Man Ri Sung with Chowtimes

I was super excited when I signed up to attend the Duck Feast at Man Ri Sung with Chowtimes and a bunch of other people. I brought along with me – M, Fragileboy, InsecureGirl, and MedicalGiraffe.

I have been to Man Ri Sung a few months ago before they closed down in Coquitlam. They serve up authentic Korean dishes and is most famous of their peaking duck feast.

We were all pretty gung ho about getting to the dinner and left Brentwood Mall a bit before 6pm so it would ensure us that we would arrive on time. Sometimes, things are not always according to plan. In this case, trying to navigate our way to Man Ri Sung was the most failed  moment for me in a long time. Our anticipated 30 minute car ride became an hour car ride.

• Brentwood Mall to below the airport

( Typed in wrong address into iphone…3211 instead of 8311)
We arrived right on time at the wrong plaza, but after roaming around we couldn’t find it anywhere. So, we looked it up and realized it was on the other side of Richmond. At this point I was like “OMG”, InsecureGirl was like “We should call Ben to tell him we will be late”. I replied saying “People usually don’t give their cell numbers to a stranger….Go tweet him! Tweet him now! Everyone must have 3G by now”.

• Below Airport to Richmond Auto Mall

(Typed in 831 instead of 8311)
As we were making our way towards the other side of Richmond, I got a bit more confident that we would make it in 15 minutes late. Yet again the fates were seriously against me… every intersection there was a red light. I’m lying…it was most of the intersections but still it was annoying. Eventually, the phone led us towards the Auto Mall. In our heads, there is no way there would be a Korean Restaurant here.

• Richmond Auto Mall to Man Ri Sang

Eventually finding the right address, I drove like a mad woman on the stretch of road back to the center of Richmond. This time, we knew we had the right location!

Long story short, we arrived and were welcomed by Ben and the other guests. They even saved us food! At this point, I was pretty exhausted from driving along Westminster Hwy, so I accidentally left my phone in the car and told MedicalGiraffe to take my camera and start taking pictures. She seemed excited, so I let her go at it.

There was a lot of other customers in the restaurant, so it was packed with other large groups also having the duck feast.

The duck feast is composed of several items, such as the korean side dishes (Banchan), Korean Pancake, Jap Chae, Soon Dae, duck wraps, duck congee, duck and Duck hot pot. All for $18 per head for our group.

The Banchan composed of 3 side dishes – Bean sprouts, sweet potato and kimchi.

They saved us some Korean Pancake, so the picture isn’t really representable of what it looked like when it arrived at the table. It was still warm when we began eating. The korean pancake was a bit less than 1 cm thick and contained green onion, red pepper, onions and some other items.

M enjoyed this dish because being Korean himself, he really missed the taste of traditional korean food. He also said it was comparable to the Korean Pancakes he would find back home.

Another item that came with the feast was jap chae. It is made out of korean cellophane noodles, stir fried with sesame oil  with different vegetables such as onions, meat, scallions, and other items.

MedicalGiraffe commented saying she really loved it and wished she had more.

Another dish was Soon Dae (Blood sausage), it’s a traditional korean dish made out of intestines stuffed with cellophane noodles, barley and pork blood. This may sound disgusting but it does not taste bad at all. To add a bit of taste to it, you can dip the Soon Dae into a salt mixture. Just be sure to not smother the sausage in the salt.

The main feature of this feast is the duck wrap! You are presented with a dish of sliced duck, onions, green onions, sauce and tofu skins.

It’s a great dish because you can interact with your food and put it together. You first take the tofu skin and add the onions, sauce and a slice of duck .. wrap it up and begin eating. The duck did taste different this time around, it was not as moist as it was when I had it in Coquitlam. I also did not like the slightly charred bits of the duck skin.

Overall, the duck wrap was ok, but not as addictive as before. Perhaps since they were so busy that the quality suffered a bit.

They don’t waste any part of the duck, so they also give your the wings separately. They are super crispy! I have to admit, it was hard to eat but you can essentially eat the whole thing…even the bones! For me, when I got closer to the tip of the wing, it was really burnt and was super difficult to eat since it really felt like I was eating cancer. I know some people like eating the whole thing, so just a bit of personal opinion.

The next dish was duck congee. I asked M if it has a special name in Korea and he said it was called “jook”. Same name in Cantonese! The rice that is in the congee is not pure white rice, they mix a bit of white rice and wild rice, to have a bit of a purple look to the congee. Inside they do use a bit of duck in it.

The last dish to come with this duck feast is Duck hotpot. Like some of the other dishes it has duck, green onion, hand cut noodles, and other stuff.

Like the other dishes, still pretty good but we wished we had another utensil to easily pick up the noodles and soup. I don’t think any of us wanted to put our chopstick into the pot.

In the back of the restaurant, there is this machine that serves hot ool moo cha (Job Tear’s Tea) for 25 cents. Ool Moo Cha is ground barley powder sugar drink.  I found this to be creamy and slightly sweet. I really did enjoy it! Also, supposedly it helps create a soothing effect on the stomach. Very nice ending to a meal!

Photo Credits: Cory Roan, Globetrotting & Adventure Gourmet

I think everyone had a great time at the dinner! Everyone was about to share their thoughts on the food as well as talk about other random subjects.

Since it was a busy night, the service was quite poor. For a table of 11, they kept bringing us one pot of tea when it would be more effective to give us 2 pots. There seemed to be only 1 or 2 waitress(es) serving most of the tables and seemed scrambled most of the time.

Overall, I thought the supporting dishes of the duck feast were well executed. The quality of the duck did not compare to the last time I had the dish. Not as juicy and succulent as before. Also, a bit burnt when it came to the large wings of the duck. The price of the duck feast was a good price!

Words of Advice:

• Reservations for large groups
• 2 hours advance notice for duck feast
• Free parking in the parking lot

Address:

8211 Westminster Hwy
Richmond, BC