A Quack Quack Here

If you’re a Peking Duck fan, this is as good as it gets. The skin is crackling-crisp, the meat succulent, the pancakes tissue-paper thin, and the tangy plum sauce and clear duck soup a perfect foil to the richness of the bird. For this culinary perfection, you have to thank not just the specialist chef from Beijing, but also the duck supplier—a Delhi farmer named Vivek Kushwaha, who spent a few weeks in China learning how to rear this special breed of duck. China Kitchen’s look is contemporary—glass walls, subdued colours, with not a Chinese lantern or fortune cookie in sight. Adding to the ‘globalised’ ambience is the lunchtime clientele, dominated by blonde young women, their gym-toned bodies displayed to perfection in skintight designer clothes. The illusion is shattered when we overhear them nattering in Hindi.

Meet the GenNext kitty party, folks, the Didis Who Lunch. You can ogle at them for the 40 minutes it takes for the Peking Duck to be served, or you can watch six Chinese chefs perform culinary acrobatics in their glass-walled kitchens. We sampled a few of their creations—Shanghai soup dumplings, steamed spinach with sesame sauce and jumbo prawns in onion sauce—all impeccably executed. But it’s the Peking Duck that’ll bring you back again and again.