I mentioned in a previous post that I wasn’t sure if I’d get a chance to sample Peking duck — given that it involves a whole duck, it’s not exactly a solo-friendly endeavor (though in retrospect, I’m pretty sure I could have polished it off myself if I came hungry and didn’t order anything else).
Once we got back into the city, a few people from the group I went to the Great Wall with decided to go to Siji Minfu for duck. So: problem solved.
The place is super popular (we had to wait about an hour for a table), and as far as we could tell we were the only foreigners in the place. Both of those things seemed like good signs.
The waitress didn’t speak a word of English, but with an assist from Google translate along with a lot of pointing and nodding, we were able to order several dishes (including duck, of course).
Everything was quite good (with a really tasty coleslaw-of-sorts being the best of the non-duck dishes), but of course, we all knew what we were there for.
Each person gets a plate with various condiments:
You then take one of the wafer thin pancakes, prepare it with some of the duck, some of the condiments, and of course, that gloriously fatty, crispy skin.
It was really, really good — but it wasn’t particularly better than the best Peking duck that I’ve had back home (but then I’m lucky enough to live near an area with a bunch of really great Chinese restaurants; that probably won’t be the case for everyone).