Friday night was a parents' night at school. We hold these nights on Fridays because many parents live outside of Beijing, and must fly in for the meeting. They fly in, spend five minutes with each teacher, spend the night in a hotel, and then fly home. They are dedicated to their children's education.
The event runs until about 6:30. As a way thank the teachers, the school brings us out to dinner afterwards. I'm not talking about a sandwich tray in the teachers' lounge or some colleagues going Dutch unofficially. Nope, I'm talking about an official sit-down meal paid for by the school. With beer, no less.
We had a great time looking through the menu. Some of the translations were priceless. We have to go back with a camera. I can't even begin to fake just how awesomely bad some of the names were. While the Chinese staff usually order for us when we go out, this time they gave us a chance to order on our own. Well, the Canadian decided we should try something "exciting". OK. Donkey it is!
It was a cold dish. Sliced meat with a ginger/garlic dipping sauce. I did a side-by-side comparison with the cold sliced beef we also ordered. I couldn't tell much of a difference. It tasted like... meat.
The highlight of dinner was the duck, though. Oh yes, I had my first official Peking duck. Thin pancakes, cucumber sticks, green onion shreds, plum sauce, and sugar. And duck. First, they bring out the duck skin. You get meat later on. And at the end they fry up the bones so you can suck on them. By then, I was stuffed, so I didn't try the bones.
The skin, though. Oh, the skin. Crispy, fatty, warm duck skin. It brought me back to my days at Maggie G's, when chef used to staff the duck cracklins after rendering duck fat for confit. The sauce was bitter; the sugar was necessary. We ran out of cucumber and onion. But the skin was heaven.
Definitely better than the donkey.
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