Restaurant: Duck House [1, 2, 3]
Location: 501 S Atlantic Blvd, Monterey Park, CA 91754. (626) 284-3227
Date: April 3, 2022
Cuisine: Chinese
Rating: Good duck
Duck House is a staple SGV restaurant for my gang. The food is good, it’s on the closer side, and the owner is incredibly nice. I’ve even housed a birthday dinner here. But this is my personal first return after the pandemic.
The logistics of this dinner were a bit odd as we had two tables and about 14-15 people so there were like 7 at each. Yarom had organized and preset the menu but his plane returning to LA was severely delayed/canceled and so Yarom wasn’t at his own dinner! This has never happened before, not in the approximately 400-500 dinners I’ve eaten with him! He never cancels or misses for anything. He’d show up with a freshly amputated leg if he had to. Also there was a full copy of each dish ordered for each table so there was way too much of most stuff.
Peanuts. They always have these on the table.
Bang Bang Chicken. A bit of numbing. This was one of my favorite dishes actually, all owing to the “crack” sauce.
Squirrel Fish with the super goopy super sweet sauce. Too sweet. Too heavy.
Lobster with ginger and scallions. Very succulent. Totally solid Cantonese lobster.
Eel Sticky Rice. Tastes very Japanese somehow.
Peking Duck. Duck House has very good duck. The skin is nice and crispy. They serve it in this old school manner which has the advantage of lots of skin but the disadvantage of being a bit cool (it was carved back in the kitchen) and the meat being a touch dry.
Condiments. They have proper thin spring pancakes and good hoisin.
Duck Bones. The regular version just roasted. I didn’t really like these.
Duck Bones stir fried with cumin. Much better flavor but not a whole lot of accessible meat.
Cabbage with Chinese Sausage. Delicious, although the cabbage was a bit mushier than I like. It should have some crunch.
French Style Beef. Very sweet. Tender, but still very sweet. Boring.
Salt and Pepper Pork Nuggets. Very tasty but quite salty.
Sweet Sesame Mochi Soup. These weird sweet Chinese soups are never good.
Cherry Ginger Limonade Sorbetto – Fresh squeezed Lemons, Limes, and Avignon Cherries were blended with house-made Ginger to make this delightfully tart and tingly frozen treat — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato –#SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #sorbetto #lemon #lime #cherry #lemonade #ginger
This wasn’t the greatest dinner. Sure, the duck and lobster were excellent, but we had too much of each dish and a super tame boring order with too many sweet “crowd pleaser” dishes I’ve had many times before. I could totally do without squirrel fish, french beef, or salt and pepper pork chop. But they do have a very good kitchen and a big menu so there are plenty of different options for the more creative orderer. I’ve gotten some of them before.
And it was so weird being at a Yarom dinner with no Yarom. Haha.
But still, service was absolutely first rate as always. Our big private room was nice and we were spoiled. So fun as always and I’d definitely say that Duck House is a great SGV gateway drug place for those who need to baby into the more extreme and different stuff.
