A while ago, N mentioned in passing that Chefs Gallery was expanding into Kensington Street with a new kind of Chinese restaurant. Yet, it wasn’t after a recent visit with my office to Holy Duck! that I realised this was the restaurant in question.
As the name suggests, duck featured prominently on their menu alongside other protein.
To start, this is the Kafir Lime & Lychee Breeze ($12.00) described as ‘fresh apple pressed kaffir lime, lychee & ginger’. The dominant flavour was apple, which tastes bright and fresh, with a tropical and zesty twist from the lime and lychee in the background. I’m not a fan of ginger, but thankfully, the ginger was inobtrusive here and complemented the drink well. It was tasty but definitely not worth the price.
As with work lunches, there are numerous dishes ordered. In the background are:
- Popcorn Chicken ($8.00) with brown sugar glaze and toasted sesame. These were crispy and tender on the inside, with the glaze adding a sticky moreish flavour to each bite.
- Stir Fried Rice Noodles ($19.00) with wagyu beef. These were decent with tender beef, although I enjoy the dish with stronger wok hei.
This is the Duck Yeah ($12.50), which consisted of ‘duck, cherry tomatoes, edamame beans, sweet corn, cucumber, lychees, barley and quinoa, topped with scallions and chilli lychee plum sauce’. This was my pick, and I was disappointed as I expected something impressive like the nashi pear salad from Khao Pla. Here there was barely a mouthful of lychee to go around the salad, and the ‘chilli lychee plum sauce’ – with a gentle heat and tangy sweetness – was present only on the few pieces of lychee. It really just tasted like a boring salad.
In the background are the Chinese Pickled Vegetables ($6.00, ‘cucumber, radish, white daikon and carrots’). These were crisp with just enough sourness to whet the appetite.
We also tried other items on the menu for which I have no visual proof:
- Crispy Holy Duck! ($65.00, whole, ‘served with hoisin sauce, cucumber & spring onion’ and $1.00 for each additional pancake). The duck was served ‘pull pork’ style, in that it was shredded with a fork. The skin was crispy and the duck was tender.
- Roast Holy Duck! ($60.00, whole). This one paled in comparison to the crispy duck, with a more mellow flavour that lacked the intensity of the ones from Chinese butchers elsewhere for half the price.
- Crispy Crackling Roast Pork Belly ($22.00) with pommery mustard sauce’. This had a surprising use of spice – a something more than the the usual five spice rub used – that I’ve not tasted before, while the meat itself was juicy and tender.
Overall, many of the dishes at Holy Duck! are decent, with the duck being the highlight. That said, it’s not somewhere to go alone, given the larger size (and cost) of the tasty dishes.
Holy Duck! is located at 10/2 Kensington St, Chippendale NSW 2008.