Restaurant Review: The Peking Duck at Juqi passes all the tests

New York Peking duck enthusiasts have had reason to be tense lately. In the fall, a kitchen fire destroyed Decoy, the small, sunken rathskeller under RedFarm in the West Village that once served what many people believe was the best version of the dish in town. The restaurant is expected to survive, but probably won’t reopen until this summer.

The fire followed the Covid shutdown, when Peking duck – almost the very definition of a restaurant dish – was impossible to find. And the pandemic came right on the heels of the midtown bridgehead failure and bankruptcy of DaDong, a Beijing-based chain that hasn’t seemed to replicate the formula that makes its lean, golden birds so widely respected in China.

But there is finally good news. Juqi, in Flushing, Queens, is the first American edition of a restaurant with about 20 locations in Beijing, all specializing in that city’s cuisine. And while it’s nice to have a new place to eat zha jiang mian and jiaozi, not to mention lamb cumin and crab-flavored fish, the most impressive item on the menu is the Peking duck. I don’t know of any other restaurant in town that overcomes the classic Peking duck hurdles – all the finer points of roasting, cutting and serving – so consistently and satisfactorily.

Juqi is located in the hotel and called condominium complex Tangram, in a mall with two story skylights. Upstairs is a beer hall; a sprawling branch of a Chengdu hot-pot restaurant; a branch of Thai restaurant Zaab Zaab of Elmhurst, Queens; stalls for banh mi and Hong Kong-style egg tarts and matcha soft ice cream; and a vending machine that sells toy robots.

Juqi is located on the lower level, along with an Orangetheory fitness center, an indoor playground, a branch of Xi’an Famous Foods, and an H Mart still under construction. Next to Juqi’s entrance is a sculpture of a bench occupied by what appears to be a giant rabbit.

Like other new neighborhood restaurants catering to the same young Chinese students and professionals who might buy a condominium in downtown Flushing, Juqi uses something like theme park architecture to evoke a traditional China that is fast disappearing. In Juqi’s case, the scenes recreated are Beijing’s hutongs, neighborhoods with alleys and courtyards where something of the city’s ancient culture survives. This means that in addition to the expected hanging lanterns and carved wooden screens, a partial brick wall runs through the main dining room, its nooks inhabited by life-sized replicas of pigeons.

The restaurant is also populated with figurines of Tu’er Ye, a petite rabbit-headed deity. (That was Tu’er Ye on the bench.) Tu’er Ye’s cult is said to be unique to Beijing, where he is worshiped during the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. Juqi has contributed its own tradition to the cult, an edible Tu’er Ye made of cold mashed potatoes that is several centimeters long, its pointed ears and other features accurately drawn with colored cake decorating gel. It’s filled with bacon and sweet peas, is surrounded by a creamy toasted sesame mayonnaise and tastes almost exactly like German potato salad.

mr. Rabbit Mashed Potato, as the dish is called, is not the only visual reference to the culture of the Chinese capital. Juqi’s mock pork gut sashimi, conceived in homage to a joke by a Beijing comedian, seems to have failed to make the journey to Queens, for better or for worse. But black barrels of fried rice, served in a sixty-foot column of flame, are reminiscent of the honeycomb charcoal briquettes that elderly Pekingers remember as the main source of household heat. Wandou huang, slightly sweet yellow split pea flour cakes, are formed into meticulously detailed mahjong tiles.

Both are pleasant enough, but my favorite optical illusion at Juqi is easily the sweet and succulent shrimp balls rolled in puffed grains of red yeast rice to make them look like lychees.

Chuanming Zhu, the chef, gives refined renditions of delicate dishes that originated in the imperial court. Zhua chao yu pian, or sweet fried fish fillets, are coated in a sauce the color and consistency of maple syrup; garlic helps prevent the sweetness from becoming sticky. Crab-flavored fish, created more than a century ago to satisfy the Empress Dowager’s craving for crab when there wasn’t any, is a minimalist wonder—tender egg whites and yolks, cooked separately, with ribbons of tongue. It is completely crab free, except for the crab-shaped clay pot it is served in.

More grittier northern Chinese dishes are also appearing, such as the aromatic cumin lamb sizzling on a ribbed iron plate that soaks up the melted fat that sometimes makes the dish too rich. Beef brisket is gently cooked with fried potato pieces in a wintery stew flavored with star anise and cinnamon; dry-fried beef is cooked with threads of dried chillies and green clusters of fresh Sichuan peppercorns, which taste more lemony than the dried berries.

If you’re interested in kung pao chicken, you should know that it’s made with more sugar than a Sichuan chef would use, reflecting Beijing’s sweet tooth.

There are also good versions of Beijing street food, such as the hearty jiaozi dumplings filled with pork, shrimp and Chinese leek, with the standard soy and garlic vinegar dipping sauce; or zha jiang mian, table-side wheat noodles dressed in a savory sauce of minced pork and pine nuts and mixed with fresh vegetables.

But just about anything you eat at Juqi will likely turn out to be a side dish once the Peking duck arrives. A group of waiters with Bluetooth earphones put down their iPad menus and converge on your table, quickly rearranging plates and bowls to create a smooth runway for the duck to land. Meanwhile, with a long, sharp knife, a chef will take the bird apart — slice, slice, iron — as fluidly as a magician shuffling cards.

You can immediately see that this duck has been roasted according to the book. No sticky white grease is left unaltered; it is all transformed into a thin layer of solid amber. As for the skin, it’s so tight you can carve your initials on it.

The first rectangles of skin are covered with caviar and put on dry toast. My advice: leave the toast, have the caviar.

Other duck slices are spread on platters. It’s nice to dip a corner of the skin in sugar. The meat could use the help of Juqi’s soybean sauce, saltier and less sweet than hoisin. Or you can wrap both in a wafer-thin pancake with strips of green onions and chunks of cucumber or, better yet, honeydew melon.

Finally, you’re interrupted by the remains of the duck, either made into soup or baked into a bony, salty heap. You can try to pry the flesh away from the dark incised bone fragments, rewarding yourself with another sugary bit of skin every now and then.

Thus, a lot of time can be spent before someone thinks about dessert. The mahjong split pea paste is worth trying at least once in your life, but I think the most refreshing path, especially if you’re even remotely serious about fried bones, is a simple dish of fresh watermelon juice made into a fragile jelly. It’s partially runny, barely set, and if you don’t have a steady hand, it slides right off your spoon.

To follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok And Pinterest. Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice.