Da Dong's Fast Food Duck Burger Five Months In: Slow, Empty, Small

It’s been five months since roast duck giant Da Dong opened his first fast food establishment, Da Dong Duck, with McDonald's and KFC in his sights. After all, if laowai can get Chinese across the Middle Kingdom gobbling western-style burgers and fried chicken, why couldn't a Chinese person do the same with a classic Chinese dish?

We still remember the media splash on their opening day in October when Duck Master and the Beijinger Hall of Famer Dong Zhenxiang took time to serve the shop's customers himself. When we tried it ourselves in November, we found the duck to be tasty and the space a step up from your regular student-packed, wayfarer-filled Beijing fast food outlet.

So, just how is it going a mere five months in?

Let's put it this way: The Colonel is not turning over in his grave, and we bet somewhere Ronald McDonald is cackling and exchanging high-fives with Burger King.

We arrived at Da Dong Duck, located on the first floor at China Central Place, at high noon. The contrast between Da Dong's completely empty dining room and the standing-room-only Starbucks next door was striking: A single lonely customer was at the counter, and not a single seat was occupied. A few delivery men hanging around waiting for online orders was the only other sign of life.

After the bored waitress finished chatting with the idle delivery guys, she finally got around to taking my order. I went for the duck burger set (RMB 31), which comes with fries and a soft drink.

An agonizing 10 minutes later, I finally got the "fast" food. Speedy service is obviously not part of the fast food formula here at Da Dong.

Ok so maybe Da Dong doesn't have the service down, but how about the taste?

My duck burger featured one miserly piece of crispy roast duck skin and one thin slice of duck, garnished with sweet bean paste, three slices of cucumber, a slice of tomato, several rings of raw onion, and a small leaf of lettuce.

The entire contraption was a little larger than a regular Heinz ketchup bag.

Taking a bite, at the very least I was able to distinguish that classic roast duck flavor, though the real deal looked entirely different to the one proudly displayed on the menu.

Gone was the classic duck pancake, replaced with a bun that tastes exactly like those found at McDonald's or KFC. And instead of sticking to tradition – sweet bean paste and scallion slices yes, cucumber, maybe -- they've tossed on tomato and lettuce and swapped scallions for raw onion. (And to boot: the heaping portion of raw onions made my breath was so bad that I didn't dare talk to my colleagues for the remainder of the day. Even two pieces of gum couldn't save me).

Overall, it was simply a standard burger with sweet bean paste instead of mayonnaise, and with duck meat instead of beef.

There was nothing to complain about the fries – ordinary, and the soft drink – standard.

If it was Da Dong's strategy to rob everything that makes roast duck special and replace it with everything that screams "blind devotion to all things Western" well, then Da Dong has hit the proverbial home run.

The fact that this comes from someone so well regarded in the pantheon of Chinese cuisine and so closely associated with a dish primed with historical and geographic significance is just sad.

So if you do end up at this "fast" food outlet, we recommend you steer clear of the duck entirely. The petite meat moon cake (RMB 9) did manage to impress. Originating from the South, this meat-filled snack was both juicy and mixed with water chestnut, which pushed it over the line to become the dish that I enjoyed the most. If you’re hungry and disappointed at the regular meal set here, this one little meat bomb will fill you up more than the burger itself.

Most people who visit appear to opt for the spaghetti with black truffle and meat sauce (RMB 22) but even then didn’t give the dish a very positive review via dianping.com, commenting, “it is too dry,” and, “I can't taste the black truffle in it, it just tastes like zhajiang mian.”

During our sad lunch we looked around and counted that the waitress only took a handful of orders over the span of 20 minutes, which required the help of another two waiters.  

After I was seated, another customer came in, shortly joined by a friend and I overheard them remark that the food tasted good but they too were incredulous at how long it took to receive it.

At around 12.40pm, the restaurant was a little busier, and there were three people patiently waiting in the line to get their food. At this point we noticed that Da Dong Duck works with all five of Beijing's online delivery websites, so maybe they sell more online at the cost of in-store customer satisfaction?

We also couldn't help but notice the infinitely repeating clip of Dong Zhenxiang playing on the TV, next to which were a whole bunch of his photos in case you forgot what he looked like in between the clip reloading. I am not sure that such a high-end and fine dining restaurant would undertake such an attempt at fast food in order to be successful – which is why it appears to me that Da Dong Duck is not testing the waters as such, it's merely a hall to present someone’s ego.

More stories by this author here.

Email: tracywang@thebeijinger.com
Twitter: @flyingfigure
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Photos courtesy of Tracy Wang