Qianjude Restaurant is to Peking duck what Peking duck is to Beijing; that is, it is probably the single most famous Peking duck restaurant, having been in business since 1964. The restaurant has a number of branches, and even the Beijing markets where we went in search of snacks carried Qianjude roast duck in to-go pouches. Dignitaries from around the world had all consumed duck from this restaurant, which dispenses thousands of ducks a day. However, just because it is the most famous does not mean it is the best. We should have listened to Frommer’s. It really is overrated.

At 8pm, when we arrived, there was still a line of diners waiting to be seated. We thought that this was a good omen. Ten minutes after we arrived, we were seated. The waiter appeared quickly to take our tea order. He reappeared shortly with tea to take the order; we ordered half a duck, which also comes with a soup, along with condiments and a braised vegetable dish. As service was efficient, we thought that we were finally, after a long day, able to settle back for a good and relaxing meal.

Imagine our surprise when the duck appeared just a mere four minutes later. A chef came out with half a duck on his cart and proceeded to expertly carve it out in front of our table. But, I thought, it could not be; I know that, for a restaurant this big to specialize in Peking duck, they must be mass-producing these things, but I am not ordering fast food. Maybe this was for the next table. No such luck. As the chef was carving the duck, another attendant appeared with all of the fixings for Peking duck. Then the duck was set on our table, and we were invited to dig in. I was disappointed. The skin was very crunchy; however, there was too much fat and not much flavor. This was definitely not the best, not even one of the five best, Peking ducks I have had. It was a disappointment. To compound the matter, when the duck soup arrived, it was gamey.

But we were both very happy with our braised vegetable dish. It was Chinese cabbage and gingko nuts, braised in duck broth. While the duck soup that came with our order of ½ duck was gamey, the duck broth that came with the cabbage was delicate but extremely flavorful. So we drank the broth instead of the soup. Yum. If I ever come back to this restaurant, it would be to try their other offerings, instead of the one dish for which they are famous.

We arrived at the restaurant about 15-20 minutes later; there was no sign of the others. Aidong was thrown into somewhat of a panic because the restaurant would stop serving at 8pm - in about 20 minutes time (in Beijing everything closes really early...). We were hastily seated at a table for 4 and set about ordering. The menu was more expensive than what we had so far spent on dinner and prices were similar to those in a moderately expensive restaurant in Australia. There was a lot of 'weird stuff' on the menu like eel, turtle and other exotic fish. Perhaps it was here that the western tourist came to get their culinary thrills - there were quite a lot of them there too. We ordered the obligatory duck, choosing the (cheaper) regular duck rather than extra-crispy-just-out-of-the-oven one. We reasoned that, as we were not yet duck connoisseurs, we would not notice the difference. We also chose a few other dishes including an exotic sounding white fungus with mushrooms (this was a bit of a let down being rather bland and tasteless). Tea was really expensive and definitely of the gourmet variety so we 'settled' for beer instead and our choice was rewarded when we were served a huge tankard each.

The others finally arrived about 10-15 minutes after us and were seated at a big round table halfway across the room. I guess there wouldn't be much networking between the two groups after all. However we were quite happy to make our own fun and had a lively conversation touching on, among other things, haggis and Robert Burns. Although serving finished at 8 pm, we stayed in the restaurant until about 10:30 pm or so and were one of the last tables to leave. Enjoying the quiet, we walked up through Tiananmen Square to Chang'an Jie to catch a bus back to the hotel. We were a bit unsure whether the buses were still running at this time of night. Fortunately, we made it there in time to catch the final bus on that route for the day.