Restaurant: Duck House [1, 2, 3, 4]
Location: 501 S Atlantic Blvd, Monterey Park, CA 91754. (626) 284-3227
Date: January 7, 2024
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.
This was a slightly different Duck House crew, a bit more open to exotic ordering.
Gift from the house – chili bamboo shoots. I’ve had this dish, but these were marinated/fermented with salt and something and had this delightful crunch and woody smell and taste. Quite strong on the woody so not eveyone liked it.
Cold jellyfish. Nicely crunchy thick jellyfish “noodles.” Some, but not overwelming vinegar.
Crack Chicken. As always this cold chicken with the mildly creamy, spicy, numbing sauce is amazing. It’s all about the sauce which I got to go.
Fried fishcake and roe balls. Interesting, a bit like some of the ones that are offered with hot pot. Pretty tasty though.
Corn and Shrimp Bird’s Nest. The nest is just a fried noodle of sorts. This was actually a very plesant dish with all that corn in white supreme sauce.
Chinese greens with Egg and Crab Meat sauce. One of those goopy yellow sauces but quite pleasant.
Sea Cucumber and Abalone. More a lot of mushroom. There wasn’t that much of the rare chewy sea creatures but the unctuous mushrooms sauce was kinda delicious.
Peking Duck.
Condiments.
Pancake.
Scallion Lamb. Very tender and not gamey at all.
String beans. Duck House makes a great (and slightly sweet) version of this dish.
Crispy Deep Fried Cumin Duck Tails. Super salty, fatty, and delicious.
Noodles with scallions and beef. Worth the carbs.
Shanghai Style Red Sauce Pork. Super fatty but tasty.
Sweet Bean pancake. Yup, odd Chinese desserts.
Egg and Sesame Ball Soup. This was one of the better versions of this oddball (bada bing) sweet soup.
This was probably my favorite Duck House meal — in no small part because of the better ordering. Service was absolutely first rate as always. 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.