Simon's Peiking Duck Restaurant

Melbs peeps might be aware of a certain institution on Smith St. known was *Old Kingdom*. It's an Old Skool Chinese restaurant that was particularly well-known for its Peking duck which had to be ordered at least a day in advance if you wanted to order it. It was also particularly well-known for the entertaining maitre'd, Simon, aka *Duck Nazi* (go to page 3 of the linked article). It was with much amusement that I found out a friend from uni was his son (hai Schroding!), and it was with great devastation when this friend told me his dad was retiring from the duck business to become an actor. 

A few months ago, Schroding informed me that his dad was bored with retirement and re-entering the restauranting world! Hooray for insider information! And even better, the new place is in Boxy South! Given that Pooey was coming back to celebrate getting a year older while I'm celebrating my departure, we felt this would be a good time to go eat duck. And so we made a family booking and off we went!

Mmmm, slices of duck with that crispy skin

 

The Duck Nazi seems much more relaxed in his mode of serving (he's wearing a t-shirt?!)

But we were still instructed to turn our cucumber and spring onion to 'quarter past three'

Ready for sauce and wrapping

 NOM NOM NOM

The duck pancakes were of course followed by a duck meat and bean shoot stirfry, and finished with a duck soup. We also had some mixed vegetables to up the fibre content. Did it break new culinary ground? Not at all, but it does provide awesome comfort food! In summary, it's pretty much what you got at Old Kingdom but in a much more relaxed (and roomy) environment.  But just like on Smith St., Simon's Peiking Duck Restaurant was pretty packed for our early 6:30pm session so I'd recommend booking in advance and specifying the number of ducks you'd like to NOM NOM NOM!!!