I have been curious about Benson Salted Duck for some time, but have not had a chance to try it out yet.A few mornings ago, Husband and I found ourselves a little pocket of time for a lunch date so we headed to Toa Payoh. Benson Salted Duck is a stall in a coffeshop in Blk 168, Toa Payoh Lor 1. MsTamchiak and other food writers have written about his innovative new dish that is salted duck, please refer to them for more information. We just wanted to know if it was delicious.
The default option is Salted Duck Rice ($3), I added braised tau-kwa to my order. The rice, a lighter version of chicken rice, was delicious and loose-grained, good to eat on its own.
The duck meat was a revelation. I got breast meat, which was drier than I expected, but it was nicely chewy and flavourful in a surprisingly subtle way. We have been used to the strong, ducky or gamey tastes that is accentuated with roasting and braising, this was a welcome innovation. The salt is not too forward either, you know it's salted, but it is not salty. The best thing though, had to the skin. The cooking process had seemed to firm up the fats under the skin, so that it was jelly like, similar to dongbo-rou, i.e. impossible to resist; to me, it was the best part.
I also love the julienned cucumber that the meat sits on. Some hawker stalls have stopped serving chicken rice or roast meat rice with sliced cucumber, Benson have gone the opposite way and I really appreciate the extra effort, it completes the dish for me. The chilli sauce was sour, spicy and garlicky, in perfect equilibrium, still, not advisable to eat the sauce if you have an important meeting after, the garlic was added in reckless quantities.
The signboard. You can't miss it, the stall is smack in the middle of the shop.
The meat portion was adequate, but I wanted more, so I ordered a drumstick. Ooo, it is much better than the breast, more juicy, more ideal balance of fats and meat. In my younger days, I would always choose dark meat over breast meat, but these days I prefer breast meat which seems to me have a cleaner taste profile, so I was pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong.
Husband had the pig organ soup with fish maws. This was $5. See how much piggy parts and fish maw are inside? Bargain.
