Duck King
“The soup dumplings are good, but not as good as petite soo chow.”
“The vegetable dishes were quite fresh (baby bok choy with bean curd skin in a light white sauce was primo), and their twice cooked pork was really flavorful.”
“I'll reserve final judgment until we've had a few more trips under our belts (and maybe after ordering something off the English menu ;-p).”
Duck King
Takes Reservations: Yes
Delivery: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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Review for Saturday brunch.
I'm somewhat split. I loved the food, but soon after we left, we were hit with massive food coma, so they must put a ton of MSG in their food!
In looking at the reviews here, most of the high ratings are written by people who are looking for authentic Chinese and have had Shanghainese before, not Chinese-American, and can read/speak Chinese. So, take that for what it's worth.
I've been here once for Saturday brunch. You know it's hard to find places that serve a proper Chinese breakfast. I got a bowl of the sweetened soymilk, fried cruller (long sticks of dough), and the sesame encrusted bread (sao bing). These were very good – Petite Soo Chow's cruller was stale and I think their sell out of breakfast earlier. I don't think any of these items have MSG. Then, I got a bowl of the Shanghainese style wontons, which were ok. The skin was a little too soggy for me. Friend got the bean sauce noodles – cha jiang mien (a lot of sauce). We also got crab soup dumplings, which were good. For dessert, we got the rice ball in soup with fermented rice. Maybe this is what killed us? The rice balls are the smaller ones and filled with peanut sauce or black sesame sauce. There was definitely a lot of cornstarch in the broth.
Service was fine. The interior is surprisingly not too badly decorated for a Chinese restaurant, considering the non-descript exterior. All of the other patrons there were Chinese-speaking. A party was seated next to us when we were mid-way through our meal and were going on and on about how they only have 30 minutes to eat. They ended up ordering most of what they saw on our table. It's classic when a Chinese waiter tells a Chinese patron that he can't do anything for them unless they verbalize their needs. Lol. There was also a game of mahjong going on in that semi-private room near the entrance.
And the menu I looked at was all Chinese (with the breakfast items in the very back), so if you're Chinese and can't read, use pictures.
I'd come here over Petite Soo Chow. I felt that their menu was too carb heavy and that their carbs weren't made delicately/refined/flavorful enough. (Makes more sense in Mandarin.) Will have to try Duck King for non-brunch some time.
Go for Peking duck, Peking duck, Peking duck! Important things I would say it three times. Before this place, I would for sure rank Peking duck house in Manhattan to be the best duck dish I've ever had, now Duck King became the real duck King in this area.
Double cooked pork was also good. However pork soup dumplings were mediocre at best and the bread crust was a bit too dry and hard to chew…
The other negative point was the small size of each dish…nevertheless flavor beat everything.
I had dinner last night at Duck King for Father's Day and was impressed by how much they've improved from the last time I've eaten there which was at least a year and a half ago. The last time I went the food was really just so-so and was not that interesting aside from the Peking Duck which is what this restaurant specializes in. However, last night's dinner was pretty good and I think Duck King is worth adding back into our rotation. I don't know if they changed their kitchen staff but the food has certainly improved.
Soup dumplings are absolutely amazing!!!! Moo shoo vegetable and general Tso chicken is also very tasty – not extremely greasy – delivery time is awesome! They are fast and diligent – my order is always delivered to me correctly and I'm never missing any sauces – two thumbs up!
A few colleagues who live in NJ suggested this place and we went for dinner. This is primarily a Peking duck restaurant, but also serve Shanghainese style preparations. Before writing this, I read the other reviews and noticed a rather wide dichotomy. The reviews are skewed either very good/excellent or horrible. Most of the bad reviews I read are by people who are accustomed to Chinese-American takeout run of the mill chicken and brocolli and shrimp lo mein type of Chinese. I would suggest not ordering those dishes here. They just have them on the menu because they're obligated to. Ordering such would be like going to a steakhouse and ordering chicken.
There is another Chinese language menu here that has alot of other offerings like tripe, slice cold beef, jellyfish, lamb, oxtails, fish, turnip cakes and it's unfortunate that they do not understand that non-Chinese like to eat those things. In any event, we ordered crab/pork soup dumplings which are called juice buns here, shredded pork Beijing style, which is made with thinly sliced pork and a kind of thick spicy sauce and a Peking duck. The dumplings and pork were very good, very authentic. The duck is served with thin flour crepelike pancakes, scallions, cucumbers, tianminjiang sweet bean sauce. To eat, you assemble it yourself, adding each ingredient and folding it into a wrap. The pancakes are excellent, better than most places I've had even in Chinatown Manhattan and Flushing, Queens. The flour pancake is an essential textural component of this dish, and should be very thin, a a bit gritty, a little glutenous as a contrast to the crispy duck skin. The duck is delicious, excellent crispy skin, the meat is seasoned and flavored perfectly. They do slice the duck a little different here, where they slice the duckmeat with skin on, some other places slice the skin off completely and meat on side. It didn't really matter to me, because the flavor of the duck is perfect. The chef here knows what he is doing.
Highly recommended.
This is my favorite Chinese place in the area hands down. To be honest I haven't had the classics like chicken and broccoli because this place has a lot more to offer than Lo Mein. I go for things like the clams with black bean sauce and the soup dumplings. Okay seriously there is NO need to go to. China Town to get the plump juicy buns that everyone loves (8 come in an order with a choice of pork or crab-I love both). The clams in black bean sauce is one of my favorite seafood dishes ever. The black bean sauce is so flavorful full of black beans. It is on the pricy side, but for $19.95 you get a bushel of clams to satisfy two people for an app for sure.
Then the main event….THE DUCK. It's $35 for a whole Peking duck but totally worth it. The duck is always shown to the guests before it is butchered up. For the Americans the head is taken off and for the Chinese the head is still on. The Peking duck comes with delicious handmade crepes to fill your goodies in. Homemade is def rare with these things and it makes a huge difference. They give you plenty of sauce, cucumbers and scallions (don't hesitate to ask for more) to complete the ultimate Peking duck meal. Yum!
I believe there is a separate menu for Americans and the Chinese…someone who is Chinese please take me so I can try to the legit stuff!! I'm a sucker for authenticity and I think place has it.
We stopped in on a Tuesday to have some Peking duck and soup dumplings… ugh, such mixed emo…
7:15pm, we ordered soup dumplings and Peking duck. Soup dumplings came out with no problem then a server brings over the brown sauce & veggie for the duck.
It's 8:02pm and we are still sitting here with an empty plate and still untouched veggies and sauce. This is not because we don't like veggies!!! Our duck is still yet to show its existence!!
Warning to all those who order the duck here… if you are looking to do a quick in and out… DONT!
You must give yourself at least 40 mins for the dish! I just wish someone would have told us about this when we ordered the duck.
8:10pm, duck is here!!! It was just a little greasy but tasty enough that I am uping 1 star to 3. But taking into consideration their service and unwanted time spent, I'd say 3 stars are pretty generous.
I came here with my friend from Shanghai who highly recommended this place. She said it was one of the rare authentic Chinese restaurant that served authentic peking duck in Jersey.
She also informed me that they have a Chinese menu and an american menu and that they have different items. Since she spoke fluent Chinese she ordered for us the soup dumplings with both crab meat and pork and it was exceptional to say the least. It was not only juicy but the flavors of the pork and crab were definitely animated yet simple and clean.
The duck soup was also amazing and the flavors were definitely present yet mild and complimented the roasted peking duck as well.
The noodles and scallion pancakes were also really good and added a nice touch as a side dish to our main meals.
I would definitely go here again and would not mind becoming a regular here.