Now this is a very serious accusation . You willing to back it up ?

It's very difficult to prove the use of 地沟油 or rat meet without specific evidence, but the former is very common.

I really enjoy street food, and am willing to risk ingesting bad things. I believe SLT street food is reasonably safe

Over hyped?
 

I find that most of the "Peking Duck" I have eaten in the past few years have almost no flavor-at least in the actual meat.

I don't know if it is because of the over-breeding of the Pekin ducks themselves or because the amount of salt used covers up any actual flavor.

I ate 2 ducks at highly rated paces in Beijing (Made In China, Quanjude Peking Duck) as well as in a very fancy place in Las Vegas (Wing Lei) and besides tasting the salt and the Hoisin sauce I really could not taste any "Duck"

Is it more of a textural thing? Perhaps ceremonial? Or is the whole thing too much hype for its own good?

PS- I was a bit underwhelmed by Made In China in general. Service was less than lackluster and the serving dishes, flatware were not what I would expect in a restaurant at this price level. Food was ok (just)-but sloppy in presentation.

I just reviewed upthread, but I found my duck to be glistening and moist, but not fatty, smoky from the wood and gamey. Not salty at all. I could eat it on its own without condiments although the hoison, vegetables and crepe sure add to it.

Siji Minfu

http://i62.tinypic.com/21f08yo.jpg

http://i58.tinypic.com/wsnlf.jpg

I felt the same way with our Made In China Peking Duck dinner last week. The duck was dry and flavorless, the only good part was the crispy skin. The service was terrible, we waited over 10 minutes looking for our waiter for our check. We thought our dinner was one-off, but the breakfast in the morning was equally bland, the next day, we went to the Club lounge for breakfast instead and it turned out to be a better choice.

@saaveraward
 

Very nice pics that brings back fond memories to my stomach.:p I mentioned the duck was fatty due to the glistening oil off of it. By no means was there any excess fat on the pieces of duck.

Overall a great first time Peking Duck experience for me. Will definitely be back to this restaurant in the future, unless another well reviewed one is found that I wish to explore.

^

I'm willing to back it up by not eating there. Ever. Same with most of my Chinese friends and acquaintances. It's well known that this is an extremely unclean (by Chinese standards) and dodgy place to eat, with things at more than a few vendors not necessarily what you'd want to ingest.

Not sure why you sound so shocked or upset by this "very serious accusation."

Am afraid you not eating there , ever , ( along with your Chiese friends and presumably their Chinese standards of hygiene ) is hardly sufficient evidence to back that very serious accusation of the outlets in the area using "gutter oil and rat disguised as pork meat ". Surely you understand that.

While I think that rat rumors are often just that, 地沟油 use is widespread and well known/documented.

I don't have to justify anything to you. I'm sure that over the years, I've established my bona fides here and have more often than not been right vs wrong. At any rate, what are you going to do about it, sue me on behalf of the Wangfujing food stall vendors? :rolleyes:

There are plenty of things in China that have no documented evidence, at least not available to the public. One "just knows." At any rate, this sidebar discussion has taken the thread far off track, and I think that it should now be dropped in favor of going back to discussing Peking duck dining.

Now why was I expecting such a reply , to the exact word even .

I shall be looking into the offending post you made and will seek opinions of people with knowledge of such matters.

I'm sure there's a lot more than 地沟油 that we are unaware/aware of so it's just going to be that way.......

I will be staying at the Park Hyatt in Beijing and am looking for a recommendation on a good place to go for Peking Duck. I have never had it before but wanted to try since it is Beijing and all. In addition, I am travelling solo, I am a guy so can eat a decent amount but would half duck be the way to go?

Half duck is the way to go and if you look upthread, I asked the same question. Where I ate, Siji Minfu offers a half duck.

I haven't been yet, but in addition to the above recommendations, "Country Kitchen" at the relatively new Rosewood hotel has had good reviews of its duck, but I'm not sure if half available. And it's close-ish to the PH.

tb