Peking Duck at 羲和雅苑 XIHEYAYUAN - Shenzhen - not good!

One of my favorite Chinese dish is peking duck.  There is a restaurant call 羲和雅苑  XIHEYAYUAN in Hong Kong which can cost the 3 of us over a thousand dollar for a meal.  There are outlets of this restaurant in Shenzhen as well.  We came to the outlet in Wanxiang Tiandi, a mall just outside of exit A of Hi-tec Park Station in Shenzhen.

People online said the restaurant is always fully packed and may need to wait in line for hours for a meal there.  So, we went there for dinner at 5pm, which is when they are open for dinner.  There was no line up at 5pm, but there were already a few other groups of people waiting for early dinner.  And within 30 minutes, the place was completed full.

Wanxiang Tiandi is like the Landmark/IFC in Hong Kong, a luxury mall.  So, the furnishing of this restaurant is pretty nice as well.

We order Mao Xue Wang - a spicy dish with blood pudding and intestine swimming in chilli oil.  At first, I thought this dish would be crazily spicy, but turns out it's almost not spicy at all.  As for my friends that has a super high tolerance for spice, they say it is not spicy at all.  This made me worry.....what did they put in the dish????  Why doesn't it taste like it should?

Then we had the pork pastry roll.  They have tubes of vinegar on it and you squeeze it on before you eat.  I was surprised an order comes with 8 pieces.  I expected half the portion only.  It's like a rolled up version of a xiao long bao.

Then came the main dish we ordered.  Half a peking duck!  Unlike the traditional peking duck I've had before, they come with various sauce.  They even have popping candy to eat with the duck!  Other sauce include the traditional sweet seafood sauce, mustard sauce and strawberry jelly.

The crepe we wrap the duck with is green, but taste like the normal white ones.

Minutes later, the staff started caring ducks in front of us.  All the tables around us ordered peking ducks as well.

They separate 3 different part of the duck.  Each to eat with different sauce.  Tried them all out and find the traditional sauce to the best. In my opinion, if there is nothing wrong with the old dish, why change it?  At least not change it if it doesn't have any wow-ing factor.  As for the duck, it was dry and lack the moisture and aroma it should have.  Very disappointing.  Why would anyone line up to eat peking duck at this restaurant? The price of this restaurant in Hong Kong is more than double the price in Shenzhen.  If the outlets in Hong Kong also serve peking duck with this quality, I'd be pissed for they price they charge.

As for the duck rack, they deep fried it.  But most of it is just bones, so it's really not worth it to add 15 RMB to deep fried it as we end up not eating it anyways.

This was the worse dish!  It's a palace dian xin...or so they say.  It's looks cute in the dish, but taste far from good.  First of all, I can tell they have been sitting around for hours.  The surface of the pieces ar edry and almost cracking.  These are supposed to be desserts, but they are not sweet at all.  The texture is dry on the outside and mushy on the inside.  Why why why????  Why would they even serve this?  I won't eat it even if they pay me.  The sad thing is, I saw many other tables ordered this as well.....we were all tricked by the picture on the menu.

Dinner came to a total of 362 RMB.  Cheap for a peking duck dinner?  Yes.  Worth it? NO!  It's a waste of my calories consumption quota, a waste of my stomach space and even if it's cheap, it's not worth the price!  Who ever gave them a good review online were probably hired.

羲和雅苑  XIHEYAYUAN is at point Shop 1 on the map below:

Chi