Hing Won

Occasion: Workday take-out lunch

Location: Hing Won on 48th between 5th and 6th

Edibles: roast duck on rice

Musings: I love me some roast duck. There was a whole year of my life when I ate it at least once a week.

Aside: The long story is that my college dorm had a Chinese restaurant called Beijing on the first floor, and it basically became my cafeteria. Three of their dishes are forever linked to each of my years at Penn. They are: beef lo mein - freshman year; roast duck on rice - sophomore year; cashew chicken - my last year. (What can I say? I'm a creature of habit.) When the owner learned I was graduating, he actually looked saddened and gave me a free Beijing t-shirt. Grad was also when I discovered that the West Lake soup (with beef and lots of cilantro) is really yummy. If I had stayed a fourth year, that might have been the dish. Ah, the road not taken.

Back to Hing Won. I read about this place on someone else's food blog, dedicated exclusively to the herculean task of finding a decent lunch in midtown. (I've been trolling food blogs for format and content ideas, but also I just plain love to read about food.) The interior is just as helter-skelter as he described. The way you order your food is a bit counterintuitive; here's the lowdown:

1) Walk past the steam tables / buffet offerings. Good stuff's in the back.

2) There's a menu on the wall above the second cashier (the first cashier takes care of the buffet folks). Figure out what you want from the myriad options.

3) Give your order to the guy, who writes it down on a little slip of paper. Note that the people standing around in the area are probably not in line; they are likely waiting, as you will be doing shortly.

4) Retreat and wait until your order (or assigned number, which I might have missed) is called.

5) Collect your food and pay.

The roast duck is the best I've had in the city. It's greasy but that's duck, you know. In contrast to poorly-prepared duck, which is bland under the skin, the flavor of Hing Won's permeates all the way into the meat. The rice is delightfully soaked with sauce and ducky juices. The sautéed bok choi tasted a little tinny to me so I ignored it. At $6, I will definitely be back again.

[Note: By roast duck, I do not mean tea-smoked duck, which I also love and frequently order. I've still not been able to find a place to get consistently good tea-smoked duck in NYC. The closest I've come is the westside Shun Lee, but it's pretty expensive and will disappoint me about one in three times. In Vancouver, Ningtu is the place to go.]