- We're in New York City. - In Flushing, Queens. - That's right. We are with our friend, Inga Lam, who is going to serve as
our translator, today. - What's up? - And what are we doing
here in New York City today? - We're doing Peking duck. That's right, season finale. I'm so excited. Peking duck is one of the most
epic meals in human history. It is a specially
prepared whole roast duck, and it's known for its
extremely crispy skin, its super tender meat, and
it is absolutely delicious. It was for Chinese emperors. And so today, we're gonna
live like kings in Queens. - Yeah, let's do it. - [Steven] Today on Worth It, we're gonna be trying three
delicious Peking dishes, at three drastically
different price points, to find out which one is the
most worth it at its price. - I actually have not had much
Peking duck ever in my life. - Whoa, when you go to get Peking duck, its like, celebration, feasts. - I like all those things. - Yeah, and that's also
why we brought Inga, because I know you love the duck. - I do love the duck. I can eat a whole duck my
myself kind of love the duck. - What? - Really? - All right, let's go eat some duck. - [Steven] Did you eat
a lot of Peking duck when you were a kid? - What drink do we have here, Inga? - It's like a Chinese herbal drink, it's supposed to be really good for you, just very sugary, but it's good. - Let's eat some duck. It's $1.25 for this bun. Well, for two buns, we got $2.50. $2.50. - [Andrew] All right, let's
see what this is all about. - Look at that, house-made bun. This is only really, one, two, three, four, five ingredients. (moans) - [Steven] That bun texture. - It's like I'm not even holding a bun, it's just duck hovering
between my fingers. - So this is your first
experience eating Peking duck, not just roast duck. What do you think? - I'm struggling not
to eat the whole thing. It's very very delicious. The little bite of the raw onion, mashed with the really fatty duck, is a very well figured
out mouthful of food. Very ducklicious. - I love the story about how he was like, "I didn't get to eat Peking duck as a kid" so you know what? I'm going to be a man of the people. - That is the best superhero
origin story I've ever heard. - What's Alan's superhero name? - DuckMan would be too easy. - (laughs) DuckMan. - My only complaint is
that it was over too quick. - Oh yes, yeah. - Or should I say it was over too quack? (laughs) - Okay, so we couldn't leave
without getting more snacks, and I saw this guy. And I was like, I gotta get that, 'cause
I love this so much. It's fried dough, it's Youtiao. How's my pronunciation? Good? Okay. - Peking duck fact. - [Steven] Peking duck fact. - [Andrew] Peking duck fact. - There is a very popular
Peking duck restaurant in China, it's called Quanju. - Quanjude. - Quanjude. And they actually, in 2014, opened a museum around Peking duck. - Really? I love a museum dedicated to food. - What food would you
create a museum around? Like, your top three. - Dumplings, noodles, bread. - Yes. Tomorrow morning when we meet bright and early at the next spot, it's called Decoy, very traditional style, but they do have their own twist. Very crispy, very delicious. - Alright that guy is honking at us. - Bye-Bye. (laughs) - My name's Ed Schoenfeld, I'm the managing partner/creator
of Decoy restaurant. - [Andrew] So where did your
interest in Peking duck begin? - My interest began with my
overall interest in food, and cooking in specifically Chinese food. And throughout the late
'60s and early '70s, I became the cooking student of a group of Chinese master chefs. I knew that my partners loved Peking duck, I've always thought that
there was a need for a Peking duck-focused restaurant that held itself to a really high standard. Our head chef here, Joe Ng, my partner, is one of the great Dim
sum chefs of the world. When you get one of our wrappers, it's a world-class pancake. The first step in making a
Peking duck in our kitchen, we take the inside of the duck, and we put spices; scallion, and ginger, and star anis, and a little cinnamon,
some sugar and some salt, and then we put a skewer, so that this flavoring agent stays inside. We attach the end of a bicycle pump, and we blow it up like a balloon. It causes the skin, and the fat, to separate from the meat of the duck. We take a big pot full of boiling water, and we drag it real quickly
through the boiling water to get the skin to get tight. We marinate the duck, and
we paint it with a syrup. The syrup is water that has a little sugar and red vinegar in it. And we hang the duck up, the skin dries, so that the skin is very crispy, 'cause the goal of Peking duck is to have very very crispy skin. We have a custom-made Peking duck oven. The ducks cook quite quickly, they cook in 45 minutes. When we butcher a duck, it starts by taking big
pieces of skin off like this. And the meat, we lay it out on the plate, and then we put the pieces of skin on top. We also garnish our ducks
with classical garnishes, which is shredded scallion,
and little batons of cucumber. Traditionally when you serve Peking Duck, you use a sauce that
is called Hoisin sauce. And then we serve sesame based
sauce, and cranberry sauce. There are 12 pancakes
that come with one duck. We take our duck carcasses, and make a really rich broth from them. And when our guests sit
down to get a Peking duck, we bring shot glasses of duck Consomme, that's how we serve our duck, with those sauces and those condiments. - So, the first thing we
want to start off with are these amazing appetizers
that they've prepared for us. The cutest of the bunch: Shrimp and Snow Pea Leaf Dumplings. - Look how plump this guy is. Little plumpling. - [Andrew] Now I've had some
of the best dumplings I've had. - [Steven] Here we've got Three
Color Vegetable Dumplings, Katz's Pastrami Eggrolls, here's the crispy Duck and Crab Dumplings. (crunch) We're here for the duck. Too much of a detour. - Too much of a Decoy. - All right, I could have left
happy after the dumplings, but then I saw this. We even have some special sauces here. The duck Comsomme. Yowza. - Oh my god. - Inga, would you mind teaching us how to create our own wrap? - So you grab a piece of pancake, you take however many pieces you want, you put it on the top half
of the pancake, like that. You grab a little bit of scallion, take this, you wrap it in half, then you wrap it like this. - [Steven] Oh yeah, ooh. - [Inga] And you turn it over. - [Steven] That's like
putting a baby in a blanket. - [Inga] So then you get this. - This tastes a lot like
the one I had in Beijing. It's so good. - (laughing) Okay, Okay. Yeah, yeah. We don't need her. Thank you. I'm ready to eat. Let's get skin and meat,
as suggested by Ed. Okay, let's get that scallion
inside, followed by a blanket. - [Andrew] Swaddled. - Swaddled. Oh my gosh, look, look. - (laughing) Come on, compare. - [Steven] All right, all
right, all right, fine. Cheers. Oh, that skin is so crispy. - [Andrew] I also really love that I get a little craft to do during my meal. - [Steven] I actually go this way first, I don't know if that's right. But it's more like a burrito. Okay, I'm really struggling here. - Do you want to eat mine? - No. - Yes. - You want mine? - No, I'll make my own. - Mmm. All the best food adjectives go with this. - Tender, crunchy, succulent, fresh. - Crispy. - Sweet, delicious. This is the rest of it, 'cause you know. Okay? He didn't need to be told. - So, as a little break,
I wanted to bring you guys to one of my favorite
dessert spots in Chinatown, here in New York. Here at The Little One, they
do awesome Japanese desserts. I got us some shaved ice. - From far away it looks like a cabbage. It's like, combed as well. - Cheers. - Peking - Duck - [Inga] Fact. - The origins of Peking duck traced back to the thirteenth century. Although the exact origin is unknown, there are are many who believe that it actually originates
from Mongolian barbecue. - I wonder when they figured
out how to puff up the skin. - Oh yeah. - Because that is a wild thing
to do to a thing to cook it. - Our last spot now. We're going to a restaurant
right down the street called Hwa Yuan, so we're not
just gonna get duck. We're gonna get the feast version. How many courses do you want to do? - Eight. - Sure, let's do eight. - Five. - Five. - Twelve. (laughs) - I'm the chef and restaurant owner, and the chef of Hwa Yuan Szechuan. - [Steven] So today we're
gonna have the Peking duck. - [Andrew] So it's very starchy. - Cheers. - Hi everyone, welcome to Hwa Yuan. We're excited for the signature dinner, which has a big Peking duck. So we're gonna have nine dishes today, nine is a really good number
in the Chinese culture. The first dish is of course, the cold noodle with sesame sauce. - Are we going to noodle cheers? - Cheers. (laughing) - Steven you got noodles in my tea. Mmm. Oh yeah. Spicy peanut butter cold noodles. I think a lot of people will
find that combination strange, it is so delicious. - [Steven] I want to just stuff my face with these noodles because it's so good. - [Samantha] The second dish
would be the Xiao Long Bao, which is soup dumpling with pork. - [Steven] I'm just gonna go all in. Oh yeah, also plump. - [Samantha] And then
we're gonna go with a soup, it's a chicken soup with pork rib, and also some Chinese herbs. - [Inga] This is so good. - [Andrew] This is a very
gentle introduction to the meal. I like how we are very slowly escalating. - Is it duck time? Yes, oh my god. - [Samantha] For the entrée, we are starting with the Peking duck. It comes with three sides of vegetable: Asian pear, cucumber, and also scallion. - [Steven] My mouth glands, whatever saliva-producing
glands I have in my mouth, - [Andrew] That's a lot of glands. - [Steven] Have just
opened up the heavens. - [Andrew] Sounds like scissors on paper. - [Steven] I think my
next video should just be, I learn how to carve Peking duck. - You can't even do the wrap, you think you're gonna carve the duck? (laughs) - [Steven] Look how, oh my gosh, the fat. - [Andrew] That's the duck butter. That is the duck butter. - [Inga] Cheers. - Oh my gosh, it's so crispy
that every single like-- - Is moist like a sponge. It's moist. I have to like swallow the juice as I'm chewing the rest of the meat. Want to do pancake time? - [Steven] Aw, let's do it. Aw, let's build some pancakes. - Pretty good Steven. - Thank you. - Way to go. - Cheers. - Mmm. Aw, okay. See, this is how you eat. - For what you can get here in New York, this is probably the closest you can get. - To like the traditional,
in China, Peking Duck. - [Samantha] After the Peking duck, we're gonna start with
one of our classic dishes, which is Kung Pao Chicken. - Mmm, that has a very nice bite. - The spice is like, just there. - [Samantha] The next
dish is the orange beef. So, on the menu, it says
Marvelous Orange Beef, but in the Chinese character,
it just means Tang's chicken. Because there's no name for it. - [Andrew] It's like a beef nugget. And it's not orange overwhelmingly. - [Samantha] The next dish
we have is a Mapo Tofu, very tender tofu. - [Inga] The tofu is like, extra soft. - I like it 'cause it's
a little like, peppery, - We got to have the most delicious meat, before we amped up with the spice. And now the meal just gets
more and more exciting. - [Samantha] And of course, we have to have vegetables
when we have Chinese food. So we have a fried vegetable
dish, which is the string bean, and then you have the snow pea, which is poached in a chicken
broth that we make in-house. - [Steven] You know like, as a kid, I didn't understand why
people didn't like vegetables, because when you eat vegetables like this, there's no question that it's delicious. - I really like how we went
from light to heavy to light. - Peking duck, banquet feast mode. - Smart way to eat a delicious meat. - It's just like being able
to see all the foods laid out, and really really well balanced meal. They took a lot of time
to prepare each dish, and I really appreciate that. - New York City, baby. That's what I'm talking about. So Andrew, which Peking duck spot was the most worth it to
you, out of the price? - My Worth It winner goes to
the Peking duck sandwich stall. It's both special but casual. It was just a great time. - If it was a dumpling episode, I would do Decoy's
dumplings, those were crazy. I'm going to have to go
with Hwa Yuan right here, turns out it was my Worth It
winner, eating with friends, the duck was so buttery and so delicious, it was amazing, I loved it. What was your worth it winner? - Alan, he is bringing
Peking duck to the masses. Like, everybody can enjoy it. - Adam, who's your Worth It winner? - It's a three-on-one pummel. - Hey man, whatever you want. - Inga, thanks for joining
us today on Worth It. - Thank you for having me. - That's a wrap on this
season for Worth It, thank you for joining us on season four, it's just been an amazing ride, so. From me, Adam, and Andrew, thank you guys. We love you, we'll see you
next season, and stay hungry. - Oh, four seasons. (upbeat music) - Season five, we're doing it. - All right, that's a wrap. - Hello, Steven here. Thank you so much for supporting us, and watching Worth It for
the last four seasons. I have a very special
announcement for you, Which is that we have
some brand new merch. Go to shop.buzzfeed.com,
click on Worth It, we have four brand new
T-shirts, we have a new hat, it has a cute adorable
Worth It logo on there. We helped design the stuff,
we're really excited about it. And thanks again, we'll
see you in season five. Peace. (funky music) - Hey, check out our Instagram, it's new, it's @buzzfeedworthit. - See you guys there.
Just watched the video. The only reason why the $340 Peking duck is so much is because it's a 9-course meal. Most of which isn't even duck related dishes. The duck preparation and presentation isn't anything special.
I've had "high end" Peking duck dinners where the staff would pat the oil away from the skin after slice. then serve each guest their own Peking duck buns.