Peking Garden TST - traditional Peking duck ( 北京樓 )

This is post #17, part of my #50PostsIn50Days personal challenge to document my first 100 days in Hong Kong. Other posts in this series may be found at the bottom of the original post.

It's always fun to see where people who used to live in Hong Kong like to visit when they return.

A couple months ago, one of Bryan's long-lost aunts came to Hong Kong to visit us. This aunt lived in Hong Kong for over twenty years, and is almost like a local (she worked in Hong Kong and is fluent in Cantonese even though she's from Mainland China). This aunt loves Peking Garden and often comes here when entertaining groups of people.

It makes sense that she would be familiar with Peking Garden. After all, Peking Garden is a well-known, old school Chinese restaurant that has been around in Hong Kong since 1978. There are three locations in Hong Kong (Central, Admiralty, and Tsim Sha Tsui), and it is quite popular, especially with larger groups.

We visited the one in Tsim Sha Tsui ("TST"), which is located on the third floor of the Star House on Salisbury Road, only steps away from the TST Ferry terminal and the entrance to Harbour City. The space is huge, mostly filled with large tables filled with big groups. It seems like a good place for family gatherings. The loud atmosphere makes it family-friendly, and we definitely saw at least one (if not two) birthday parties being celebrated.

Because we were a much smaller table (heh, just a party of three!), a duck was pretty much all we could manage. Bryan's aunt even said, if we had had a larger group, we could have ordered some other stir fry dishes. Alas, a duck was plenty for us.

And boy was she right.

The ducks here seem even larger than ducks I've seen elsewhere. This duck was HUGE!

After bringing it out for us to see, they took it to the back to carve up for us.

The first plate is the premium meat. Bryan's aunt kept encouraging us to at least finish that plate since it was the best meat.

The flavor of the duck meat was good, though I found the duck to be pretty fatty. Furthermore, the skin wasn't really crispy.

Nevertheless, it was still a perfectly enjoyable duck, and I made several duck pancakes using hoisin sauce, scallions, and the duck meat.

And then the second plate (including the head!) came. It was so much food. We tried our best, but we still had lots and lots of leftovers. Thankfully, the restaurant packed it all up for us, and I used it the next day to make a delicious duck bone broth. It was fantastic!

This is post # , part of my #50PostsIn50Days personal challenge to document my first 100 days in Hong Kong. Other posts in this series may be found at the bottom of the original post.

As a bonus, near the end of our meal a chef came out and did a fun hand-pulled noodle demonstration. he was clearly very talented and made a lovely batch of very thin hand-pulled noodles. The whole room clapped when he finished.

It would be fun to come back sometime to try the noodles!

In short, I think Peking Garden is still a solid place to get Peking duck for a large group. The ducks here don't quite have the finesse when it comes to crispy skin and tender meat compared to Peking ducks we've enjoyed at some of the more upscale places. However, it's nice that you get to eat every part of the duck, and even take home the bones and leftover meat you can't finish. It appeals to the "don't waste" part of my personality.

And that duck bone broth I made the next day was indeed fabulous.

Thanks Aunty and Uncle for a fun and enjoyable dinner!

Peking Garden - Hong Kong Locations

Peking Garden Central
B1, 1/F, Alexandra House
16-20 Chater Road, Central, Hong Kong

Peking Garden TST
3/F, Star House,
3 Salisbury Road,
Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong

Peking Garden Admiralty
Pacific Place, 88 Queensway
Admiralty, Hong Kong