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Archive for Mark’s Duck House

More Mark’s Duck House

Dec11

Restaurant: Mark’s Duck House [1, 2]

Location:  6184 Arlington Blvd # A, Falls Church, VA 22044  703-532-2125

Date: November 30, 2011 & November 25, 2017

Cuisine: Cantonese Chinese

Rating: Very very good cantonese.

_

Mark’s Duck house is an amazing Cantonese place I go to when I’m home in Washington D.C.. There’s nothing fancy about them other than the food but they make a lot of stuff, and they make it all really well.

Below is the menu to end all menus.

 

Picking from that menu can be a bit of a challenge!

 


We tried to entice my three year-old with this “pasta.” (pan fried noodles with Buddha’s delight) but he declared “that’s not pasta!”


But he did go for this lo-mein with garlic.

1A0A7069
Hot and sour soup. Classic, but delicious.


The hot and sour soup is so good it was almost finished by the time I got the camera pointed at it (in 2011, the above photo is from 2017).


Beer really goes best with Chinese. If you’ve ever had Chinese wine (I have) you know why.


Succulent “Har-gow” (shrimp dumplings).

1A0A7080
The whole peking duck and a glimpse of the green onions and hoisin.
1A0A7083
The pecking duck here is incredible. They make the pancakes for you if you want, but the whole assembly was brought out to the table. I had photos of it the last time I was here.

1A0A7085
Lobster causeway style. Fried with lots and lots of garlic and a little chilies. One of my favorite Chinese lobster preps.

1A0A7094
“Lightly” fried shrimp with the heads still on.


Stir-fried chive-blossoms. It sounds weird but they are incredibly good.

1A0A7102
Baby bok choy with garlic. I don’t love full sizec bok, but these were quite nice actually.


Sizzling beef short ribs with black pepper sauce. These were tasty, but the hard part was getting the meat off the bone with chopsticks and teeth!

1A0A7101
Filet Mignon with black pepper sauce. Very tender and delicious.


Sauteed mixed seafood in a nest.


“Sweet and sour pork.” At the Panda Express and the like they always have those fried pork balls (which I call fried lard balls). This is the ultimate version. Incredibly tasty!

1A0A7093
Ma Po Tofu. Non spicy Cantonese version. Nice texture, but lacked the depth, heat, and mala of the real thing.

We had way way too much food as usual here. Seven people and this could have fed twelve. I rolled on out very satisfied, indeed.

See my previous review of Mark’s Duck House.

Or other ThanksGavin meals!

Related posts:

  1. Mark’s Duck House
  2. Western Smoke House Meats
  3. Food as Art: Sushi House Unico
  4. Zaytinya – East made Easy
  5. More Modern Dim Sum
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Cantonese, duck, Duck House, Mark's Duck House, Restaraunt, Restaurant Review, ThanksGavin, Washington D.C

Mark’s Duck House

Apr29

Restaurant: Mark’s Duck House [1, 2]

Location:  6184 Arlington Blvd # A, Falls Church, VA 22044  703-532-2125

Date: April 23, 2011

Cuisine: Cantonese Chinese

Rating: Very very good cantonese.

ANY CHARACTER HERE

This seeming hole in the wall in Falls Church Virginia features some of the best Cantonese food I’ve had in the states. So much so that wine guru (and foodie) Robert Parker is constantly eating (and tasting) here.

You can spot an authentic Chinese restaurant by the unassuming facade.

The minimalist decor.

The menu of sketchy meat cuts unsuited to white-bread American taste.

And the rack of roast ducks!

This was a late night family dinner, so Chinese beer seemed to suite the mood.

I’ve loved hot and sour soup since I was a kid, and this is an exemplary example. Basically perfect.

Classic Har Gow, little shrimp dumplings wrapped in rice pastry. Delectable too, as good as at various Dim Sum joints like Ping Pong, The Palace, or Xino.

They even have their own special sweet and vinegary soy for them.

And the deadly hot chili oil.

But there is one real reason why one goes to a restaurant named “Mark’s Duck House.” The pecking duck! Crispy roast whole duck is carved off the bone and brought to the table.

With the traditional scallions.


And my all time favorite, the plum sauce. This stuff has a sweet and tangy quality typical of Chinese cuisine that I just can’t get enough of.

All of the ingredients are combined in a pancake.

And then rolled into a burrito like shape. This is a delectable mix of textures and flavors. The rich duck meat, the crispy skin, the hot dripping fat off the duck, the tangy sauce, the scallions, the dry texture of the pancake. Yum! And this is as good a duck as I’ve had in the states. We wen’t to a place in Bejing a couple years back where we had three whole ducks each done a slightly different way and flayed at the table by a master carver who could have had a part in Kill Bill. That was some serious duck, and slightly better. Still, you don’t have to go all the way to China for great duck like this.

Lobster, causeway style, in crispy garlic, chillies, and chives. I’d never had this exact dish before, but it was wonderful. The closest I’ve had was at a Chinese friends 20-some course wedding banquet where the lobster was sauteed in a ginger garlic sauce. This version is dry (more or less), a little bit hot, and vary garlicky. But damn good!


Sauteed chive blossoms in oil and garlic. We asked the waiter for a vegetable recommend and out came this seasonal dish. Chive blossoms. I didn’t even know there was such a thing, and it looks like a big pile of chives. It turned out to be one of my favorite Chinese vegetable dishes in the states. Again in China I had some crazy good stuff, including one or two great all vegetable meals, but these were nice and garlicky again, piping hot.

Mark’s Duck House never fails to disappoint, but the menu is gigantic and potentially perilous. There are like 12 pages of densely packed dishes. Abalone, sea cucumbers, shark fin, you name it. One time a couple years ago we ordered oysters in garlic and ginger sauce and got this plate with three monstrous oyster beasts we nicknamed the “Grenades.” Each was about the size of a World War II weapon of the same name. Just the meat of the oyster, the size of a grenade!

Related posts:

  1. Taking back Little Saigon
  2. More Modern Dim Sum
  3. Finally, Modern Dim sum in Santa Monica
  4. Christmas is for Dim Sum
  5. Quick Eats: Brentwood
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Cantonese cuisine, Chinese cuisine, Cooking, Dim sum, Falls Church, Falls Church Virginia, Har Gow, Home, Hot and Sour Soup, Lobster, Mark's Duck House, Peking Duck, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, side dishes, vegetarian
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