Peking duck isnt the same without the tableside show, but its still mighty fine
Dining at a Michelin-starred restaurant is theater, where you are both audience and actor, where a cast of dozens (pre-pandemic accounting here) creates a space in which every element has a role to play: the calm anonymity of the music, the spare naturalism of the dining room, the enveloping comfort of the chairs, the heft of the silverware, the ivory canvas of the china, the charm of the servers, the quality of the ingredients.
For a price, you are dropped into another world, where you become someone who’s waited on like a member of the landed aristocracy, even if you’re a middle-class grinder like me. This experience is largely what we are missing during the pandemic with restaurants: the ability to escape our gnarly existence for a couple of magnificent hours.
I was reminded of this recently when, out of nowhere, I had a desire for Peking duck. I’m not trying to compare Duck Chang’s (4427 John Marr Dr., Annandale. 703-941-9400; duckchangs.com), a 45-year-old strip-center institution in Northern Virginia, with the Inn at Little Washington. Yet, there’s no denying the drama of a server working the sharp edge of duck slicer to break down a lacquered bird at the table: It’s one of those rare moments when you get to witness knife technique inside a restaurant.
But more than that, the ritual is a link to the past, to Chinese imperial kitchens, where Peking duck was created and where the knowledge of its preparation and carving began to spread to common restaurants. From there, the techniques were handed down from one generation to another and another, over centuries, until they finally arrived at your table in the D.C. suburbs.
Peter Chang (no, not that one) is the second-generation proprietor of Duck Chang’s, the place his father, Man Ming Chang, debuted in 1975 after establishing his reputation at several Washington restaurants. Man Ming first learned his trade at his family's restaurant in northern China, but when the communists took control of Beijing, he fled to Hong Kong and then to Thailand, where he would become the chief banquet chef to King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Man Ming later immigrated to the United States to work at The Empress, Imperial Garden and China Gate, Peter Chang tells me. It was within these kitchens that he earned the nickname “Duck” Chang.
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“Chang himself brings the fowl directly from the oven to the guest — it looks beautiful, almost as though it were varnished — and carves it himself,” wrote Donald Dresden in a 1976 review of Duck Chang’s for The Washington Post.
“He wields a murderously sharp knife with such dexterous speed that the crisp, brown skin and the underlying meat are hot when served, rolled up in a thin Mandarin crepelike pancake with plum sauce and scallions. Delicious,” Dresden continued. “No wonder the chef is called ‘Duck.’”
These days, no one is wielding a sharp knife tableside at Duck Chang’s. Not Duck Chang (who died in 2005 at age 81). Not Duck Chang Jr., eldest son of the founder and brother to Peter (Junior recently suffered his third heart attack, Peter said). And not Peter or even Peter’s son, Kinlon, a student at George Mason University who occasionally helps at the restaurant. That’s because Duck Chang’s hasn’t reopened its small dining room. It’s apparently not worth the costs to run it.
But you can still order Peking duck to go. Plenty of folks do. About 20 ducks are packaged for takeaway each day, Peter says, down about 50 percent from weekday orders before the pandemic, and far below the weekend average of 100-plus birds. When you untie the plastic bag — or, more likely, just rip it open for quick access — you might think the staff was in a hurry to get that duck out the door. My order was stuffed into Chinese takeaway cartons, one for the meat and bones, another for the skin. The containers were unsealed, their flaps flying in the breeze. When I prepared my first pancake, I soon realized why: The skin had not steamed on itself. It was still shatteringly crisp, playing the perfect foil to that moist duck meat.
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The open-box trick is one that Peter — who studied molecular genetics at George Mason — learned well before the pandemic. “But you got to start with a crispy duck in order for the duck to keep crispy,” he warns me.
My favorite duck carver in the area retired a couple of years ago. When I first met Wang Wen Fang at China Wok (8395 Leesburg Pike, Tysons. 703-893-4488; chinawokviennava.com), he was 83 and still carving ducks with the dexterity of a man 50 years his junior. With a pinstriped fedora snugly covering his head, Wang was an almost daily presence at the restaurant, a sign of stability in a world with so little of it. He’s 90 now, co-owner Vera Ho tells me, and his health is good, despite a virus that has decimated countless lives across the globe.
Share this articleShare“I cannot open the dining room because I’m scared of the virus,” Ho says. But you can still get China Wok’s superb Peking duck to go, its meat and bones placed at the bottom of a plastic container and covered with foil, on top of which rests the skin. The duck travels well, too, though I feel sorry for diners who will never experience the full effect of Wang’s carvings. It was like watching a great athlete in his prime, witnessing how fluid the knife moves in his hand, as graceful and powerful as a Michael Jordan with a basketball.
Wang honed his skills at Peking Gourmet Inn (6029 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church. 703-671-8088; pekinggourmet.com), the standard-bearer for Peking duck in the region and one of the late George H.W. Bush’s favorite haunts. Peking Gourmet is one of the few places where you can still get dinner and a show at your table. In rooms decorated with framed portraits of politicians, generals, vice admirals, movie stars and others celebrities, you can have a close encounter with a famous duck carved right before you eyes, its meat and skin fanned out on oval plates branded with Peking Gourmet Inn.
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Opened in 1978, Peking Gourmet was born in an era when immigrant restaurateurs were invested in assimilation. The establishment has given over its walls to dozens of photos, each a testimonial to the widespread popularity of the place. As I sit under a picture of retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who shows off his dimples in a smiling portrait with second-generation owner George Tsui, I’m beaming myself as my masked server starts to carve the duck, carefully scraping fat from skin. She tells me her name is Linda. She’s Latinx, one of countless carvers who have trained for weeks in the kitchen before taking their place on the dining room floor. She represents the past and future of Peking duck, and right now, I sense both of us are just thinking about the present — and how to enjoy the moment from a safe distance.
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