There was a time when I would buy an entire roast duck from this place especially during special occasions.
And then one day I stopped.
No reason why.
It just happened.
But Dian Xiao Er has always stayed on my horizon, and so it was only a matter of time that I would revisit the restaurant again.
A friend re-introduced me to them a while ago.
"They've changed quite a bit," I was told.
So we went.
And yes, my friend was right.
Dian Xiao Er has indeed changed.
Gone are the red lamps, the elaborate decor, and the dark wallpapered walls.
Gone too are the heavy carved dark wood tables and the heavier-still carved dark wood stools.
Now the place is brighter.
Strategically placed lights, furniture with clean lines, cushioned booths and light-colored tables make it a much more casual, much more welcoming place than what it used to be.
Service, thankfully, remained the same.
If it was swift before then, it is as swift now.
Maybe it was nearing the end of the lunch hour, or maybe because there were enough places in the restaurant- we were shown to a table very quickly and handed a menu with equivalent speed.
There are many dishes that Dian Xiao Er has on their menu.
You have the soups, the vegetables, the meats, the poultry, the noodles, the rice and the desserts, but there are signature dishes which they are synonymous with, and which is what we got.
Amongst some of their signature dishes is the roast duck with two (or is it three) different types of herbal sauce- one of which is the angelica, and the other, the tang kwei.
Usually I tend to go for the angelica, but today we deliberated and decided on the tang kwei.
It was rather lovely to have the duck again.
I liked the sauce.
A tad different from the angelica herb which is rounder, richer and more mellow in taste, the tang kwei is tart, slightly tangy and has a very light hint of the root's natural bitterness.
If the angelica herb sauce blended with the deep flavors of the duck meat to make it a singular, rounded taste, the tang kwei sauce lightened the deep duck meat flavors to enable both the sauce and the meat to balance out the differences on their own.
It's like, if the angelica herb brought the flavors of both sauce and meat into one, the tang kwei kept the flavors of both sauce and meat independent.
Dian Xiao Er offered their diners a good roasted duck too.
You'd think that roast duck is roast duck is roast duck and it is all the same.
No.
There is a difference when it comes to the plumpness of the duck, the fat of the skin and the technique in which it is roasted.
I can't make judgment on the technique which they had to have the duck roasted, but I can at least say that the duck was plump and fat. :)
The meat was tender enough- no dryness there- and there was a hint of moistness from the oil which made every bite particularly enjoyable.
The best part, of course, was the skin.
There is no point having roast duck if you are not going to eat the skin.
So eat it we did.
Fight over the larger parts of the skin we did too.
And because we thought it was a fair fight- it got close to a stage where we were going to lay out the pieces of skin on our plate and count them individually, considering size- we ate up our portions and settled it over a dessert.
There were differences here too.
I wanted almond jelly.
My friend wanted peach gum.
"Peach gum harder to make, and you don't have time to double boil, triple boil.."
So peach gum it was. :D
It was good.
Very light on the palate, there were chewy parts, there were boing boing parts, there were boiled longans hidden somewhere at the bottom of the bowl, and there were those parts that slid smoothly down the throat.
I loved it.
Logic wins... sometimes.