Hakkasan
If you’re a person who cares about food, a person who treats eating like recreation — every bit as worthy of your energy and intellect as photography or painting or video games — you probably know what it means when I say “I collect dining experiences.”
Even if you’re not into food, you get the idea. It’s like any collectible, but with experiences. There’s the high cuisine meal that uses a blend of art and science to leave you absolutely baffled, the local meal that feels like it perfectly embodies a certain region, and the rustic meal that takes timeworn comfort food and refines it. Then there are the specific, iconic dishes that you want be sure you’ve enjoyed at the hands of a master. Neapolitan pizza. Hungarian goulash. Mole enchiladas. Bunny Chow. This list can (and should) go on for miles. If food is fun for you, your list will be ever expanding and growing. I recently went on a search for the perfect poutine in Canada, the perfect meat pie in Australia, and the perfect ceviche tostada in Mexico’s Northern Baja.
I’m still searching for the dream poutine and meat pie (I think I’ve gotten close) but I’ve definitely scored the best ceviche tostada I’m likely to ever taste. It comes from Sabina Bandera at La Guerrerense in Ensenada, Mexico.
See, sometimes it’s that easy. Sometimes someone can just tell you where to find a dream execution of a dish and you won’t need to go on a three-month trek through the Moroccan countryside or the Iranian highlands to find what you’re looking for. That’s how it went for me, recently, when a friend whose taste I deeply respect, matter of factly said: “If you want to be an expert on food, it’s time you try some really next-level Peking duck.”
This was one of the few times someone had pointed out a shortcoming of mine that I was able to handle without spiraling into hyper-sensitivity. “He’s right,” I thought. “What the hell has taken me so long?”
That’s not to say I’d never had Peking duck. I had. In China even. But I’d never found it transcendent. I’d never flipped out over it the way I did when I finally tasted that perfect ceviche at La Guerrerense.
“The place is called Hakkasan,” my friend texted later. “Right in midtown Manhattan.”
Hakkasan
Before I even get into my own experience at Hakkasan, let me tell you that Pete Wells, food critic for the New York Times, doesn’t particularly like the place. He gave it a one-star review and, considering that we’re talking about a Michelin-Starred restaurant, that’s a pretty serious downgrade.
In a move that isn’t characteristic of him, Wells also focused much of his review on price (or value, if we’re giving the benefit of the doubt, which I’m happy to do). He talks about rioting over the fifty dollar entrees and protesting out front until the restaurant made their food more affordable. This seems a little silly to me. Hakkasan is located on 43rd — right in the theater district. I imagine that a restaurant of its size owes roughly two dump trucks full of cash for rent each month, so it goes without saying that things are pricey.
As I read Wells’s suggested protest chant — “We like to eat/ fried rice and such/ but Hakkasan charges/ much too much” — I worried that perhaps the real reason the prices struck him as extravagant was a wrong-headed expectation that Chinese food cost less than other cuisines (this happens often with Mexican, Indian, and Asian foods). For what it’s worth, Jeffrey Zakarian’s Lamb’s Club is less than a block away, their prices are absolutely comparable, and the NYT review never mentioned cost once (it was Sam Sifton, not Wells who wrote that one up).
This is all to say: I didn’t go to a gaudy restaurant in midtown Manhattan — where they keep a whole array of brandies, under lock and key in a glass case — expecting it to be cheap. I just wanted it to be good. And on that count, the place delivered.
Hakkasan
Hakkasan may be based in New York City, but their recipe is traditional. Their duck is air dried overnight after being coated in a mixture of spices and honey (traditionally, barley syrup is used). That’s why you sometimes see ducks hanging in the windows of Chinese restaurants, especially around Chinese (or American) holidays. Once dry, the duck is roasted and served with sweet bean sauce, spring onions, cucumbers, paper-thin Mandarin pancakes, and (in this case) Imperial Ossetra caviar. The restaurant used to serve the dish on thin slices of steamed dumpling dough, but when I was there it was the pancakes, which are a more traditional pick.
One important thing to know here, for the neophyte, is that the duck meat isn’t really the star of this dish. It’s actually all about the crispy duck skin, the layer of almost-liquid fat under that skin, and a sliver of meat just barely managing to hang on to that fat. Each bite is a morsel — absolutely decadent, deeply rich, and surprisingly balanced (considering how much fat there is to offset). The pancake is a pretty neutral vehicle, the bean sauce is slightly sweet and heightens the umami effect, and the spring onions and cucumber add a very necessary fresh element.
The caviar isn’t traditional, and caviar is used as shorthand for “this shit’s expensive, yo!” alarmingly often, but in this case it works. The briny, oceanic taste is a fascinating layer — it’s complex and it doesn’t bog the dish down at all. It’s one rare example of a fancy ingredient actually elevating a classic.
As I wolfed down tiny duck burrito after tiny duck burrito (the caviar eventually ran out, but by that point I was blissfully happy), I realized that my friend had been right. The duck at Hakkasan was amazing and revelatory. Maybe one day I’ll spend a few fully-financed months in Bejing looking for a rendition of the dish I like better. Maybe one day I’ll make it to Quanjude, where they’ve been serving Peking duck continuously since 1864. But for now, I can tell you that the rich, fatty, and, most-of-all, delicate Peking Duck at Hakkasan in New York is the best rendition of the classic I’ve ever eaten.
So I feel qualified to pass this advice on to you, “It’s time you taste some really next-level Peking Duck.” With any luck, I’ll see you there.
Hakkasan
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