It's a ritual here to treat your guests to the gourmet feast known worldwide under Beijing's original name --- Peking Duck. I know that back home you have to give 2 day's notice, so the duck can be slow cooked until the skin is crispy and all the fattiness dripped out. Have a look
in the window next time you pass an old-time Chinese restaurant --- chances are you'll see the duck in all it's glory, ready for that evening's feast.
Unfortunately, our host brought us for this delicacy with no notice to the upscale restaurant!
They promised to rush the duck in one hour. In the meantime, we sampled a banquet-full of unfamiliar but mostly good dishes. Chicken in a peanut sauce, cold mashed yam with blueberries, seasonal corn with peas, a sort of lettuce with white beans, a glutinous soup with beef and egg, Chinese greens, and a Malay bok choy I remembered from Singapore. Oh, and the standard drink of hot water in a flask.
You know that I'm no foodie, so I was quite full by then and my fingers hurt from all the chopsticking. But the duck arrived and the tableside ceremony performed. Predictably, the duck was still fatty and the only thing crisp was the linen tablecloth. We dabbled in the hoisin sauce and roll-it-like-a-taco ritual. But to no avail. The duck feast was dead as a dodo, to mix metaphors. And the duck's last flight was out the door in doggy bags!
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