Around noon one recent day, the Cantonese-style roasted duck restaurant was full of diners. The owners of the restaurant, a couple, were seen working nonstop. They chopped ducks into pieces, quickly arranged the meat pieces, vegetables, and bean sprouts into bowls, and then poured a special rich sauce on the noodles and duck meat.

Tran Quyet Thang, 44, the owner, said he had once worked for a Chinese food restaurant for nine years where he learned how to prepare Cantonese-style duck from the chef.

Two years after resigning from the post, he decided to start his own restaurant which is now 10 years old and has loyal clients.

The menu of the restaurant is diverse with many duck-made dishes. Of these, roasted duck, mixed noodles with roasted duck, duck vermicelli soup, and bamboo shoot and blood soup are the most popular.

Thang only uses white-winged duck which has firm meat, and is not mushy. Fresh ducks are provided daily by a loyal partner and then first treated by Thang or his wife.

After cleaning the ducks, the ducks are stuffed with 20 kinds of Chinese herbs, including star anise, cardamom, cinnamon and others before the ducks’ stomach are sewn. 

Thang said most of the herbs are commonly used and easily found. There are also other spices, which are the secret that creates the distinct flavor of dishes at his restaurant.

To remove the odor and make the skin shiny, he scalds ducks in boiling water, then sprinkles it with a mixture of vinegar and honey, which will turn the skin golden when roasted. Next, he roasts the treated ducks at 280oC for one hour.

The diners who come for first time are surprised when seeing ducks with paper wrapped around their necks, looking like a scarf.

Thang explained that ducks’ necks are wrapped with paper so that when roasted, the duck's blood will soak into the paper and not run down the duck's body, which helps avoid burning the skin. 

"At other restaurants, cooks tie a string around the duck's neck, but this is really time consuming work, so I found a new solution which can help reduce time,” he explained.

According to Thang, the most important stage in preparing Cantonese-style roasted ducks is the seasoning. Though ducks are roasted at very high temperature, they are not dry but very succulent, sweet and moderately chewy.

When diners place orders, Thang pours hot oil over the entire duck for one minute, which helps make the duck skin golden and crispy.

The broth for the duck noodle soup is simmered from duck feet, duck wings and marrow bones, combined with lemongrass, ginger, onions and herbs. The simmering must last 3-4 hours to ensure that the broth is mildly sweet, and has an aroma.

To make mixed noodles with roasted duck, Thang uses juice from the duck's belly after roasting, and no other spices.

Making the sauce is very important which determines the quality of the dish. The sauce is the essence from ducks, with full flavors – salty and sweet and aromatic.

“When enjoying the dish, diners can dip duck meat in soy sauce to enhance the flavor," Thang suggested. 

According to the restaurant owner, each duck can be used to make eight bowls of vermicelli with duck. On average, the restaurant sells 70 to 80 ducks a day, of which about 50 are used for dishes with vermicelli.

Hiep, 29, from Cau Giay district, said he has been a loyal client of the restaurant for the last four years. He usually orders bun vit at the restaurant because he is satisfied with the mild sweet broth and well aromatized duck meat. Also, the serving is full and the prices are reasonable.

Quynh Nhu, 19, told VietNamNet that she and her friends returned after one try several days ago.

Each bowl of duck meat with vermicelli is priced at VND35,000-50,000, which, according to Nhu, is very reasonable. Each roasted duck is sold at VND220,000, while other dishes are VND30,000 to VND220,000.

Linh Trang - Kim Ngan