After our stay in Buellton and having lunch at Bell's, we decided to stay the night in our old 'hood of Rowland Heights. We'd do some shopping, do takeout from Mountain House, and then have dinner in the area. One of the places I'd read about over the last couple of years was Happy Duck House, which had opened on Gale just west of Fullerton Road back in around 2015. After all our previous meals on this trip, the Missus would be wanting some Asian cuisine, so we thought this would do.
We had early reservations and the place was pretty mellow when we arrived.
After perusing the menu, we went with the Peking Duck three ways ($89), Duck Wings ($6.95), and some stir fried Ong Choi ($16.95). Yes, this wasn't going to be a cheap dinner.
Soon enough the accoutrements arrived and all looked well.
Then the Duck Feet, which were supposed to be seasoned with five spice.
I say supposed, because this was very lightly seasoned. When highly flavored it's fun gnawing on "ducky" goodness, but this was strangely bland.
The duck skin arrived soon after.
The dan bing, the pancakes to wrap the duck in was really good, great texture, nice and warm.
The duck skin however was not. The skin was on the rubbery side, the subcutaneous fat had not been rendered, and it lacked flavor, as did the duck meat which was also dry. This was strangely one of the blandest versions of Bei Jing Kao Ya we've ever had!
We each made one "wrap" and just quit.
We ended up taking the meat and the "skin" home, where I went and made fried rice with the meat, adding in a bit of the skin which I crisped up. As for the rest of the skin, I went ahead and brushed the skin with a combination of melted duck fat and five spice and did the air fryer thing, which helped a bit.
We loved the texture of the Bean Sprouts with Duck Meat.
The texture of the Bean Sprouts were excellent, they obviously know how to stir fry. However, there just wasn't enough duck meat to make a difference in flavor. The meat was tough and bland and they should have just used most of what was provided for the wrap to bump up the flavor here.
The one item that we really enjoyed was the Ong Choi which was stir fried to perfection.
This was the one dish that was seasoned well, enough salt and white pepper to enhance the slightly sweet-bitter vegetal flavor of the water spinach. The texture was just perfect, crisp, yet tender.
The last dish out was the Duck Bone Soup, which, like the preceding duck dishes was severely under seasoned and watery.
This was quite thin and in need of more flavor.
Overall, the service was quite good, but while the Ong Choi was excellent, the name of the place is Happy Duck House, not Happy Ong Choi House. And the duck dishes were all disappointing.
Well, at least we tried the place out. You can't win 'em all……
Happy Duck House
18210 East Gale Ave.
Rowland Heights, CA 91748
I appreciated the way things were packed though I told the woman I'd be eating this close by. There were containers of spicy vinegar and a decent chili oil (which I used) included in my package.
Which led to an interesting concoction. The duck was breast, quite lean, a bit more chewy then I enjoy, with a touch of five spice seasoning, not bad at all. The fried shallots added a nice savory and crunchy texture. The broccoli really gave off "Panda Express" vibes but at least I got some veggies.
And I proceeded with my "standard process" of mixing the dish to my satisfaction. I quickly noticed that there wasn't any "sauce" at the bottom of the bowl, it was merely a touch of sate sauce squirted over the egg noodles. This was not nearly enough to coat all the noodles and would not provide enough of that savory-nutty-pungent flavors for the dish. I ended having to add a rather large amount of the broth on the side to the bowl creating more of a soup, which kind of defeats the purpose of things. Also, the broth was quite MSG heavy, but at least wasn't bland. It was good in a soup spoon with a slice of meat and onion in it. The noodles were also undercooked and hard as well.
The was a definite difference in the soup, it was way lighter and thinner than what I'd had here in the past, really lacking in savory tones; more like white pepper-salt water. There were 2 won ton and 3 dumplings….yes, I counted. The wrappers were very soft and tender; really enrobing the fillings. In fact, doesn't the won ton look like brain matter?
The fillings, while being more chewy than I recalled, as nicely flavored, porky, hints of seafood, sesame oil, and so forth. The char siu was hard and very tough and weak in the sweet-porkiness I enjoy.
So, how did this match up? Well, the wrapper was not as tender and more brittle than what we'd had at DTF. The "soup", the aspic based liquid was porky and flavorful. The filling was tender, though not quite as flavorful as DTF in our opinion. Though, it could be that having been to several locations of DTF around the world we've been indoctrinated?
It was a very large portion! Though you can see how thick the kitchen is slicing the tendon and pork ear now. Eating some of the pieces of tendon was like trying to bite into your flip-flops! The pig ear was crunchy and manageable. The smacked cucumbers were better than what I'd had here previously, with a decent amount of salt. The chili oil based sauce wasn't quite as spicy as I recalled and it had a hint of sweetness and more soy sauce, which wasn't a bad thing.
Well, so that gentleman I ran into while 
Along with some Veggie Eggrolls. All part and parcel of the lunch specials we ordered.
