We now resume China coverage with a shift to Shanghai. On the evening of January 5, my second cousin's family took my family and my aunt's family to dinner at Duck King restaurant in the Xujiahui area. Since you already know how these meals go, let's get straight to the food, starting with the first cold dish: duck web with horseradish sauce. I was dealing with a cold, and this sauce definitely cleared my sinuses.
Crispy little yellow fish. Very tasty - kind of sweet, and maybe smoked as well as fried?
Pumpkin.
Duck tongue in two different flavors. I'm not sure what the flavors were, exactly, nor am I a huge fan of duck tongue, but this is a restaurant called Duck King, so I went with it.
Some kind of mushroom, sliced and stir-fried.
Greens with another kind of mushroom. Cute presentation!
Some kind of green root-like vegetable. Reminded me of broccoli stalk with the skin removed. A similarly cute presentation.
Then, it was time for the roast duck, which Chef Dude expertly carved (while blithely talking to his buddies about something).
The duck skin and some of the meat was served separately, along with thin pancakes and cucumber for us to assemble, using our individual dishes of hoisin sauce and green onion, into little packages.
The rest of the duck was returned to the kitchen to be turned into other dishes, including these little "birds-nests" filled with a duck stir-fry. We ate these birds-nests wrapped in lettuce leaves. PF Chang's, I know people love your chicken lettuce wraps, but you just cannot compete.
Pressed tofu with black fungus. This tofu was awesome - very elastic.
Cashew chicken, also intended to be eaten in the thin pancakes.
Greens with bamboo shoot. You can't tell from the picture, but these greens were essentially drenched in oil. Oh well.
Beef with Sichuan peppercorn, and Chinese broccoli. Very tender!
Free-range chicken soup. Hooray, good for my cold!
Fish fillets. The preparation was quite sweet, but still tasty.
Instead of desserts (or rice), the meal ended with snack-like items, including these little green onion breads.
Radish cakes and spring rolls. The former (on the left) was the paragon of flakiness, probably thanks to lard.
And then we walked to my second cousin's apartment, looking at the pretty Xujiahui lights along the way.
