Beijing Da Dong

Any visitors coming to Beijing will definitely have at least 1 meal of the Peking roast duck, and that was exactly what I did during my first visit. In fact, I had multiple meals of Peking duck from the different famous restaurants, and the one which left an impression was Da Dong restaurant. It was probably the most pricey one, yet the most delicious in my opinion

With 12 years between my last visit, the one restaurant I really wanted to revisit was Da Dong, and I was extremely happy to find one outlet just 5 minutes walk from my hotel. Located in the Jinbao Mall, the restaurant has an entire level dedicated to it, with a lift going just to the restaurant

Although my memories of the restaurant 12 years ago were modern and chic, it has since been upgraded into an even more luxurious and extravagant restaurant, complete with spacious seating, neon-lit pillars and walls. Full 4K LED walls with marketing messages and visuals, a lit wall featuring all of their food awards, as well as not forgetting opulent crystal candeliers in private rooms and dining halls

Their menu was very attractive, with many new, fusion-style dishes, and I could not resist ordering them to try. Even though the price tag was not very cheap, I ordered a couple of special items like this tofu starter with scallions (小葱拌豆腐) at RM28 for the small size, which came with 6 cute tofu balls. The tofu was extremely light in flavour with a burst of spicy flavour from the scallions, and this is really made for tofu lovers, as the strong bean flavour was the highlight of the dish, and the texture was the roughness of tofu squeezed together after extracting the liquid from it. The next dish was simple and definitely not worth the price of RM 34. It was a plain Caesar salad as I just had cravings for it at the point, and they did make a decent one with very crunchy and fresh vegetables and well-balanced Caesar sauce

The next items we had were the brined duck liver with sushi ginger jelly at RM 168, and the cold braised pork knuckles at RM 225. The pork knuckles were more common in the Teochew style of cold pork jelly dish, where you can taste the strong spices of the marinate, which is infused totally into the meat and fats of the knuckles. As the slices were cut thinly, each bite was chewy and crunchy and great as a snack for drinks. The duck liver was not really my style of enjoying foie gras, as it was just paired cold with the ginger and jelly, which did not bring out the fragrance of the duck liver

We also ordered this purely out of curiosity: the Dongguan sausage balls with Beijing Sour vegetables. The sausage was very meaty and had a strong pork flavour, while the soup tasted like the German Sauerkruat which I personally like, so I did find the soup pleasant, but not so much the meatball

Last but not least was the roast duck, which was close to RM400, and came with the choice of soup made from the bones or the remaining meat stir-fried or simply chopped up for consumption. We chose the soup, which I forgot to take pictures of during the meal. The chef first pushed out the duck to the table with a trolley and started to cut down the bird swiftly with his extremely sharp knife and precise skills. It was quickly sliced into skin-only, skin with some meat and meat-only pieces. We were also provided with the flour, sweet sauce, sugar and condiments like cucumber and leek, where we can eat it wrapped with the provided flour skins or the baked sesame pockets

We eat the skin by dipping it into the sugar, and it’s almost like eating chips since the skin is so crispy. The sugar balanced out the fast in the skin and gave it a nice sweet and savoury flavour. The best combination was the skin with meat pieces, where we ate them wrapped with the flour skin and the condiments and sauces, such as the juices and fats from the skin, which paired well with the tender and flavourful duck meat. As the restaurant uses smaller ducks, the grease was balanced and did not leave us with overly greasy mouths or stomachs

Overall, Da Dong did not disappoint at all, and they still have one of the best roast ducks. As an upscale restaurant, the environment, service and price definitely echo the same standards with some innovative dishes that are unique to the restaurant. I would visit them again if I visited Beijing again

Address: China, Beijing, Dongcheng, Jinbao St, 88号金宝汇购物中心5层 邮政编码: 100005

Opening hours: 11 am to 10 pm