Beijing Duck stall Review: Beijing Duck Stall and bribes
Gifts. Complementary. Who doesn’t want to be associated with flowery terms such as those? Yet in the food world, we all seemingly want to be Eddie House without being labeled a mercenary. I mean, that’s what free food is in this realm. Is it splitting hairs? Sure. But what’s been bugging me the most lately is that we’re drawing a thin line between Sponsored Posts and regular posts. A Sponsored Post is where you get paid to ‘review’ something. There’s a certain site out there (and let’s not name names), where a certain someone often dolls out effusive love letters based on press preview food. Mmm.. press preview food. I actually don’t know what that is. And recently on that same site I saw the site recommend some sweet treats that were “review samples.” What the fuck is that? Seriously. Here’s the thing about the food blogging world is that those of you in it… YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHICH SITE I AM TALKING ABOUT. But we don’t say shit. Why? Because generally those folks are nice. I’ve met some of them and they’re seemingly nice people. But the issue stands. Here are the two scenarios: I hand you a cookie, ask you how it is. You give me response. A second scenario is, I had you a cookie, you fucking give me three dollars. Then you tell me how you feel. In my world, those could not possibly be the same experiences. No way in fucking hell. I don’t care how nice you are. I don’t care how objective you think you are. I don’t care how many iterations of that particular object you’ve had in the past. It doesn’t matter. The truth is, we spend most of our time trying to acquire a scare resource (money) and in turn use that resource to acquire objects of desire. It makes sense that if you have to spend limited resources to acquire something, you’ll want that thing to be awesome because you could have instead spent those resources on something else. So what you really want to hear is someone who also had to spend precious resources to acquire something and say it’s worthwhile to use the precious resource. I think people get confused. They think it’s just about whether it’s worth putting it in your mouth, chew it a few times, and whether that experience is worth it. It don’t make no sense!
So there this Beijing Duck stall in Flushing. I also like that we still call it Peking even though Peking is no longer used, and we use the more phonetically accurate translation of the name of the city. I just don’t get it. It’s like if I went and made a dish called Yugoslavia Soup. Damn it, that country doesn’t exist anymore. Get with the program people. I blame Peking Duck House, the restaurant. And Justin Bieber. Fucking teen hearthrob, he is RUINING the dish with his hair! Fuck. Anyway so there’s some duck in Flushing, they slice up a thin piece, add some hoison sauce and scallions, throw it in a steamed bun, and voila. Duck bun. It’s a dollar.
See I’m ok with recommending things for a dollar. Because it’s pretty good for a dollar. Now, if I paid like $65 dollars for a Beijing Duck. Then I’d wanna make sure every inch of the skin is crispy, that the meat is sufficiently juicy, and that it lived a happy life before my consumption demand caused the duckie to be killed (oh wellz). But! At one dollar, it’s a good snack. It’s not filling, but it gives you a taste. If you wanna double down and get two, well, that’s fine too. You would find the price-to-satisfaction ratio is quite high. You could instead buy chicken McNuggets with your money I suppose… or save up 25 of it and be all Don Draper and shit. While you’re in Flushing, consider White Bear for some dumplings or the Golden Shopping Mall if you have time.
To wrap it all up… food that’s really cheap is awesome. If it’s not awesome, at least you didn’t buy a lot. As for free food… I think if people sent me cookies all day long, and one of the cookies was good, I’d feel compelled to tell people about it. But I think what you’re doing is recommending a gift that you received, and all your readers would have to buy it instead of receiving it as a gift. It strikes me as odd. If a construction obbyist could buy a senator a dinner and then the senator finds ways to help get that bridge built to nowhere… well, then you’d have Ted Stevens. And I guess since he served in Congress for so long, I guess accepting gifts is all cool. I don’t know, what do y’all think? Should I take free food and be like, “Oh no, I’m objective!” or should I continue to follow them invisible rules?
Edit: This is great. Make sure to load and watch the video. haha Newport State of Mind
Beijing Duck stallMain Street and 40th Road.New York, NY 11355
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