Peking Donald, Daffy and Scrouge

Our last night in Beijing was spent feasting on a long awaited Peking Duck! Gen, Keith and 2 mates joined us for a delicious, traditional Chinese dinner. This speciality is famous for it's extra crispy skin, made so by blowing down the ducks neck and inflating the skin between the meat. I'm not sure if it's an urban myth or they figured out how to separate  fat from tissue by blowing in it's stomach. Regardless, it was fantastic!

One of the many plates decorated with Peking Duck!

I came to know the term 'foodie', which I say as 'foodster'- it just sounds better. Yes, I'm one of those, I travel with my stomach and eat what I can get my hands on. We love trying out new foods from different cultures, but this one wasn't wierd, wacky or gross...Oh quite the opposite!

Delicious spinach and peanut salad, mild and soft.

'Kung Pow Chicken' with aubergine

The remaining duck bones and meat were sitr-fried.

 Like all the Chinese food we had sofar, it amazed us with the boldness of it's flavours. The greasy, deep-fried foods we all associate with Chinese food is something that is only found in non-Chinese countries (as far as my experience goes). The flavours boarder-line Indian curries and chillies, great spices and flavours completely unassociated with China. This is a massive country, so the variety and diversity of foods is as great as it's nation.

The dinner table covered with dishes that will make your mouth water.

The chef carved the duck close to our table, with surprisingly less meat than expected, but tons of crisp skin. Too bad I'm not a fan of duckskin. I don't even eat chicken skin because it's too fatty, but oh well....this is it's trademark and was amazing! To eat the duck, you take a wee 'pancake' (tastes like a roti), add some crispy skin, duck strips, slices of pear and other small side dishes, wrap it up, dunk it in plum or bean sauce & devour it. Amazing! It's a world reknown dish and fantastic to eat it in Peking. To be honest I enjoyed all the food in China sofar, this was amazing, but I think the unexpected flavours of all the other foods was more impressive. Nevertheless, Peking Duck was a fantastic meal that sent me straight into a food coma...

I think Keith's trying to tell me something...