Alan Yau’s new “Cantonese pub” in Soho is not quite the game-changer some of his former restaurants were, but its ribs and prawns are heaven-sent
By Jon Cheng
The Duck & Rice 90 Berwick St, LondonW1F 0QB
Contact 0203327 7888; theduckandrice.com
Price Assortment of shared dishes with wine or beer: £50-£60 per head
'I’m obsessed with egg-fried rice,” an acquaintance of mine gushed not too long ago, hoping we’d find something in common. Only faintly enthused by her cultural icebreaker, I smiled politely and assured her that I, too, liked rice. Now we had something in common.
I only hope said acquaintance has made it down to The Duck & Rice, superstar restaurateur Alan Yau’s new “Cantonese pub” in Soho. I say this because D&R, while by no means unspectacular (and never knowingly underpriced), offers a sanitised and undemanding take on the Oriental dining-out playbook. No language barrier. No gloomy, rude Chinatown waitress who always suggests, without hesitation, dumplings, sweet and sour pork, or fried rice. And – so far as I could discern – no “separate” menu reserved for those who speak the language. Indeed, we only spotted two Asians among the staff servicing the 70-seater dining room.
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Yau’s influence runs deep in London’s hippest and hottest east and south-east Asian restaurants. With Hakkasan he convinced us that Anglo-Cantonese food had haute sex appeal; with Yauatcha he persuaded us to part with wincingly large sums for tiny, exquisite morsels of dim sum; with Busaba Eathai he brought a note of glamour to buckets of noodles; and with Wagamama – lest we forget – he became a very rich man.
Stir-fried Chinese vegetables from Duck and Rice (GEOFF PUGH)
So no surprise, then, that little expense is spared in making D&R look its Sunday best. The logo is Mad Max Gothic, like a footballer’s lumbar regions. Agreat copper vessel dispenses lager to patrons of the ground-floor bar; slats of Chinese porcelain double as skylights and pillar-wraps.
My culturally thirsty acquaintance will find egg-fried rice here, though it’s slightly posher than the Chinatown norm, with thick furls of egg-white and ginger-inflected cod fillets – yours for £11.50. “Why so salty?” one of my dining companions bemoaned. I don’t know why, but at least it’s as fluffy as egg-fried rice can be.
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If you’re hoping these Cantonese staples are the best versions of themselves, then prepare to be disappointed. But here and there on the expansive – and expensive – menu, split into old-school subsections such as “chop suey”, “foo young”, “small chow”, “China grill” (never had Yau down as an Iggy Pop fan) etc, I found some real gems. That’s not to say the menu structure isn’t something of an irritant: at £33, bluefin tuna with jalapeño and black bean sauce really doesn’t belong to the “home comfort” section, unless the home in question is in Knightsbridge.
Was the pig fed Duchy organic milk? Was it given reflexology?
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But still, several dishes are near-flawless, not to mention grounded and accessible. Wasabi prawns, flecked with thin-cut almonds, as substantial as could be. Bitter ginkgo nuts with Himalayan salt, perfect with a bracingly cold lager from the big vat downstairs. Nor should we overlook the fact that prawn crackers were crisp, and snapped in the right places. This is multilingual pub-grub atit* finest.
A meat dish with orange slices at Duck and Rice (GEOFF PUGH)
I didn’t know where their abalone was sourced – I’m guessing wild, brown-lipped – but it whispered at us from the confines of the “soup, noodle and rice” section. So we gave it a shot, and were rewarded handsomely. Well, almost. “This tastes like the festive soup we have in China, you know, the one we would make with freshly killed chicken,” my companion noted, with some disgust. Quite a specialised objection: if you’ve never tried festive chicken-blood soup, you’ll have nothing to worry about – just a deliciously smoky broth with toasted rice and a snowfall of diced spring onion.
Pork spareribs were heaven-sent – if pigs could fly. A silver platter arrived brimming with ruby-red meat, redolent of oaky, jasmine smoke, wonderfully sweet, literally falling off the bone before we even proceeded to pick at it. It made me wonder: D&R being as on-trend as it is, I’m surprised there isn’t any indication of the pig’s provenance. Was it hand-fed Duchy organic milk? Was it given reflexology? But this much I know: I’d order it again in a heartbeat.
Pork spare ribs were a 'heaven-sent' (GEOFF PUGH)
And the archetypal Peking duck (here rendered as “Cantonese”)? “I haven’t decided whether this is good or not,” another dining companion, a Beijing native, announced. He nitpicked: the skin not crisp enough, the binding of fat squidgy and cold, the sauce too salty, and with way too much soy. I couldn’t taste the sweetness, or the spice, and oddly enough it arrived lukewarm. “We let it rest for 45 minutes,” our waiter explained. On the flip side, the rested meat was softer, more succulent. Whether it works for you is for you to decide. But by the time you have reached your verdict, you will be £38 to the bad.
Meanwhile, £48 was deemed TMTH (“too much to handle”) for “lobster Cantonese”, as superlative as it was: fresh as the morning, cooked perfectly, slightly sweet, with a mop of eggnoodles.
Now for some flawed gems. One of the restaurant’s most popular dishes is chicken and black-bean stir-fry, anointed with sweetcorn and celery, but it wasn’t popular at our table. The earthy beans didn’t seem to like the chicken, which was clean and succulent, and so the mix was jarring. Crispy duck salad was neither crisp nor redolent of duck, and altogether forgettable.
Some of the dishes at Duck and Rice did not live up to expectations (GEOFF PUGH)
And with a heavy heart, Iregret to inform that a tofu stir-fry (£9.50), in the “Buddha’s delight” section, wasn’t particularly delightful (with all due respect to the Enlightened One). Yes, it mingled yuba (braised tofu skin) and spring onion to somewhat luxuriant effect. And yes, there is an art to tofu, which D&R nails. But the dish itself hardly tasted of anything, except maybe foampillows.
Things looked brighter with a suite of desserts (all under £5): a bold and striking mango sago, a sweet, tender papaya with vanilla ice cream and egg custard tarts – these, in their yolk-hued, almost mirror-like glory wobbled over a flaky crust, as they should.
It’s the least we should expect from a man who built an empire that redefined eating out. This old duck may have a few new tricks up its sleeve, but it’s not quite the game-changer that some of Yau’s previous projects were.
