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By: Penny Modra
Date: 6th Feb 08
Venue: Restaurant
Meal: Dinner
What:
Old Kingdom - the duck feast
Where:
197 Smith St, Fitzroy
When:
Tue-Fri 12-2.30pm and 5-10.30pm, Sat-Sun 5-11.30pm
How much:
Around $40 per head for more duck than you can imagine eating
Contact:
9417 2438
Have you been to Flower Drum? Of course not, because you are not Sam Newman. But you know what? That doesn't mean you should miss out on Peking duck. Piles of it. Roast on a plate, wrapped in a pancake, fried with bean shoots, floating in a soup. If capitalism has given us anything, it has provided the surfs of Collingwood with Old Kingdom - the low-cost home of Peking duck.
It's not fancy. Unless by fancy you mean perfunctory pancake-assemblage instruction from the man in the white shirt with the giant carving fork. And who doesn't listen to a dude waving a two-pronged weapon in a small room with only one exit?
The procedure is strict: you want the duck, you book two days ahead. This, presumably, is so they can feed it one last meal of lardy goodness before roasting it whole and balancing its severed head on its groin area. All nice like.