Emperor's Choice

1:28am Wednesday 17th February 2010 Sydney (gmt+10)

Because it's the Chinese New Year my wife and I had dinner at The Emperor's Choice at George Street, Sydney. They claim to be the first Chinese Restaurant in the CBD, or within the city but outside of Chinatown.

The yellow-ish tint on the pictures has nothing to do with my camera. It's the lighting of the place, plus the old style decor contributes to whole ambiance. But I wasn't as keen about soaking up the atmosphere as I was with having Peking Duck. I love duck! And I haven't had one in a long time.

The Peking Duck is split into two courses. The first is the traditional crispy skin and thin slices of duck meat wrapped in pancakes with scallions, cucumber and hoisin sauce. In most restaurants the duck comes out of the kitchen already sliced. But here they brought it out whole, presented it... and then the waitress skillfully carved it up in front of us. Quite amazing given that it only took her two minutes to get it ready. Yum!

But I was disappointed with the 2nd course... which was the Singapore Noodle with duck. Because I saw the waitress carve out the skin and slices of meat I'm pretty sure that there's heaps more meat left on the carcass. But when the noodles came out there was barely any duck meat on it. Hmm. Weird!

And of course we also had Yang Chow Fried Rice and Salt and Pepper Calamari. And at the end we got our fortune cookies. I heard that whatever fortune you get on Chinese New Year's dinner pretty much applies the whole year and what I got made a lot of sense. Nice! :)

You can find The Emperor's Choice at

261 George Street,Sydney