![]() ![]() ![]() In fact, it cost me 80rmb in a taxi, one-way, but I was happy to pay it to see what a Cantonese-accented Peking Duck would be like.ĭid I detect a brush of soy sauce on the skin, or was that just my mind playing tricks on my tastebuds? I’m not sure. It is not convenient if you live in downtown. Last year, they branched out, opening a casual dim sum place and this Peking Duck-focused restaurant in Hongqiao Tiandi, one of the malls in the new retail hub that the government willed into existence, next to the Hongqiao Railway Station. (It also happens to have two Michelin stars, if you’re a star-whore.) It serves consistently excellent Cantonese food in a great environment and you should go there if you haven’t been. Imperial Treasure on the Bund is one of my favorite restaurants in this city. The next time I crave a Peking Duck but don’t want to splash out, this is where I’ll be.ģ/F, Hongqiao Tiandi, 688 Shenchang. The Duck was the cheapest of the bunch ( 238rmb), but it hit the same notes that Xindalu’s duck did, with both expertly rendered skin and flavorful meat, and its pancake wrappers were thinner than anywhere else, which I like. I was happy to be proven wrong at the branch on Middle Huaihai Road, which pulses in time with the neon signs mounted on its streetfront edifice. I should confess I don’t actually know if Quan Ju De is state-owned, but given its illustrious history dating back to 1800-something, and its huge national network, I have decided to assume it is. They are dinosaurs whose food and service are basically arguments for capitalism, and they are best avoided. My fear was a survival mechanism I’ve developed after eating at hundreds of restaurants in Shanghai over the years and gleaning the following truth from all that experience: state-owned restaurants suck. I went in to Quan Ju De expecting to hate it and came out happy and full of duck. My party of two needed a couple extra dishes in order to fill up and balance out the duck, and without ordering anything too expensive and without drinking booze, we racked up an 1,100 rmb bill with alarming ease.Ĥ/F, 780 Huaihai Zhong Lu, near. If I had to rank these five places against each other, this would be the top of the list. For an extra 100rmb, they give you the option of having the leftover duck bones turned into soup or flash-fried with salt-and-pepper, a nice twist. The duck ( 318rmb) here is good because the skin is crispy, with no excess, unrendered fat underneath the surface, and the meat is quite flavorful. ![]() That’s too bad, because in addition to an excellent menu of Jiangsu and Zhejiang cuisine, they also do an exceptional Peking Duck, roasted over fruit wood trucked in from Beijing. If Xindalu was a standlone restaurant, and not tucked away in the Hyatt on the Bund, it would get a lot more favorable press, instead of just being a “hotel restaurant”. ![]() (This is the same charge that The New York Times levelled against Da Dong NYC when they gave it a walluping zero-star review earlier this year.) Da Dong does have a little glitz going for it, the location next to Reel in Jing’an is convenient, and 298rmb is right in line with average Peking Duck places in Shanghai. How is the duck? It’s fine, okay, serviceable, but the little duck, perhaps expectedly, doesn’t have much flavor to the meat. (A word to the menu writers: ducks aren’t mammals they don’t suckle.) That page presents two choices: Da Dong’s classic “ su bu ni” (crisp but not greasy) large duck, and Da Dong’s su bu ni small “suckling” duck. The way to avoid this? Open the inch-thick book of a menu to the first page, where the ducks are, and stay there. The nicest word for everything except the duck and the sea cucumber – the only two things that this restaurant does well, in addition to pouring sodas in a dramatic fashion and at a height, a la “pulled” tea – the most charitable thing I can say for Da Dong – is that it’s silly. These days it is a wannabe fine-dining “art” restaurant with modernist pretenses – see the wall of pictures of Da Dong, the tall chef, with Ferran Adria and Joel Robuchon, or the dishes that look like they were pulled off western Michelin-starred restaurant menus – at exorbitant prices. It started as a duck place in Beijing, grew into a duck chain in Beijing, and then it went off the rails. View Listing Taxi Printoutĭa Dong is a silly restaurant. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |