A Peking Duck Museum Opens In Beijing. We Approve Of This.
We'll be the first to admit that we're not the most well versed when it comes to museums here at Food Republic. There are, of course, a few exceptions to this statement: weird food museums, for example, get us every time. And just this week, word comes from The Wall Street Journal that a roast duck museum has opened to the public in Beijing. Now, that is our type of museum.
Located inside a downtown branch of Quanjude – known as one of the city's most famous Beijing roast (Peking) duck restaurants – the new museum features more than 500 duck-related items. There's a coupon from a duck sale in 1901 (the original Quanjude was founded in 1864), as well as a number of old advertisements and photos, one of which depicts U.S. President Richard Nixon dining in-house. The former head-of-state joins a rather long list of clientele, as the chain has since expanded with over 1,000 branches worldwide – claiming to have sold a total of around 200 million ducks in its existence.
It's been a whirlwind couple of months for Peking duck, which is the centerpiece item at Ed Schoenfeld's recently opened Decoy. Today, the NYC restaurant scene, tomorrow China's museum scene, next week the world? It certainly appears that this ambitious, force-fed bird knows no limits.
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