Duck and tea

For our second night in Beijing, a few of us took a cab to a Peking Duck restaurant recommended by our interpreter. I had done a post back in 2006 detailing the tradition of Peking Duck in more detail, but I have better pics this time!

The last time I had gone, it was an arranged organizational dinner, so the menu was preset. This time, we were presented menus and had to order a la carte! Thankfully, there was a menu with pictures for us to order from!

Ordering and eating this dish is quite the process. As you can see in the pic, the duck is carved right at your table so you're able to watch the whole process. The servers expertly wielded their knives to produce perfect bite-sized slices of duck with just enough skin to give flavor but not so much that it became greasy. We were also served a platter with the duck's head sliced in half and the choice meat from the back.

As you have probably guessed, I was quite curious with the head! The beak was removed, but the rest of the head cavity was intact and contained little separated compartments of meat/tissue. I inserted my chopsticks and tugged on a little nugget of meat. As soon as I realized it was the eyeball I had chosen, I picked another piece of the head cavity to try. You see, I'm not as adventurous as ya'll think! I tried a tiny piece of a different meat; it just tasted like the rest of the duck though.

The funnest part of eating Peking duck is that it comes with fixins kind of like a taco would. We got a little warmer dish with 6 inch "tortillas" that we were able to stuff with duck meat and the condiments of our choice. In this case, we chose sliced cucumber, a sweet soy paste, shallots, crushed garlic and sugar. We were all pleasantly surprised at how well the garlic and sugar went together, especially with all the other fixins too!

From the duck restaurant, we strolled up the street to hail a cab. At first I wasn't sure in which part of the city we were since I'm so easily turned around (with or without a map!). Once we walked about a block though, I recognized a tea shop that I had visited on my trip in March. Kim and Toby were curious, so we ducked in to take a quick look.

Long story short, the quick look turned into about an hour tea tasting session! We were seated and were given a demonstration and tasting of some really nice jasmine tea.

That bulb with a flower on it you see in the picture is actually a ball of green tea leaves, jasmine pedals and a "thousand days" flower. When put into a small glass vase and combined with boiling water, the bulb blooms into what you see in the last pic. The pic with the flower is actually of a bulb that contained a jasmine flower instead of the "thousand days" flower. The aroma was quite pleasant and the flavor even better. I'm a die hard coffee drinker and have never been one much for tea, but even I have to admit that this stuff was pretty good!

We hailed a cab and returned to the hotel satisfied with our little adventure for the evening. Our days are quite busy, filled with many errands and tasks to keep the finely-tuned machine of the American Paralympic delegation running. The pollution has gotten to my sinuses (I'll do a separate pot later about the air quality) but I'm still managing to enjoy my time here. Thanks for checking in and stay tuned. . .