Peking Duckathlon in Beijing

Following the 30-hour train ride from Hong Kong to Beijing during which we ate nothing but ramen, peanut butter, a gray-shoe-stew in the dining car, and the bananas I had the audacity and stupidity to smuggle in, it took little discussion to plan gorging ourselves on the city’s most famous dish, Peking Duck (actually, Beijing Duck; actually, Beijing Kao Ya).

Showered (well, wet then dry, soap that lathers not being an amenity) my friend C and I went down to the lobby of the Beijing International Hotel in search of a concierge and a recommendation for a good, close duck house. We did eventually find a woman willing to uh, stare at us while we attempted communication; service, we would come to realize, is not a strong point in China’s service industries.

The woman took my travel book and its list of food symbols to a group of hotel employees. They were fascinated. Force was necessary to reclaim my guide and we were still no closer to a dinner destination. If the train was a bad dream, this attempted conversation was the rude awakening. China is not Hong Kong. C was losing whatever little faith in me remained. I had to make a decision.

“Let’s just go,” I said. “It’s a city. We’ll find something outside.”

Despite fear of what that something might be, hunger propelled him to follow me into the hot Beijing night. Since the front of the hotel was a massive intimidating thoroughfare, we walked around to the back into a massive intimidating construction project.

“Hong Kong or Tokyo if anything happens,” I said as a reminder, “or Germany.”

“Germany’s not really close," he said.

“I am not going to a Chinese hospital, not even an herbal one,” I said.

“Then watch out for those nails.”

On the other side of the scaffolding we faced a row of two and three-story houses. One looked vaguely like a restaurant. We stood for a moment, contemplating until we acknowledged an appealing aroma flooding the alley. It was a sign. We followed our noses, something not always positive, and entered the crowded dining room. A hostess escorted us upstairs where we sat at a folding table next to a family of six. They were eating duck. We were suddenly giddy.

We pointed to the neighboring duck and the symbol for “green vegetable” in my book. Then we waited. While we’re waiting I should mention that “green vegetable” could mean any of an assortment of green vegetables from Chinese broccoli to mustard greens to various sprouts and choys (bok choy, by the way, is white vegetable). As long as you like vegetables and salt, you’ll be happy with whatever the day or restaurant may bring. This night “green vegetable” was something like watercress with a squirt of a sticky brown bean sauce. It was fantastic, as was the duck.

We were so wired from our successful dinner (or maybe excessive tea) that even our travel fatigue could not stop us from watching all 97 minutes of Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker working together across cultural divides to solve the mystery of a kidnapping. East and west, together forever, like duck in a pancake in a tummy.

Like most of the food in the capital city, Beijing Duck has its roots in imperial court cuisine. Yet how the dish made its way from the Emperor’s table to menus from across the globe is not quite clear. Some Beijing lore recognizes the mid-1500’s as the opening date of the city’s first roast duck eatery, the old Bianyifang Restaurant. This theory is somewhat substantiated by anther notion: the transfer of the capital from Nanjing to Beijing (1420) created a canal for supplies along which local ducks could fill themselves with fallen grains. Fat ducks are, of course, tastier than skinny ones and these birds were obviously available to people living outside of the Forbidden City. Equal opportunity dining courtesy of the Ming Dynasty. Other sources claim the old Bianyifang opened in the mid-1800’s. Either way, hundreds of years later, the Bianyifang name (“cheap house of food”) and method of cooking duck (inside a closed oven, not over open flames) endures.

For our second duck dinner, after a morning tour of the hutong (left picture) in a convoy of pedicabs (just like Chelsea Clinton!), learning how not to ride the bus and an afternoon visit to Tiantan, the Temple of Heaven (right picture), we chose Bianyifang, which is in Chongwen, the same district as the oft photographed  Temple. Here we were able to observe more of the duck-making procedure. True, we did not see the special local duck farms or the killing and cleaning but those steps are obviously best left to the imagination. What we did see is the pumping of air in between the meat and skin of the birds (with a little hand pump though we were told many cooks use their own lungs, if you know what I mean).

After the body is inflated, the bird is blanched in boiling water, coated with a sugary syrup and hung until the skin is dry, hard and a deep, dark red. Lower orifices sealed, the cavity is then filled with boiling water, fully sealed and hung vertically in an oven (closed door or not) until the skin becomes golden brown and crispy. The ovens that roast the duck are full of wood from fruit trees.

Finally, the best part, eating. A rich, sweet and salty bean sauce (tianmianjiang) is spread over a thin, small pancake then topped with Chinese chives (scallions), slices of cucumber and pieces of crispy duck skin, sweet fat and juicy meat. The pancake is closed and rolled into a manageable little packet. Beijing Duck is the burrito of the East. A perfect combination of sweet, savory, soft and crunchy. Small dishes filled with salt or sugar are generally available for dipping. 

Beijing Duck has long been a favorite indulgence in my family. Yet one single pancake pocket each seemed to be the norm at the Chinese dinners of my youth. “Waa!” we cried. No tears at the tables in Beijing, however where an expert can slice a bird into 120 pieces, each with both meat and skin, another key element in the elaborate preparation – truth be told, since returning to the U.S. I cannot find one person to confirm this part of the process but I remain certain it’s true.

After the Bianyifang dinner, pleasurable yet somehow not as satisfying as the no-name-house, we strolled through Tiananmen Square where, with no wind yet plenty of steamy air, kites were being flown and sold and picture-taking appeared more important than sightseeing to Chinese tourists, many of whom, we later learned, were seeing their own sites for the first time. Unfortunately, just like my Lenin non-encounter in Moscow, Mao’s body was being re-embalmed and, therefore, was unavailable for viewing -- it’s a communist conspiracy against me. 

Upset by the closed Tomb and unable to make sense of the subway schedule, we opted to take a pedicab back to the hotel. I believe our driver’s decision to quadruple the agreed-upon price was motivated by the fact that we actually arrived without injury. A near fistfight ensued until C took a moment to ponder the implications of striking a 90-year old man in the middle of a massive intimidating thoroughfare. We paid the original fare and ran.

The next day, audio-guided by Sir Roger Moore, we walked through the incredible once-Forbidden City, now known as the Palace Museum. Like everything in Beijing, it’s larger than life and full of Chinese tourists wishing to take my picture. “See you on the Internet,” C joked incessantly; a premonition.

 Advance preparation for my imagination -- reading history and fiction and watching “The Last Emperor” -- really added to my appreciation of this immense site.

As we exited through the Gate of Spiritual Valor, the back door where the Empress would enter (the front door is Tiananmen, the Gate of Heavenly Peace), we felt inspired by the Imperials and needed a final Beijing feast. We decided on an outpost of QuanJuDe where the main restaurant appeared able to seat thousands of diners at once. Maybe that’s why it’s known as “the Big Duck,” not to be confused with “the Sick Duck,” the branch nearest a local hospital.

Bright red ducks hung by their necks like a fence around the chef. The only other colors in the room were florescent white (the lights and tablecloths) and pink (the napkins). Very Valentinesy. We wiped our hands with wet-naps and licked our lips in anticipation. Tomorrow we’d be cruising the Li River in Guilin and soon after we’d be back home where the ducks do roam but the experience is like Guinness in Brooklyn: you like it; you’ll order it again but there’s nothing like that first Dublin pub. Maybe that ingredient was the secret sauce of the first night’s Beijing Duck.

One again, the duck did not disappoint. I asked Miranda Zhao, who has lived in the City her entire life, if she ever had a bad experience. She could not think of one. Zhao said that the best place to eat the famous dish is anywhere you may be when the craving strikes though she acknowledges that QuanJuDe is a “well-recognized brand.” Like other residents, Zhao eats duck in restaurants (home preparation would be too difficult) or takes one to go.

During our final duck dinner, the third in four nights (one night we had Buddhist vegetarian mushroom-something-cabbage after a day-long mini-bus trip to the Great Wall, Ming Tombs and four “historical” gift shops), we analyzed every bite and attempted to create the perfect ratio of fillings. The bond of the duckathlon led to some fantasizing about bringing one home and some revelation of truths: C admitted the train food had scared him and I admitted that there was mutton and shark’s fin in his future. Can’t we just enjoy the duck, he wondered? Yes, we could.

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