Quanjude Peking Duck Restaruant

For lunch yesterday we returned to the Quanjude Peking Duck Restaurant, which is a short walk from the Temple of Heaven Park. The road it is on, Qianmen Avenue, stretching south from Tiananmen Square, seems to be getting ready for one of the massive Beijing reconstruction schemes that replace areas with character with modern shopping plazas - nearly all the shops are now closed and boarded up over the whole kilometer length. The Quanjude Restaurant is still open, so maybe it will survive.



As mentioned before this is a huge restaurant that specializes in Peking Duck. It is very modern and efficient: the order is immediately written into a handheld computer that wirelessly sends the order to the kitchen! The ducks are always cooking, and so within 10 minutes a whole or half duck is being sliced by the chef at the table. The duck is probably better than at the other duck restaurant we have been going to - crisper and a little less fatty - although it is considerably more expensive (about 3 times as expensive for a whole duck). We were seated on the second floor. The picture shows the diners on the first floor. I think there are three ducks being carved at the moment the picture was taken!