Divine Duck at Paradise Pavillion

Who likes Peking Duck, raise your hands! Me! Me!

 

I admit, I have a thing for Peking Duck, and I could eat it all day. I used to think that one should partake of the bird only on special occasion when a 10 course Chinese meal is required; but after I turned 40 and lost the digestive stamina for huge meals, I say eat less but exceedingly well if you can. Why wait for good food? Bring on the duck!

For the longest time, you had to go to China to taste the authentic Peking duck (I’ll have another story there….) until a few years ago when Min Jiang@One North served it up for the first time in Singapore. Then a new restaurant Paradise Pavillion recently opened at the Marina Bay Financial Centre and they are serving Beijing-style Peking Duck as their signature. And this is pretty authentic without having to row your way to China! I pottered over a while ago as a guest of the restaurant…

 

Peking Vs Singapore
But here’s a pop quiz first: Did you know that the Peking Duck we have here in Singapore is quite different from the ‘kao ya’ – what they call the same dish – in Beijing? For one, our local version only makes use of the skin wrapped in paper thin crepes, while the Beijing version carves out the skin together with a shameless layer of fat. They serve it with sugar, into which you dip the fatty sliver of skin. Decadence! Also the crepes are a little puffier than our thin skins. And while the Singapore version allows you to have the rest of the meat cooked into a noodle dish or fried with some vegetable (like beansprouts) to be served later, the Beijing style gives you only the first cut and one serving of sliced meat. The rest they keep.

 

So On To The Food…
Here, it is prepared by no less than Executive Peking Duck Chef Zheng Jing Chun, a sifu formerly from  Quan Ju De restaurant, one of Beijing’s most famous ‘kao ya’ restaurants. As they do in Beijing, Paradise Pavillion roasts its duck in a superheated, wood-fired brick oven using apple tree wood. The oven itself is made using traditional methods and material imported from China. After all that investment, the owners make sure it’s located in an open kitchen, right near the entrance so you get a good eyeful of the chefs heaving the duck, suspended at the end of wooden poles, into the brick oven with licking orange flames– all quite dramatic! 

 

The restaurant guarantees you freshly prepared Peking Duck, roasting it only when you make your order. That means you’ll have to wait a while, but it is worth it. The duck is served within five minutes out of the oven, and when you see it carved at your table, you’ll believe it its freshly cooked. As the chef peels away the skin (above), you can see the steam just rising out from under the layers. He slices it so deftly and finely, too, that you’d believe not only does he have well trained hands, they’re made of cast iron fingertips too.

 

First, the skin of the breast is sliced off with a layer of fat. This is the best and crispest part, best enjoyed a dab of sugar sans crepe. For all the fat, it wasn’t as greasy as it sounds, and the flavour was sweet and delicate, with no gamey taste of duck. (But because the ducks are sourced from Malaysia, they are not as fatty as those in China, which does take away some of the flavour.) The rest of the duck – mainly slices of meat – is then served with incredibly soft and pillowy rice flour crepes – thicker than the egg crepe that is more commonly served at restaurants – cucumber slices, spring onion, sugar and a homemade sweet sauce. It was lovely – the portions were generous and all most lip smackingly delicious!

 

Dishes Beyond Duck
Apart from the Peking duck, I am told by a gourmand friend that the suckling pig there is excellent (two days advance order required!) but I didn’t get to taste it. What I did try, though, was the double-boiled sea whelk soup, a rich consommé made of a very fine stock with a light texture – a perfect foil to the relatively fatty duck. It contained various meats and delicacies including a tender, and generous sized whelk.

 

An appetiser platter of foie gras with blueberry reduction, squid stuffed with scallop in Thai sauce, crabmeat salad with truffle-infused mustard dressing was a pretty platter which was a nice play on light flavours and textures. But it was a contemporary east-west style which was so  odd served in the midst of a traditional haute Chinese meal. Makes you go, “Duh?”

 

The wok fried ramen (above) was good, served with abalone, and finally the crispy custard man tou with vanilla ice cream ended the meal was ooooh! – most delightful. Other dishes worth trying, I am told is Stewed Spare Rib in Red Sago Chinese Wine Sauce, and the unique homemade Braised Edamame Tofu with Crab Roe (below, left).

 

What I really liked about the lunch was it wasn’t overly heavy. With just five courses where the Peking Duck was clearly the main event, it filled you up nicely with fine food, but without bloating you as large banquets are wont to do.

 

We dined in a private room, and I must say the walk down the corridor past the many closed doors of other private rooms was a bit like walking down a rabbit warren bedecked in pseudo-French regency style with eggshell blue walls and plaster motifs. For a moment, I thought I was in Forlino’s. It just didn’t gel with the Peking Duck and double boiled soups. My other beef is that access to the restaurant is only via a particularly slow and small lift. Facing the great water buffalo sculpture in the main plaza, it’s so nondescript that  you have to sniff it out before you notice the lift!

 

If you can forgive that, the food, I will say, is really rather good and worth the trot there if you are working in the vicinity. It’s also a nice place to bring Mumsy for a treat. (Ding ding! Mother’s Day is coming up!) 

 

Good Extras To Note: The restaurant offers a ‘certified wine specialist’ who can help pair wines with the food. Apart from a la carte, there’s also Degustation Menus ($88++ / $120++ per person), individual set menus from $35 and on weekends, which tend to be quiet in that vicinity, there’s dim sum to be had.

 

#02-01 Marina Bay Financial Centre, Ground Plaza
8A Marina Boulevard, Singapore
Tel: +65 6509 9308