Which London-style roast duck should you try?

Talk about birds of a feather: Of late, roast ducks seem to be flocking together. In our dining scene, at least. Sure, those lacquered birds have long been a mainstay of Chinese cuisine here, but with the recent entries of the famous Four Seasons Chinese Restaurant and London Fat Duck, roast duck is enjoying yet another moment in the Singapore sun. Except this time, the Chinese-style roast duck is largely referred to as “London roast duck”.

“For many people, London’s Chinatown is synonymous with good roast duck. That’s how people started referring to it as London roast duck,” explained Mervin Goh, owner of the Akashi Group. He established London Fat Duck at Scotts Square in collaboration with Tim Kim Siong of Fei Siong Group. “But what people don’t realise is that the roast ducks served at restaurants in London Chinatown are mostly imported from Ireland.”

London Fat Duck procures its ducks from the same supplier, a well-known family-owned establishment called Silver Hill Farm. The ducks here are handled by hand and purportedly put up in a calm space with soft music playing before they end up on the dinner table. (The reasoning is that calm ducks evidently offer more supple, flavourful meat and are less gamey. Who knew?)

Legendary Hong Kong in Jurong Point is yet another restaurant that buys its ducks from Silver Hill Farm. It said it goes through about 50 birds a day, which are roasted by chef Siu Chin Ho, who used to work at the famous Yung Kee restaurant in Hong Kong. On the other hand, while Four Seasons Chinese Restaurant in London also gets its ducks from Silver Hill, its Singapore outpost buys those that are specially fed and bred to its specifications from a supplier in Holland. Its marketing and operations manager Richard Chua said it gets the ducks when they are “about 40 to 50 days old”, when they weigh around 2.5kg, because “there is just enough fat for roasting, to get the right texture and crispness”.

ROAST DUCK SMACKDOWN

So just how do the birds fare against one another? At Four Seasons Restaurant, the ducks (priced between S$22 for a quarter duck and S$68 for a whole bird) are marinated in maltose, herbs and spices, their cavities stuffed with the likes of star anise, onion and Anhui salt, before being air-dried for about six hours.

After a 45-minute roasting, they are air-dried again before being served. This yields beautifully lacquered ducks with crisp skin. The ducks are deboned and served with a perkily sweet dark sauce. When bitten into, the wafer-thin skin releases a delicious scrim of fat imbued with great depth of flavour. The layer of meat beneath is tender and succulent, and suffused with the slightly sweet, nuanced flavours of its marinade.

London Fat Duck’s signature London Roast Duck (S$12.80 to S$48.80) is quite different. While it lacks crisp skin, the meat is thicker and more robust in flavour. The sauce it is doused in is more viscous and slightly sweet. It is quite similar in style to Legendary Hong Kong’s Roasted London Duck (S$14.80 to S$58), whose meat is just as plump and flavourful without being gamey.

Ducks aside, all three eateries have lots of other dishes on the menu that are worthy of praise. London Fat Duck makes peerless Malaysian-style char siew (S$13.80), wonderfully tender slices of pork cloaked in a caramelised, jammy marinade that is just sweet enough with a lovely savoury depth. Its Black Pepper London Duck buns (S$4.80 for three) are also worth the queue. The soft, grey-hued buns are stuffed with a deliciously moist filling of diced roast duck meat hit with the perfect balance of black pepper.

Four Seasons Restaurant makes some excellent old-school Chinese dishes, including a velvety, richly flavoured braised aubergine with minced pork in hot pot (S$24). Its crispy pork belly (S$22) boasts a thin layer of crackling that snaps happily in the mouth and meat that yields easily to the bite. As for Legendary Hong Kong, don’t miss the cloud-like custard bo lo buns (S$2.50 each) and smooth rice-flour rolls wrapped around a deep-fried shrimp spring roll (S$5.50). So even if you don’t favour these restaurants’ takes on the roast duck, at least there are other good things on the menu to sate your palate.

Four Seasons Chinese Restaurant, #02-27/28/29 Capitol Piazza, 13 Stamford Road. Tel: 6702 1838.

London Fat Duck, #B1-16/17 Scotts Square, 6 Scotts Road. Tel: 6443 7866. http://www.londonfatduck.com.sg.

Legendary Hong Kong, #03-80 Jurong Point 2 Shopping Centre, 63 Jurong West Central 3. Tel: 6794 1335. http://lhk.com.sg.