Westlake and the boisterous QingHefang street reminiscence of streets during the Song Dynasty, I had to ensure I had time to enjoy my meals too :p

After googling and reading reviews, I decided to try Grandma's Kitchen and Lou Wai Lou in Hangzhou.

We decided to have lunch at Grandma's Kitchen..Although we reached really late for lunch (after 2pm), it was still a crowd and everything smells so good (ok, I was darn hungry).

Everything looked delicious and we finally settled for 4 dishes.

Since Dong Po pork originated from Hangzhou, that was an obvious choice.

Grandma kitchen's version was amazingly scrumptious. This, to me, was the best dongpo pork I've ever tasted. We got individual servings, each square of pork was cooked to perfection- the top skin was springy, the mid fat was melting while the meat held it's shape but once we bit into it, the meat breaks and blends with the fat. The sauce was unforgettable too, different from Msia's version, the heady chinese wine mixed with the fatty gelatin left me craving for more.

Since Hangzhou is very near to Longjin, we decided to try the chicken cooked in Longjin tealeaves..Although the chicken looked dry, it was actually extremely succulent. The texture as somewhat like salt baked chicken, except that it's not salty, but had light flavours of longjin tea and herbs. The skin was crisps and thin. A tasty dish, but it was very oily at the base of the claypot.

Fresh doumiao to balance all the meat that we had..Nice and sweet.

The lotus stuffed with glutinous rice was a sweet dish that used to be a royalty dish..

We thought this looked really pretty, the soft steamed lotus roots drenched with osmanthus syrup. Too sweet for my liking.

The table next to ours had this dessert/ cake that looked interesting, so we ordered too.

It's green tea yam cake and it was delectable. The sesame seeds were deep fried until crackling and emanated such lovely aroma that paired perfectly with the slightly sweetish yam paste.

For dinner, we went to Lou Wai Lou, the oldest restaurant in Hangzhou. Overlooking the Westlake, this was a grand restaurant where, well, most local businessmen brings their guest to impress and tourists throngs in by the dozen. Though it was crowded, we could still walk in without making prior reservations.It was rather tough to order mains here as the portion was large and there's only 2 of us..

Tried some cold dishes- smoked fish and smoked duck..

Both was quite tasty- the meat was real cold and solid- so i like to slowly nibble and let the flavour seep in. WF didnt like the smoked fish though.

We were told to try the fish soup..And so we did. Almost like sharksfins soup, the broth was thick, brimmed with fish slices and slightly vinegary. Definitely whets the appetite.
Again, we tried Dongpo pork..Lou Wai Lou's version was good too. Nice tender pork with melting fat.But I still preferred Grandma's as they won my heart with that beautiful sauce. Lou Wai Lou however, does vacuum packed their dongpo pork and we can buy back to Msia. Very touristy but convenient.

We could only fit in one main dish and decided to try the westlake fish with vinegar sauce..

Looks unappetising and I didnt like this dish at all. The vinegar sauce was too strong, overpowering the fish flavours. And since this was a fresh water fish, some parts very rather 'muddy' in taste. We could not finish this at all.

Though Grandma's Kitchen was just a simple restaurant and didnt have a rich history compared to Lou Wai Lou, I preferred the food in Grandma's. Think LWL is overrated.

Grandma's Kitchen is located at Macheng Road, Hangzhou. They have a few branches in Hangzhou.

Lou Wai Lou is located at 30, Gushan Road, Hangzhou.