peeking at the duck

this is not a wood-fired pizza oven but the oven for roasted peking duck at min jiang in one north, rochester park in singapore.
min jiang is, to put it plainly, one of the more famous sichuan restaurants in singapore with peking duck being its signature dish.
which is why we ended up there for the dinner that presages the end of the annual company meeting held in singapore this year.
we had beers first of course.
that was followed by an eight-course dinner that looked like tapas but felt like a heavy dinner after a while - unlike most chinese dinners.
the chef came over with thin slices of crisp duck skin - very very thin and crispy actually - that glistened with fat and tasted delicious with just the barest dip of the sugar bowl.
everyone agreed that it was great. quite unlike what we have ever had in a while.
the chef, bless his soul, then expertly carved the peking duck and separated it to two lots of duck meat and skin.
one was wrapped in pancake with condiments of spring onions, cucumber and chinese hoisn sauce while the other lot was spicied up with garlic and radish strips.
both lots went in double quick time with the first lot bringing out the essence of roast duck while the spicier lot teased our palate and brought forth an explosion of taste that is quite hard to describe.
we tried to prolong the sensation and even considered ordering extra peking duck but orders had to be placed one day in advance. damn!
the other dishes were standard chinese course fare except for the sea cucumber that did not go down well with the crowd. think it was just too gooey for us.
the dessert of black beans with ice cream capped off a splendid night friends, fun and food - not in any particular order though!
min jiang one north is at 5, rochester park. call +65 67740122 to order your meal.
and that was really quite the end of the singapore travel for the moment.