Peter Cheng's Tasty China II

This is one of Mr. Cheng's several outposts. My colleague at the University of Virginia mentioned that Mr. Cheng has a (very good) restaurant in Charlottesville as well. Tasty China II is located on Powers Ferry. I couldn't see the river at night, but they did have some cute Christmas decorations. I found the service to be pretty good.

I started out with an appetizer of chicken in translucent noodles. It's a cold dish, which emphasizes the subtlety of all the elements. The chicken was very tender and flavorful. The noodles had just the right amount of bite. Small cucumber spears made a great complement in both flavor and texture.

My main course, spicy fragrant duck, couldn't be more different. It's done in the "hot and numbing" style: fried duck with no sauce, but covered in pieces of red pepper and scallions. The idea of frying a duck may seem redundant since it already has so much fat, but trust me, it's extremely flavorful and the flavor of the duck really comes through. Since we are in the South, comparisons to fried chicken immediately leap to mind. The crust's flavor didn't come just from the red pepper. I'm not sure exactly what he had in the coating but I really enjoyed it. It was very crispy as well. The duck was outstanding: succulent, tender. Some of the pieces contained bones, which is great for flavor but bad for chopsticks. I ended up eating it by hand. Let's just say there wasn't any duck left to take home...

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