So our little foodie group decided to have an outing to have some good ol’ 北京烤鸭 (Beijing Roast Duck). Since there was a total of 12 of us, it took a ridiculous amount of energy and strategic maneuvering in order to travel through the whole subway system as a group from Wudaokou to Sansishitiao where the restaurant is located. Oh and by the way, all this was smack right in the middle of rush hour mind you. You might not believe me, but rush hour in Beijing is hardcore. You need to know where you’re going, who you’re going with, and what you’re doing at all times since there are people coming at you from all directions and you are being pushed and shoved and dragged along (by the stream of people) in every direction. Needless to say it took us about an hour to get from point A to point B, but luckily I actually made a reservation for the group and we were able to get seated right away despite the jam-packed restaurant. I wrote about this restaurant earlier when JK, JC, and I explored it prior to the start of the IUP program so I’m going to skip most of the food-description part and just talk about the ridiculousness that we brought upon the restaurant.
Since there were so many of us there, our order was almost as complicated as it could ever be ranging from the different juices and drinks that everyone wanted to the different dishes and vegetable categories we all preferred. In the end we just dumped the ordering responsibility to LY who was gracious enough to take it in style and speak her fluent Chinese to the waitress to get all our orders through. The large group ended up ordered five (yes, FIVE) different ducks. This would have been far from extraordinary except for the fact that this restaurant attaches a carving chef to each duck that is ordered. Ergo, we had FIVE DIFFERENT CHEFS carving roast duck at our table. So yes, we were the center of attention for quite awhile as the chefs slowly and painstakingly carved every part of crispy skin off the duck and beautifully plated it. Below is a picture of just a few of our chefs at work 🙂
By the end of the meal we were all ducked-out and could barely even finish the meal. HAPPY INDEED!
Nalin in Beijing 