“OK – grabbed a table next to the row of hanging ducks…” Geoff SMSes me when I am busy trying to cross the city to meet him. And why this particular location in front of a row of hanging ducks? Why a merry group of seven are on the pursuit to find the best Peking Duck in Sydney just in time for Chinese New Year! Accompanying me this afternoon and evening I have David (the chef from Perama), his wife Belinda, Anna & Phillip, Geoff & Rachel and Mr NQN!

We’re starting at the afternoon hour of 3:30pm and our aim is to try as many Peking Duck restaurants as possible given stomach space and time. Although it’s not a scientifically controlled study, it’s about as accurate as we could get given time and various factors etc.

The brief was simple

• We would only order Peking Duck and any drinks we needed. We wouldn’t waste space on any other food.
• We would eat it as it was served to us and not ask for any variations
• Our second course would be sang choy bao (filled lettuce leaves)
• We would score the pancakes and lettuce cups each out of 10. We were permitted to adjust our scores on the first three places to ensure that they weren’t judged too easily or harshly
• We tried to not take up too much time at each place as they were busy so the tables could be used on other customers

So without further ado, read on for our quest to find the best Peking Duck!

East Ocean, Chinatown

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The Mall area

Last month, a bunch of food bloggers and I went on a Meet My Suburb Walking Tour of Kensington and Kingsford where I showed them around the secret local’s favourites in the area. It was so much fun so some other blogger friends and I decided to do the same in Cabramatta. Betty from Betty’s Bites grew up in the area and when she emailed us asking if we’d like to join her on a little eating tour of Cabramatta, I didn’t hesitate for a moment. I’m almost embarrassed to say that as a born and bread Sydney-Sider I’d never been to Cabramatta before. What I didn’t realise that apart from the fact that Cabramatta has great food, the people are what I enjoyed just as much. Cabramatta residents have fun and a lot of laughs and the kids…well they’re priceless and they love a camera. And I should warn you now that this is a long post so please settle in with a cup of coffee or tea (sweetened with sweetened condensed milk to put you in an authentic mood).

Colourful desserts

Trissa and I are driving together for the first time Cabramatta from Balmain and the GPS is guiding us. We get into the wrong lane accidentally misreading the GPS. Trissa winds down the window “Please sir, I need to get into that lane” she pleads with the taxi driver who looks at her like she just told him he has a chicken on his head and it’s about to lay an egg. “WHAT?!” he says and before he can figure out what she means she manoeuvres into the space. We arrive at Cabramatta via the scenic route and spot Betty walking towards the train station, our designated meeting point. “Find a park where-ever you can on this street or the next” she says. Parking is notoriously hard in Cabramatta as crowds of people gather there on the weekends to buy and eat and the 50c car park (yep 50c to park your car, compare that to a city car park at $24 for 2 hours) is an option if we get desperate.

Fruit sold at a store

We’re meeting Ja, Betty and journalist Carla and her photographer boyfriend James at the station. Trish is to join us later. It’s a gorgeous day, we couldn’t have asked for better for a food walking tour and Betty has been charged with showing us the best of Cabramatta.

Stop #1 Kim Thanh Company Hot Bread

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