Dragon Restaurant: Duck, Duck, Drool

Chinese New Year is just around the corner.  This year it just happens to fall on a trifecta weekend, combining with Valentine’s Day and President’s Day.  Busy, busy weekend for romantically-involved Chinese-Americans.  And while I am not always the most in tune with the Chinese side of me, it’s still a very important day for family.  And when it comes to Chinese families, it’s all about getting together for food.

This year, I got to celebrate with my Grandma and relatives back in the homeland.  And this year, I got to celebrate with some of this:

There’s pretty much nothing in the world I love more than roast duck.  At Dragon Restaurant in Taipei, they serve up some of the best Cantonese-style roast duck I’ve ever tasted.  The skin is thin and crispy while all the meat inside is succulent and tasty.  It’s also almost like an art form, the way they prepare it and serve it.

Food Art.  The servers are so skilled at shaving down the skin, cutting up the bird, and presenting it that you get so hungry you wish they didn’t bother with all that nonsense and plate it already, dammit!

If I were a duck, this is how I would want to go down.  I’d actually forgive the carnivorous humans for hanging me, roasting me, and cutting me apart, just to be this tasty.

To eat the duck, they provide a tortilla like wrap, green onions, and tien mien jiang (the sweet black sauce).  It’s like roast duck fajitas.

I must have had at least seven of these during this lunch.  And that’s not even all they do with your duck.

The Chinese are not known to be wasteful with their food.  The parts of the duck that don’t end up sliced and wrapped get served up in their Roast Duck Congee.  I’m not a fan of congee (also called zou or xi fan), but I loved this dish.  Thick chunks of roast duck swimming in creamy, soupy rice topped with wonton chips.  It’s recycled food at its best.

As if the crispy roast duck wasn’t enough for our meal, the fam also ordered a plate of crispy pork belly and sausages.  Oh my gawd, crispy skin overload.  Compared to the duck skin, the pork skin was much oilier and fatter.  The meat was much juicier and I couldn’t get enough of this dish either.

Their other dishes include many specialties served in stone pots.  There was an eggplant pot that was very tasty.  The one you see on the right is the goose feet, which if you like chicken feet, you’ll probably have a ball with this one too.  It’s one of my grandma’s favorite dishes.

One big foot.

This place has been my family’s favorite place to get roast duck for many, many years.  I would highly recommend this as a stop for anybody in Taipei if you’re craving a nice family-style meal.  The food is amazing and their level of service is outstanding.

Dragon Restaurant
ZhongShan N. Road Sec. 1, Lane 105 #18-1
(Closer to LinShen N. Road)
MRT – ZhongShan Station