Value for money: 9/10
Cleanliness: 7/10
Service: 9/10
Quality of food: 9/10
Overall: 8/10
A really busy spot-Duck Jen on the west site of the city, right near the 85 Sky Tower.
Expect to line up – worth the wait.
The service is pretty good at Duck Jen, to be fair. Whilst the line looks long, you have to line up before going in to get your seat. Even to take-out you have to line up here. We waited maybe 15-20mins – giving us enough time to figure out what we all wanted.
Immediately you see rice noodles, duck, offal of all kinds, vegetables rice, gravy. Pretty much everything you want to eat, you can find in Duck Jen.
Liver, kidney, heart, intestines. Yes to all, please.
They have two spaces to eat inside.
This room the bigger of the two (both have A.C).
This guy is meticulously cutting duck after duck at the back of the Duck Jen restaurant. Portioning it up for the rice dishes (see below).
When the food arrives, you pay, so have your cash ready (almost certain they don’t take card here).
Duck over rice, with pork gravy
鴨肉飯 (yā ròu fàn)
$60
You absolutely have to get this dish at Duck Jen. Yes, it’s more expensive than a lot of simple rice dishes with gravy, but you’re getting a fair few slices of duck with this, and the rice is also damn good (for those of you who say “rice is just rice”, hang your heads in shame).
Rich in flavour, ticking the boxes of being salty and deep in flavour, whilst being moreish and delicious.
Cold cuts of duck
鴨肉切盤 (yā ròu qiè pán)
$150
Sorry for the angle, but when a plate of duck gets put in front of you, all of a sudden the “camera eats first” mantra flies out of the window. The duck was great. Salty skinned and delicately rich meat. I didn’t bother with the sauce, as I didn’t feel the need for it. But, it was like a tomato ketchup chilli hybrid.
Vegetable plate
燙青菜 (tàng qīng cài)
$(can’t recall, nor find out the price)
There’s not an awful lot you can get wrong with vegetables. This water spinach was good, with plenty of garlic for seasoning.
Offal soup
綜合下水 (zòng hé xià shuǐ)
$60
I encourage you to try and get past the initial thought/sight of kidney, intestines, stomach and heart inside a semi translucent soup, and try this dish. The soup has a slightly sweet flavour to it, with a lovely aroma of ginger coming out. Truth be told: a lot of offal doesn’t have a hugely strong and convincing flavour – apart from liver. No liver in this dish, so it could be a good way for you to tick a few of your potential ‘list of things to try’.
Opening Times:
Wednesday – Monday – 10:00 – 20:20
Tel: 07 521 5018
高雄市鹽埕區五福四路258號
No. 258, WuFu 4th Road, YanCheng District, Kaohsiung City