Wild Duck Chase

Our dinner on Friday turned out to be the most exciting adventure of the day, though I'm sorry to report I didn't have the camera to document it. Deirdre had heard that Peking Duck was something not to be missed when visiting Beijing (aka Peking). She checked with the concierge at our hotel and he gave us a card with instructions (in Chinese) to one of the best restaurants for Peking Duck. Armed with the card, we had a doorman at our hotel get us a cab. The doorman presented the cabbie with our instructions, and after quite a bit of discussion with the doorman, our seemingly perplexed cab driver embarked on the supposed 10 minute drive to the restaurant.

After about 15 or 20 minutes, the driver stopped along a street (not a restaurant in sight) and indicated we should get out, which seemed like a bad idea to us, so we tried to hand-wave him to return us to the hotel. Instead, he found a hotel nearby and asked the doorman there for instructions to the restaurant. This conversation did not instill further hope of finding the place, as the cabbie was almost yelling at the doorman. So off we went once again, and after a couple of minutes, it looked like we might have finally found the restaurant, as the sign in front of the restaurant where we stopped indicated duck was their prime offering. As we got out of the cab, two rickshaw drivers (this is the bicycle-style rickshaw) came up and were trying to get us to hop in so they could take us to the Peking Duck restaurant we were looking for, and they were insisting that the restaurant right there was not the place on our card. These two gentlemen were quite insistent (which is always a good sign you've got the wrong people to help). After a closer look, we noticed that this restaurant was not the one we were looking for and reluctantly decided to let the rickshaws take us to the right place. Meanwhile, our cabbie had left right after we got out of the cab.

This is where it really got interesting. So we were off, in poor facsimiles of the rickshaws we had ridden in earlier that day in the same part of Beijing, the Hutongs (see earlier post). But this part of the Hutongs was looking worse and worse the further we rode. Many turns were made and great deal of rubble was seen where buildings used to be, at least in the parts where the light was sufficient to see anything. But these guys kept pedaling and pedaling, and all of us (except Deirdre) were thinking they were going to stop somewhere in the middle of nowhere (which is exactly where we were at this point) and shake us down for any money we had. And on we rode. They kept pointing to hand-written signs on the walls of the back-alley buildings we were passing with the restaurant name scratched on them to prove we were going in the right direction.

Finally, they stopped, about 100 yards shy of what appeared to be the restaurant. When they asked us for about triple what you might normally pay for a 10 minute ride, Deirdre decided that the whole thing was fishy and asked them to come with us to the restaurant so we could verify we were in the right place. They were pretty insistent on being paid immediately and not at all anxious to go to the restaurant with us. Deirdre refused to pay and started walking to the restaurant, so all of us followed, our drivers seeming none-to-happy at not receiving their fare.

So we walk into the restaurant, and we find the woman there who seemed to be in charge and who spoke English, and she verified that we were in the right place and she had our reservation made by our hotel concierge earlier. Deirdre tried to get her to let us know what was reasonable to pay our rickshaw "friends", but the woman at the restaurant seemed hesitant to give a number, so in the interest of being rid of them, we paid their requested fee. One thing we did notice as we approached the restaurant was that there appeared to be a fairly major street just on the other side of the restaurant. Our travel companion Chris had to have a look at that street, so after we were seated, he went outside and to the street. When he looked to the left, about two blocks down the street was the restaurant where our cabbie had dropped us off!! The rickshaws had obviously developed a scheme just for such a case. The cabbies don't know where the restaurant is, so they catch you right when you're coming out of the cab and take you all over the area in a big loop to get an inflated fare out of you when you could have walked there in 2 minutes.

I've got to admit though, the Peking Duck at the restaurant was excellent, and this was apparently quite a famous place - they even had a picture on the wall of Al Gore eating there.