Peking Garden, Tsim Tsa Shui

When my cousin in law called and said 'do you want to have Peking duck tonight', I automatically said yes! How can you say no to Peking duck? It was their last night here, and they wanted to have good Chinese food, which includes Peking duck! I have heard about the Peking Garden, it's a chain of restaurants under the Maxim's Group specializing in Beijing and Northern Chinese cuisine. They claim that they serve the best Peking Duck in Hong Kong, and one of their specialties include the infamous Beggar's Chicken which has to be pre-ordered a day in advance. As we found out later that evening, every night, the restaurant also provide a daily demonstration of hand-pulled noodles (lai meen) but we didn't come to see the demonstration – we wanted the Peking duck.

We quickly perused the menu – there were 4 of us, so we each ordered a meal, Peking Duck, some sort of beef dish, a fish dish and veggies.

The fish came out first – it was fish stirfry with mandarin and chilli. The fish was fresh and soft and was not over cooked at all. It was served with beans, mushroom, shallots simmered over soy sauce with a mandarin tang to it and chilli. The combination of mandarin was perfect for the dish. It was extremely light and absoutely delicious.

The second dish to come out was what we have been waiting for – Peking duck! It is customary for them to cut the duck in front of us (or near us so we can see) and it was a fat and juicy duck!

TWO whole plates of Peking duck meat was served before us and my cousin in law and I both had grins from ear to ear! This was superb and this would definitely satisfy our Peking duck craving – one would think! The meat was tender and juicy and it didn't have a lot of fat like some Peking duck and the skin was crispy and thin! Wrapped with pancake (which was thin! I really don't like the thick pancakes!), a dollop of hoysin sauce and cucumber (not a huge fan of raw spring onions!) I was once again in heaven! I lost count of how many of these I made in front of me and put in my mouth! All I know is that it definitely satisfied my Peking duck cravings! What I forgot was, the rest of the duck was made into a stirfry – so duck stirfry with vegetables and lots of chilli!

The beef came shortly after, however, at this stage I was still fixated on my Peking duck! The beef was cooked in soy sauce and celery which made it sweet and drenched in chilli! The beef was again tender and soft and the chilli gave it a nice 'kick' to the meal. It wasn't what I expected but I was pleasantly surprised.

The tofu was not what I 'thought' I ordered. I wanted tofu seafood hot pot but instead got steamed tofu with seafood! I guess that was 'their' version of tofu seafood hotpot? It was still pretty good – the tofu here (in Hong Kong) is absolutely soft – softer than anywhere I have tried. Partly cause I was so full, I didn't really get to try this dish at the time, so took it home (ta bau) and had it for dinner the night after and it was pretty damn tasty! It was tofu with prawns and fish and beans.

I didn't take a photo of the 2^nd dish of the Peking duck – by this time, we were all STUFFED and could not look at another dish! Took it home – and had it as leftovers and I can say that the 2^nd dish duck stirfry with veggies and chilli was absolutely delish! Especially those who likes duck like me!

I would definitely recommend Peking Garden – you can get some expensive dish here, but we went for the 'standard' type of dish which wasn't too expensive but extremely tasty. Would definitely go back and try something different (of course the Peking Duck will given a second try!)

Peking Garden
Star House, 3rd floor 3 Salisbury Rd
Tsim Sha Tsui Kowloon, Hong Kong
Tlp: 2735 8211