Da Dong – Beijing – TheKua Does Food

On our trip to China, my sister and I had a free day before the rest of our family arrived. I looked up a number of places, and being the city in China to have duck, I suggested we try a nice restaurant called Da Dong Roast Duck. It took us a long time to find, namely because I didn’t have internet roaming and our map didn’t seem to have the right landmarks. We got there in the end.

Even at 2pm we had a short wait since the restaurant is so popular. It appeared to be large, cavernous but of course there are a lot of people in China and apparently this restaurant wins numerous awards. I definitely give them the award of the largest menu ever built with detailed pictures of the food assembled as one might expect on a coffee table book of some sort.

Of course, we wouldn’t want to come to the restaurant and not have the duck. Whilst waiting, we could see the large kitchen of many ducks hanging and being sliced as they prepared their way for the table-side serving service that is very traditional in this form of serving. On a good note, we were offered nice ice blocks of red bean to cool down as we waited – a nice touch that’s not typical in Chinese restaurants and shows what the service was like.

We had a huge table for just the two of us, and it wasn’t long before our tableside cutting service of duck arrived. Quick and efficient, it wasn’t very long until we were tucking into duck pancake including the many assortment of condiments provided at the table. href=”http://www.thekua.com/doesfood/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/CuttingBig.jpg” title=”Cutting”> Cutting

Unusually we had a bit of sugar to which we were instructed to dip a little bit of the fatty duck skin into. Although strange, it actually worked quite well against the savoury skin.

One of my favourite dishes was this wonderful eggplant dish. Meaty, slightly sweet but mostly salty – I think I could have just eaten this with rice all day.

My sister ordered this strange steamed egg with a beautifully presented “bird” duo made out of baby bok choi and a carrot. I didn’t taste this since we had a lot food arriving.

Another beautifully presented dish was this sticky pork dish served on a nice slate and decorated with icing sugar to “mock” snow. The pork was soft, sticky although I found it cloyingly sweet – the icing sugar being nice for show but far too sweet for my own tastes.

The classic prawns in mayonaise was, however, very well executed. We did find it strange accompanied by large cherry tomatoes but enjoyed the meaty flesh. I remember thinking that this was a very good bargain as a foreigner.

The restaurant finished off the meal with a complementary plate of fruit and a small sorbet palette cleanser – a very nice touch and one that you wouldn’t really expect in a restaurant.