Restaurant: NC Peking Duck 老北方烤鸭店

Location: 17515 Colima Rd A, City of Industry, CA 91748. (626) 839-0000

Date: February 16, 2020 & May 2, 2021 and April 24 & October 27, 2022

Cuisine: Northern / Beijing Chinese

Rating: Awesome duck and great flavors

Tonight is “Double Duck” night and while we had a “Peking Duck Appetizer” at Happy Duck, afterward the main event was at:

NC Peking Duck — which is a Northern and Beijing style place that is quite new and seemed a bit closer in style to real Beijing offerings.

In case you wondered if they have duck.


The Menu 4/24/22 (reduced from how it was before the pandemic).

Cold plater with Pig Ears, Cloud Ear Mushroom, Peanuts, and Seaweed. Mostly nice and spicy with good crunch, mala, and heat.

Smashed Garlic Cucumber (older & 10/27/22). Nice version of the garlic cucumber. Extra good with the spicy sauce from the other dishes.

Tofu with Century Egg. Awesome dish. Nice firm silky tofu with the incredible umami and jelly-like texture of the Century Egg. All doused in spicy sauce. Totally to die for.

Century Egg with Chilis (4/24/22 & 10/27/22). Fabulous savory egg with very strong pickled Hunan style chilis.

Szechuan Glass Noodles (2020 and 4/24/22 and 10/27/22). Actually a kind of mung bean noodle, here with a spicy sauce, peanuts, and a super umami mushroom paste or sauce. Nice, but I prefer them in the tangy/spicy sauce.

Cold Spicy Chicken. Awesome tender chicken in this fabulous hot, spicy, and a touch sweet sauce. Tons of flavor.

Child Chili Chicken (4/24/22). Great bang bang sauce with a bit of peanut butter in it.

Fried fish with seaweed (5/2/21). Pretty much a Shanghai dish, but still good here.

Chili Fish with Glass Noodles. Now these were actual glass noodles. Nice tender fish too and lots of flavor.

Peking Duck with pancakes (everytime). This is just one duck (we ordered 2 for 8 people). This meat had the skin more integrated and was very juicy and full of flavor. It was some of the best Peking Duck I’ve had in LA.

Close up on the duck meat.

Duck presentation on 5/2/21.

Duck presentation (4/24/22).

Duck presentation (10/27/22).

The typical duck toppings, scallions, cucumber, and really really good thick hoisin.

Ultimate Condiment Box. Tons of interesting things to put in the duck pancake, including sweet and spicy sauces, sugar, candied fruits, melon, etc. They haven’t had this since the first time I went in 2020.

Pancake all done up.

The full DuQuest duck analysis (based on 10/27/22) is:

NC skin was ultra-thin and crispy, and gets an extra point for some of the pieces having some meat/fat on them = 9 for fatty pieces and 7 for regular ones.
Meat was juicy and flavorful with skin on = 8
Pancake was thin and resilient = 9
Hoisin was tasty but “goopy”, extra thick, and with a bit too much medicinal tone = 5
Accoutrements were scallion and cucumbers as usual = 7
The “burrito” together was a 6/10, dinged mostly by the hoisin.

Duck Bones. Pretty juicy.

Stir fried duck bones (5/2/21 and looked similar 4/24/22 and 10/27/22). Very nice version of “duck #2.”

Duck Soup (4/24/22). Very mild.

Crispy chicken (5/2/21). Great version.

Fragrant Spiced Lamb. Not their best dish. Sauce/soup was very watery and tasted mostly of mala. Not bad or anything, just the weakest dish out of a lot of great dishes.

Delicious “bacon” (aka preserved pork) with garlic and leeks (5/2/21 and 4/24/22).

Beijing Style Pork (5/2/21). With the fermented bean sauce, slightly sweet.

Big Pot Cauliflower (2020 and 4/24/22). With a bit of pork. Nice and crunchy.

Smashed garlic eggplant (5/2/21 and 4/24/21).

Bok choy (5/2/21). Simple but delicious.

Jiggly Pork Elbow (4/24/22). Certainly not a lean cut!

Seasoned Rack of Lamb (4/24/22). Nice lamby flavor and good “hot fat” factor. Serious fat later. Seasoned western style with cumin.

Sauces for the lamb.

XLB (5/2/21). Always a favorite.

Pork and Chive Dumplings. Tons of chive, delicious with vinegar.

House Tianjin Pork Baos. Awesome. Really nice thick skins with a huge lump of very flavorful pork.

Chinese Sweet Bean Roll with peanut dust.

My wife’s Valentine’s Day pick: Dulcey Chocolate Cloud – The base is made with Valrhona 62% Satilla Chocolate and then layered with Dark Chocolate Cream Cheese Ganache and the rotating ingredient is house-made Vanilla Dulce de Leche — 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 #Valrhona #chocolate #creamcheese #ganache #icing #DulceDeLeche #caramel

Overall, I really liked NC Peking Duck. First of all, the duck was some of the best I’ve had in the states, and even beyond that, they had a really interesting menu with lots of standout dishes. Almost everything we had tonight was great, particularly the tofu with century egg, cold chicken, fish, and the pork baos.

Returning here on 5/2/21 the food was still very good but the restaurant was suffering from immediate post pandemic operational changes. They had clearly been doing takeout for the previous year (good for them and I even had it once and it was very good), but hadn’t yet switched back over to normal service. I think we were the only dine in party and the menu had been pared back substantially. Hopefully soon they’ll be back to 100%.

Returning again on 4/24/22 the food was pretty much back up to the level of 2020 although the menu was still a bit reduced and they were missing some “fancier” items like the 9 condiment container.

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