Restaurant Details
Location: No. 11 Beixiangfeng, Zhengyi Road, Qianmendong St. Beijing
Cuisine: Chinese, of course
Price: PPP
Attire: Whatever you want to wear – but wear thick coats if going in the winter as there is no air conditioning
Our Details
What we had: Peking duck, Bamboo with mushrooms, and Mandarin fish “squirrel style”
Rating: ˜˜˜
Comments:
Food
Duck was simply excellent – the meat was tender and juicy, though quite lean (in peking duck standards); skin was crispy. Mandarin fish was fresh and well prepared – it went well with the sweet-sour sauce. Bamboo with mushrooms was traditional home-made dish, simple yet good.
Price
Definitely worth it – we ordered more than what we should have – the duck itself just costs 120RMB (780PHP)
Service
Don’t expect star-quality service – not just in this restaurant but in most restaurants in China. They react when you ask them to bring you stuff, but there is no proactive asking how the food was or if there is anything else they can get you. Expect less than this service if you can’t speak Mandarin.
Ambiance
This is a run-down old house with less than 10 ratty tables – expect to be taken back in time when there was no air conditioning and people rely on sun-light to see inside the house.
Bathroom
Luckily none of us needed to use the washroom!
The Long Story
We are duck fans – if we can do a review just about duck everywhere we would do that, but we just have too much to rant about. Beijing was a primarily a duck food trip and this place was definitely the best place we had it – and also the ugliest restaurant we ever ate in. The funny thing is there are a few foreigners and chatting with a few friends from Manila, who are studying in Beijing, they’ve all tried this restaurant – this made us wonder whether this wasn’t a well-disguised tourist trap. You need to call ahead to book seats and let them know how many ducks you need – get the hotel to order the whole course for you if you cannot speak Mandarin.
Getting there, we were dead scared that the taxi driver was going to drive us down the alley to mug or kill us, but we saw funny drawings of ducks and we understood what duck heaven (or hell for the ducks) was like. Best have lunch here rather than dinner, where the alleys would make safety a little more than questionable. It was a little less than a five minute walk to get to the main road to find a taxi. But this place is close to Tianenmen Square, so you can do the Forbidden City in the morning then have lunch here. It’s best to go with a couple of friends, otherwise you can only have one dish.
This is definitely a place we would recommend to everyone who would go to Beijing.
Seems like they have an award...
like the year before
The signage
The logo
The menu
The kitchen
The fish
The fungii
The thing we came for
The pigs have left the building
