Quan Ju De (全聚德) Restaurant - PEKING DUCK BABY!

For those who know me, they know I love Peking Duck! I've always been the type of guy that eats to live, not live to eat...but when I am able to get my hands on some Peking Duck....oooh my eyes light up!
So what better place to eat Peking duck then...BEIJING (Peking)! On April 14, some of my classmates and I decided to visit the most famous Duck place in Beijing - Quan Ju De (全聚德). The original restaurant was established over 140 years ago and believe now it has about 4 locations. We went to the location on Qianmen. The funny thing is, we were actually headed to another restaurant but because we couldn't find it. I mean, every person we stopped kept telling us to go to Qian Ju De. Here's how the conversation kind of went (exaggerated slightly):

US: "Can you tell us where this restaurant is?"

HELPFUL CITIZEN: "Don't know it. You should go to Quan Ju De for their duck"

US: "Oh we don't want to go there today. We have reservations at this one."

HELPFUL CITIZEN: "Hmm...sorry but you should really go to Quan Ju De"

US: "Yes, I know but not today"

HELPFUL CITIZEN: "Quan Ju De is just down the street...keep going straight about 100 metres and it will be on your left."

US: "Well I guess Quan Ju De it is"

When we walked into the place, boy were we scared! This place looked expensive...and of course it was. There were no regrets all around though..I mean, we had to know what the best duck tasted like. We decided to buy the set meal. I can't remember the exact price but I think it was around 1500 RMB. Let's just say normally, a huge meal at a cheap restaurant would cost us around 100 RMB. I can't remember how many dishes came and what all the dishes were but they were quite tasty! It was the first time I tried Duck Heart ....yumm, it was actually pretty good. My mind said no but my tongue said yes! There were other dishes such as liver (I'm still not a liver fan), and of course 2 roasted ducks...ok, we were greedy! As for the duck, to be honest, I was a tad bit dissappointed. I mean I love Peking duck no matter how crappy it tastes but considering this is supposedly the most famous place in Peking, my expectations were very high. The problem I had with the duck was that it was a bit oily/greasy. The grease kind of ruined the taste of the duck. I actually felt that I had better Peking Duck in Toronto. In fact, I think Quan Ju De is known as the best Peking duck because all the tourist books say that it is. There were lots of foreigners in the restaurant and not too many local chinese (which in my eyes, that's not usually a good sign of a good chinese restaurant - of course it is a very expensive place). Overall though, it was a good time. The rest of the food was quite delicious and once again, I got to know some of my classmates a bit better.

I read in some magazine though that although Quan Ju De is the most famous Peking Duck restaurants, there are less well-known, but tastier duck places. I will definately try some of them once I go back to Beijing in September.

BTW, the picture of the classmate eating the Peking duck was a Japanese television news reporter on TV in her local town! I MET A CELEBRITY!! ;-)

You can find some more info and reviews about Quan Ju De here:

http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/beijing/31300.htm