Ducking the duck!

I’m sorry that its been a little while since my last post. I had what some might consider an occupational hazard, a bout of food poisoning. If you’ve ever had foodborne illness as its called by the medical community, you know what I went through. I will spare you the details and luckily for me, it passed quickly on its own. That being said each individual is different and if you feel you may have contracted foodborne illness it is recommended that you promptly seek medical attention.

Looking back I find it interesting as to how this whole thing came about. It was a series of events that lead to illness. My story started with Spring Break. My son and some of his friends stopped by on their way to Canada for the week. The night before leaving for Montreal my sons girlfriend came down with a fever and they ended up having to cancel their trip. After doing as many things around Nyack as they could, they asked me if I would take them to Chinatown for a little culinary adventure. Of course I jumped at the offer as it combines two of my favorite things, playing tour guide and eating!

They had read my post on the oldest Dim Sum restaurant in NYC and wanted to go there. I had other places in mind but it’s never a bad idea to start out with a few small plates shared between friends. First we had to go gift shopping for a couple mothers. Isn’t it good to know that even in college boys are still thinking about their moms. I took them to Yunhong Chopsticks (50 Mott Street). This store sells amazing chopsticks from a few dollars up to a hundred or more dollars. They also sell handmade fans, which seemed to be a big hit amongst the college crowd.

With gift shopping out of the way we got to work on the food portion of the tour. After the Dim Sum I had a little surprise for them Xiao long bao, or Chinese Soup Dumplings, named after the bamboo steamers they are cooked in, the Xiaolongbao. However, if you’re thinking soup with dumplings in it, you’d be wrong. These clever little delicacies are dumplings with the soup inside them! I could and should do an entire post on these amazing taste treats. As you can see in the picture below by the time I got out my camera to take a picture there were only two dumplings left. It would be safer to tie a pork chop around your neck and walk through a lion cage rather than getting between hungry college kids and their soup dumplings! A word of caution, soup dumplings are generally very hot, so to eat them you want to take the whole thing in a soup spoon and bite the very tip off and slowly sip the soup out before devouring the entire dumpling.

After eating the Dim Sum and soup dumplings we were way too stuffed to go for the squid or duck. Somehow this wasn’t sitting well with me because I always get crispy duck when I come to Chinatown. So we decided to walk around and explore a little.Maybe we’d get hungry again and share some duck. As we walked along the narrow streets I was telling them how Canal Street use to separate Chinatown from Little Italy, but now more Italians have moved out of the city and Chinatown has crossed over Canal Street. My son heard the words Little Italy and said ,”I could really go for a Cannoli about now.” To which one of his friends stated,”What’s a Cannoli?” You know those TV shows where someone says something shocking and you hear a needle scratch across a record and everything just stands still for a moment? That’s what happened in my mind. I immediately halted the procession and headed north across Canal Street to Mulberry Street and Caffé Palermo the home of the Cannoli King. There’s no better place to have your very first cannoli. It’s also funny how you always find room for dessert, no matter how stuffed you are. Needless to say everyone walked away happy and content, but ready to continue the tour.

Satiated and a little sluggish we started back towards the other side of Canal Street. I believe we started walking down Elizabeth but I’m not certain as I guess I have mentally blocked out the location of the place we were about to enter. The street was away from the touristy section and lined on each side by stores that carried mostly fruit and vegetables. One shop caught our eye and we went in. Instantly I was transported to somewhere in China. There was the bustling fish section where mongers where hocking their wares in Chinese. Tanks of live fish, eels and crabs bordered the fish sitting on tables in frozen beds of ice. A bin of live turtles sat next to a bin of live frogs. Certainly we weren’t at the Stop-N-Shop! Vegetables of every type surrounded us as we kept walking , taking in all the sights and sounds. Then I saw it, a butcher counter, though not like any I’ve ever seen. Behind the counter hung rows, of cooked chickens, slabs of pork and crispy duck!

Intrigued, I walked over to observe how things were being done. There was a line of four or five people and in turn they each gave their order and the man behind the counter would grab a duck or whatever they ordered and methodically, using a clever, hack the meat into just the right size to fit it all neatly into the to go containers. I’ll admit I was caught up in the moment , in that “When in Rome” thing. Suddenly I was next in line. I knew we weren’t going to be eating any duck that night, so I figured I would try this crispy duck and bring it home for the next day. Just as perfect as the others my duck was cut up and fit exactly into the to go container. Much like an art form , it was to good to be true. I was going to have a new experience and get my duck too.

We left the market and meandered back to the car, everyone in a great mood and enjoying the time spent in Chinatown. That was Friday afternoon. On Saturday the kids were returning to school and I had forgotten all about my prized duck, until they left around 3pm. I hadn’t had anything to eat that day except a bowl of cereal and some tea. I looked in the fridge and saw the duck. I set the oven to 350 degrees and placed half of the duck inside to heat it up. I had some left over rice as well. The duck was delicious and the flavors of the honey and anise really came through. I liked it so much I decided to eat a little more, only this time I placed a couple of pieces from the juices in bottom of the to go container in the microwave and heated it just a little. The meat was barely warm but it tasted so good I didn’t give it another thought. That was until about four hours later and five minutes on the Mayo Clinic website, where I displayed almost to the “T” the exact symptoms described.

Looking back I don’t recall the butcher ever cleaning the clever or the cutting board from one customer to the next. I also remember him tipping the cutting board into my container to give me the juices and the little pieces left over from my order. I can only assume that somewhere along the way , whether on the clever or cutting board something was contaminated. So will I go back there for duck again? Not likely, I’m also convinced my mind has forgotten which street the market was on as some type of defense mechanism, for self preservation. I will however, continue to eat duck at my favorite places in Chinatown, just not anytime soon.

Thanks for stopping by. As always please send any questions or comments in the box below and if you haven’t done it yet, sign up to be emailed whenever there’s a new post. Until next time Boone Appétit!