Another day, another duck! Another Peking Duck Group of Sydney meeting organised & researched by the supreme quack himself Suren (sorry Suren, couldn’t help that joke!). The ambience and decor was better than most Peking duck restaurants we have been to. Being at Miller’s Point may explain it.
After some deliberation we decided to order the whole smoked tea duck and some other dishes. Unfortunately, there was no more whole smoked tea duck, so it was back to the Peking duck along with the boneless and deep fried tea smoked duck (yes, an inversion of name!). I had started to do the unwanted by lining my stomach with Yering Station Pinot Noir we waited...and waited for to get any food on the table. Reminding the waitress that we did not necessarily want all the food at once did not help as she told us that it would come out a little bit at a time anyway. Hm...more waiting and we were starting to wonder if they were popping down the BBQ King to pick it up and had got stuck in traffic or we should pop down to BBQ King! Finally after 45 minutes, maybe an hour, our duck arrived – first as whole for a showing and then as the first course.
- Peking Duck – Passable, but likely not fresh duck whose second course reduced the rating. The skin in the first course was crisp(-ish), but the meat gave away the likely reason why it had taken so much time for it to come out – they were probably trying to defrost it. The meat was not particularly impressive - well cooked and tender, but not succulent and flavoursome. The second course was offered with vegetables or with noodles (unusual in my experience). We took the second option. I felt that the oiliness of the noodles really took away from the delicate nature of the duck, although I did like the softness of the noodles and tenderness of the meat as a textural experience. Overall maybe 4/10. Passable Peking Duck, but there’s plenty of other quacks in town!
- Duck webbing with chilli sauce – A few people at the table cringed at ordering this, especially when the waitress questioned “with or without feet” to which we answered encouragingly “with, definitely”. This is almost purely a textural dish, served cold to increase that sensation– the rough bumpiness of the outside, the cold yet almost squid like chewiness (when squid is cooked perfectly) of the inside is an interesting sensation. It was done well enough so as not to be very hard to chew through at all. The chilli sauce was just chopped chilli, garlic and shallots. I definitely needed to add soy sauce and that really gave some balance to the dish with saltiness and acid to the relative blandness of the actual webbing. It’s hard to rate something like this, but I would say 5/10. I would definitely have it again especially as almost a palate cleanser dishes like Peking duck.
- Tea smoked duck – Fried with crispy and tender elements. The smokiness drifted to our noses as soon as the dish arrived. Although the duck was smoky (or rather, the batter was), the fried nature of it meant that the tea flavour really did not come through. Being fried however added nice texture. It came with a good sauce. 5/10. May consider ordering again, but not as a first choice.
We also had some other dishes which were quite good – maybe 6/10 dishes, but I am not quite sure what was ordered and didn’t eat enough of them, so I won’t rate them. The banana “soufflé” and Toffee banana were nice enough desserts. I am keen on going back and having the whole tea smoked duck and Sea Cucumber with Shrimp Roe in Shallot Sauce. I have just realised (as I look at their website) that they do Beggar’s chicken which has to be ordered 24 hrs in advance too. Definitely going back for that!
As I said with the Mamak review, it’s hard to know how to fit Asian food fits a pure out of 10 ratings system as it’s difficult to compare an incredibly good produce and technique at Aria with flavour explosions here. That’s why I have been trying to use my tentative qualitative ratings system as a comment just before or after the quantitative one. E.g. “Would definitely order again” or “Would be order as a first choice”.
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