iDen & Quan Ju De Beijing Duck House (全聚德)
Judging by the items on the menu and the price point of $60 per person, Quan Ju De placed themselves at the fine dining establishment tier of restaurants. I believe the owner has focused too much on the decor, and missed some of the fundamental elements of a fine-dining restaurant. Peking duck is a classic dish. You can improve the recipe or make it fusion, but you cannot charge a premium while skipping steps on the process. Some of the food does taste good, but there are ones that are just mediocre. Please make sure that you do not get take out from Quan Ju De. The food quality drops exponentially, and you are paying for part of the $12 million dollar interior decor anyways. We cannot honestly recommend this restaurant. There are better fine dining options in Vancouver, and many have better tasting food, better service, and breathtaking views.
Quan Ju De Beijing Duck House is a Peking duck focused franchise restaurant in China. Vancouver the first franchise in January 2020 with collaboration with iDen, and then the COVID-19 came along. It took us a while to finally try this place. With 12 million dollars spent on interior decor and $98 per Peking Duck, we consider this place a fine-dining restaurant, so the review is going to be a little less forgiving. iDen & Quan Ju De Beijing Duck House is located on the corner of Cambie Street and West 12th Avenue, Vancouver.
Strength: Convenient location, luxury interior decor.
Weakness: Limited Parking, mediocre food,
Other Peking Duck Restaurants
- Chang ‘An (4.5 Stars)
Gold trim at the façade
Looking from the street, one can denote the storefront of Quan Ju De from the gold trim and the full height glazing. The name of Quan Ju De is not very apparent on Cambie Street, but there are larger signage facing West 12th Avenue.
Quan Ju De Foyer
After 2 sets of large doors, we are at Quan Ju De’s Foyer. To the right, we have the bar with an extremely large round table. On the left side, is the common dining area. This space is decorated by surrounding the space with bookshelves. It has interesting use of light to frame the store logo, and the front counter. When I arrived, there was no one standing at the counter.
12 Million Dollar Interior Decor
Even before Quan Ju De opened, the foodie community has been hyped about their renovation cost of 12 Million Canadian Dollar renovation costs. That is why even only here to grab the take-out, I was eager to check out what they have done with space. The interior space is very well done. with lots of oriental elements, use of different material surfaces to identify different spaces. Large full-height glazing provides a very well-lit dining hall.
Views out the window
It was unfortunate that the only view out of Quan Ju De is the cars flying by West 12th Avenue and Cambie Street. Perhaps giving customers views to the cars in an attempt to incorporate the 4th dimension of time into our meal, just like how Quan Ju De advertised their 5D dining experience.
Table Service for Peking Duck
Table-side service is an integral part of an authentic Peking duck experience. Quan Ju De also has someone in chef’s clothing to carve the duck for you. Unlike Chang’An Restaurant and the authentic method where the best part of the fatty skins (skin only) are sliced off one piece at a time, Quan Ju De chef sliced off the entire piece of skin before cutting them into smaller pieces. I feel that the ritual and integrity of treating each piece of the fatty Peking duck skin has been lost. Consequently, I don’t know why I am paying $98 for this duck when the restaurant doesn’t even treat it with the respect it deserves.
Tasteful packaging with modular containers
Quan Ju De’s take-out presentation was really well done. Sturdy paper bags filled with modular containers with various height. Everything looks clean. I was quite disappointed in Quan Ju De’s service when the server next to me did not help with the closed-door while I was carrying 3 large bags in my hand. It is shocking to see a fine-dining restaurant’s service level can’t even compare to the Cactus Club Cafe’s service level.
Very thoughtful utensil
We ordered the 4 people combo to treat our friends, so the meal comes with 4 sets of take-out utensil packages. It was a pleasant surprise to see the chopsticks have Quan Ju De’s name engraved and plastic wrapping at the rear to make it look less cheap. Other utensils are just normal quality.
Peking Duck feels unprofessionally done
Further to what was mentioned earlier that the Peking duck was not treated with respect, the fatty/crispy skins are placed on top of the rest of the meat. To me, that is simply unprofessional. Skin-only pieces are the best part of an authentic Peking Duck. How can any restaurants serious about their Peking Duck do this? I understand the 15 minutes drive home would have had an effect on the quality of the skin. Judging from the thickness and color of the duck skin served in Quan Ju de, they were never as airy, fluffy, or crispy as the ones served in Chang’An Restaurant. To make the matter worse, there were even a few fatty skins that had meat still on them.
The good thing is that Quan Ju De give the duck carcass to the customers. You should know that it costs $20 to have the duck carcass processed, such as deep fried.
Wrappers are hard to separate
Once again, I understand that my 15 minutes drive home would have an effect on the quality of these wrappers. I did not expect the wrappers to be so hard to separate. At first glance, these wrappers look like one piece of the flattened dough. Since I bought this meal to treat my friend, using hands to separate these wrappers are simply embarrassing for both my friend and I. To make things worse, many of these wrappers ripped when we tried to separate them.
Other dishes
Our 4-persons combo comes with prawn, chicken, veggies, soup, and a fried rice. The large prawns are sturdy and crispy, but there were more herbs than prawns. The chicken were numbing and spicy, which tastes pretty good but also not that special. Out of all these dishes, I enjoyed the fish soup veggies the most because their flavours come together beautifully.
The soup was a bit on the sweet side, but pretty good. There were lots of ingredients at the bottom. The chicken bits were a bit dry, probably was included for display purposes. Out of all these side dishes, I particularly did not enjoy the fried rice. It has a corn and beans in it, but it is tasteless.
604 Food Critic Assessment
Judging by the items on the menu and the price point of $60 per person, Quan Ju De placed themselves at the fine dining establishment tier of restaurants. I believe the owner has focused too much on the decor, and missed some of the fundamental elements of a fine-dining restaurant. Peking duck is a classic dish. You can improve the recipe or make it fusion, but you cannot charge a premium while skipping steps on the process. Some of the food does taste good, but there are ones that are just mediocre. Please make sure that you do not get take out from Quan Ju De. The food quality drops exponentially, and you are paying for part of the $12 million dollar interior decor anyways. We cannot honestly recommend this restaurant. There are better fine dining options in Vancouver, and many have better tasting food, better service, and breathtaking views.
How to get in touch
- Phone: (236) 477-7777
- Address: 2808 Cambie St, Vancouver
- Hours: 11:00 AM to 10:30 PM Every Day
