The Weekend

My weekend began on Friday night with a farewell-to-the-temp pool+drinks gimmick at Flat Top Johnny's, at Kendall Square. It was a hilarious outing because 1. the group consisted of 3 girls and 3 guys all named Alex, 2. we were terrible pool players and 3. a love saga evolved -- my colleague, a blonde hot chick who graduated from Wellesley was eyeing a boy the whole night. We eventually convinced her to write her phone number on a napkin and drop it off at his pool table upon our departure. She did, and the story remained To-be-continued until today, when I found out they actually went out on Saturday! But unfortunately he is 21, a year younger than her, and he lives in California but was here visiting his brother. Too bad.

Ok. Now the DUCKS.


You see, we have had this discussion about ducks. It started with Roast Duck at Super 88. We concluded that ducks taste good, but some ducks taste better than others. Bigger juicier ducks with lots of fats of course taste better, but it also depends on how they are cooked. The next time we talked about ducks, it actually started from a discussion about porridge, and how Cantonese porridge is much nicer than Teochew porridge. We then concluded that Cantonese duck is nicer than Teochew duck, because Teochew ducks tended to be thin and bony. I called them refugee ducks -- because they were truly very lean. As you can see, the topic of Ducks was gaining importance in our conversations, and during our excursions over the weekend, we agreed that a Duck assessment was in order.

Which Duck will prevail??

On Saturday, we stopped at the Ivy restaurant along Temple Street in downtown Boston. As expected, we exceeded the waitress's recommendation of 4-6 small plates for a party of 3, and commenced to order 8 in total. One of them was... Long Island duck confit with greens and pomegranate redux. Well well, there we have our first Iron-Duck. How will it fare relative to the tried and tested? Ahhhh.... crispy skin with an adequate amount of fat.... but... could be better. For now, above the Teochew but below the Cantonese, I would say. *this review has not been approved by the other judges*.

On Sunday, we tried the Shanghainese duck at Shanghai gate. If I remember correctly, it was called the 酱鸭 -- the Sauce Duck. The name itself is rather unimaginative. The sauce was good, but unfortunately, lean ducks are mean ducks. Un-crispy skins do not appeal, and therefore the Shanghai duck is no match for even the Long Island duck.


The rankings currently stand:

1. Extra Fatty and Juicy Cantonese Roast Duck


2. Peking duck (too bad the meat not that great but the skin is so shiok)


3. 素鸭 Mock Duck -- I like, don't argue.


3. The Long Island Duck consumed on Saturday

4. The Shanghai Gate Sauce Duck

5. Kway Chap duck (but it has to come with the taupok and the egg or else it shall be relegated to the bottom of the list)
6. Teochew Duck (don't say i mean ah, the teochew duck picture is the biggest one)