I’m sure most people have encountered someone with the same name as them at least once in their lives. Sometimes, strangers confuse you with a celebrity; other times, you happen to have the same name as someone on the terrorist watch list. In the first case, you may be flattered. In the second case, you may curse your parents, or your evil “twin”, as you as an TSA agent pads down every inch of you, feeling you up for bombs. With small, local restaurants, I occasionally encounter places with the same name. I usually assume that they’re sister restaurants, or a part of a local chain. I felt the same way when I encountered Sang Kee in University City (yelp review, official site). Isn’t this the same Sang Kee as the one in Chinatown (yelp review, official site), which is the same Sang Kee in Reading Terminal (yelp review, “official” site), and countless others dotting the greater Philadelphia area? As it turns out, Sang Kee in UC is more of a homonym to the Sang Kee in Chinatown than sister institutions. The Sang Kees in Philadelphia are known for their roasted ducks. In fact, two out of three Sang Kees have a logo similar to Huey, Dewey, and Louis in the famed Scrooge McDuck cartoon, stylized in psychedelic colors. Copyright infringement is a Chinese strong suit. The one Sang Kee that decided to steer clear of copyright infringement was in UC. I have tried the roasted duck at Chinatown’s Sang Kee, and found that they offer one of the more properly-made Cantonese-style roasted ducks in the US. I will go into a bit more detail on what makes a great roasted duck in the future, so stay tuned. As it turns out, UC’s Sang Kee also touts their roasted duck as one of the best.
On a Wednesday night, I went with a fellow foodie (JP) to Sang Kee in UC (yelp review, official site) because I didn’t feel like cooking. I have been to this Sang Kee before, but I really didn’t remember anything remarkable about the place except that the prices were a bit higher than the one in Chinatown. Usually, if a place is exceptionally good, or exceptionally bad, I would remember them. I tend to purge middle-of-the-road restaurants from my brain as it has a finite amount of space. JP was here with another friend a couple nights before, and they ordered the pan-seared pompano with soy sauce, the XO sauce tofu, and the piece de resistance -- roasted duck. She raved about the roasted duck and to some extent the tofu, but gave the pompano a thumbs down. Being adventurous, we decided to go with the saute satay chicken and the plum roasted duck after mulling over the little pictorial menu on the table and the regular menu. Being dyslexic when it doesn’t count, I ordered the Hong Kong plum roasted duck, thinking it was roasted duck with plum garlic sauce.
While we waited for our meal, JP and I talked about why the pompano was a failure. As she derided the chewy skin on the pompano, I watched the wait staff served other tables around me. With the pompano, the idea was that the pan-sear would crisp up the skin while the soy sauce added a salty, moist contrast to a crunchy exterior, a la tempuras. Under correct execution, it would have been perfection -- except perfection would only be within the 2-3 minutes after the chef pours on the soy sauce -- tops. By the time the bus staff brought out the dish, placed the dish onto a serving tray on a stand, and the wait staff brought it to the table, a good 5 minutes minimum would have passed before they brought the dish to the table, all the while the pompano was basking in its own soy sauce juice, the skin soaking up the liquid, and getting soggier by the minute. No wonder the skin was chewy-- there is no way it would have arrived any other way with their rendition. The only way to get around that was to serve the dish, preferably on a hot cast iron plate, with seasoned soy sauce served on the side, and the diner would add the sauce to the sizzling plate at the table, or dip the fish into the sauce.
The duck arrived while we finished our discussion on the pompano. It was undoubtedly a Hong Kong style roasted duck, complete with brown jus on the plate and on the side. The brown jus was the favorite part of my roasted duck ritual. I would add it to the accompanying rice, mixed it up, and downed the rice like I have been starved for days. The duck was tasty, but where was the plum garlic sauce? I tracked down 3 different wait staffs for the “plum sauce,” as I would called it. The first one gave me the brown jus that came with the duck. I kept the sauce because it was delicious, but I told them that wasn’t what I wanted. The second one brought me hoisin sauce. Finally, I asked the third wait staff, who took our order, in Chinese for the plum sauce. She then told me I didn’t order the duck with plum garlic sauce but instead ordered the Hong Kong roasted duck. My dyslexic self finally had an epiphany-- no wonder I didn’t get my plum sauce! I ordered the wrong stuff! The waitress then said, no problem though, I’ll bring you some to try. She then brought out this brown color, partially translucent sauce with numerous garlic floating inside. I tried the sauce: plenty sweet, not a lot of sour, and certainly tasted nothing like plum. JP and I sat there, bemused, tried to take that all in, when the saute satay chicken arrived.
The little pictorial menu depicted the saute satay chicken as a dry saute dish -- no sauce, just satay and chicken with vegetables. This plate of satay chicken was floating in a sea of brown gravy. The button mushrooms were still whole, scattering around the dish along with some green vegetable and carrots. If there were rules against false advertisement, this dish would have made the cut with the brown gravy alone. I don’t mind mushrooms so the addition was not troublesome-- or so I thought. I bit into the mushroom and it felt barely cooked, maybe even raw, inside. The good news was that mushrooms can be consumed raw, I told myself. The chicken was marinated and had some flavors, but where was the satay? I said to JP, “I’m depressed right now” as I looked into her eyes, asking for reassurance. There was no satay taste with the dish! She then tried it and said the same thing. We wondered what happened to this dish while we picked out the vegetables so we would get some greens in our diet, drowning our sorrow with jus-soaked rice and roasted duck. At the end of the meal, I tried the brown gravy again just to make sure my first impression was correct, and it turned out I wasn’t too far from the truth. While there was satay flavor in the brown gravy, it only made up maybe 10-20% of the gravy’s entire flavor profile, and I wouldn’t even have tasted it had I not tried it after flushing my taste buds. If this dish wasn’t violating any FTC rules on false advertisement before, it certainly would have been by now. The duck’s flavor was so strong that it overwhelmed any sense of satay in this dish -- not that there was much to begin with.
While we waited for our check, I looked around the dining room filled with patrons. Some were celebrating their birthday, others stopped in for a quick bite before getting back to the grind. I felt bad for the patrons, especially the birthday celebration table there, who spent their hard earn money at a mediocre place on their special occasion, but I felt worse for the Sang Kee in Chinatown (yelp review, official site). That Sang Kee would only attain such popularity on weekend lunch and dinner -- they would never dream of having this kind of crowd on an uneventful Wednesday night. Yet, the quality of the Chinatown Sang Kee’s saute dishes were far superior to this Sang Kee in University City (yelp review, official site). The Sang Kee in University City would not have survived under the wheels of gastronomy outside University City, just like the saute satay chicken couldn’t hold up against the flavorful duck. Simply put, there were no better Chinese options in this neck of the woods.
As we paid our bill, our waitress informed me that this Sang Kee is not owned by the same folks as the one in Chinatown. No wonder they don’t bear the same psychedelic duck tale logo as their counterparts. The University City Sang Kee is a homonym to the Chinatown Sang Kee indeed.
On a Wednesday night, I went with a fellow foodie (JP) to Sang Kee in UC (yelp review, official site) because I didn’t feel like cooking. I have been to this Sang Kee before, but I really didn’t remember anything remarkable about the place except that the prices were a bit higher than the one in Chinatown. Usually, if a place is exceptionally good, or exceptionally bad, I would remember them. I tend to purge middle-of-the-road restaurants from my brain as it has a finite amount of space. JP was here with another friend a couple nights before, and they ordered the pan-seared pompano with soy sauce, the XO sauce tofu, and the piece de resistance -- roasted duck. She raved about the roasted duck and to some extent the tofu, but gave the pompano a thumbs down. Being adventurous, we decided to go with the saute satay chicken and the plum roasted duck after mulling over the little pictorial menu on the table and the regular menu. Being dyslexic when it doesn’t count, I ordered the Hong Kong plum roasted duck, thinking it was roasted duck with plum garlic sauce.
While we waited for our meal, JP and I talked about why the pompano was a failure. As she derided the chewy skin on the pompano, I watched the wait staff served other tables around me. With the pompano, the idea was that the pan-sear would crisp up the skin while the soy sauce added a salty, moist contrast to a crunchy exterior, a la tempuras. Under correct execution, it would have been perfection -- except perfection would only be within the 2-3 minutes after the chef pours on the soy sauce -- tops. By the time the bus staff brought out the dish, placed the dish onto a serving tray on a stand, and the wait staff brought it to the table, a good 5 minutes minimum would have passed before they brought the dish to the table, all the while the pompano was basking in its own soy sauce juice, the skin soaking up the liquid, and getting soggier by the minute. No wonder the skin was chewy-- there is no way it would have arrived any other way with their rendition. The only way to get around that was to serve the dish, preferably on a hot cast iron plate, with seasoned soy sauce served on the side, and the diner would add the sauce to the sizzling plate at the table, or dip the fish into the sauce.
The duck arrived while we finished our discussion on the pompano. It was undoubtedly a Hong Kong style roasted duck, complete with brown jus on the plate and on the side. The brown jus was the favorite part of my roasted duck ritual. I would add it to the accompanying rice, mixed it up, and downed the rice like I have been starved for days. The duck was tasty, but where was the plum garlic sauce? I tracked down 3 different wait staffs for the “plum sauce,” as I would called it. The first one gave me the brown jus that came with the duck. I kept the sauce because it was delicious, but I told them that wasn’t what I wanted. The second one brought me hoisin sauce. Finally, I asked the third wait staff, who took our order, in Chinese for the plum sauce. She then told me I didn’t order the duck with plum garlic sauce but instead ordered the Hong Kong roasted duck. My dyslexic self finally had an epiphany-- no wonder I didn’t get my plum sauce! I ordered the wrong stuff! The waitress then said, no problem though, I’ll bring you some to try. She then brought out this brown color, partially translucent sauce with numerous garlic floating inside. I tried the sauce: plenty sweet, not a lot of sour, and certainly tasted nothing like plum. JP and I sat there, bemused, tried to take that all in, when the saute satay chicken arrived.
The little pictorial menu depicted the saute satay chicken as a dry saute dish -- no sauce, just satay and chicken with vegetables. This plate of satay chicken was floating in a sea of brown gravy. The button mushrooms were still whole, scattering around the dish along with some green vegetable and carrots. If there were rules against false advertisement, this dish would have made the cut with the brown gravy alone. I don’t mind mushrooms so the addition was not troublesome-- or so I thought. I bit into the mushroom and it felt barely cooked, maybe even raw, inside. The good news was that mushrooms can be consumed raw, I told myself. The chicken was marinated and had some flavors, but where was the satay? I said to JP, “I’m depressed right now” as I looked into her eyes, asking for reassurance. There was no satay taste with the dish! She then tried it and said the same thing. We wondered what happened to this dish while we picked out the vegetables so we would get some greens in our diet, drowning our sorrow with jus-soaked rice and roasted duck. At the end of the meal, I tried the brown gravy again just to make sure my first impression was correct, and it turned out I wasn’t too far from the truth. While there was satay flavor in the brown gravy, it only made up maybe 10-20% of the gravy’s entire flavor profile, and I wouldn’t even have tasted it had I not tried it after flushing my taste buds. If this dish wasn’t violating any FTC rules on false advertisement before, it certainly would have been by now. The duck’s flavor was so strong that it overwhelmed any sense of satay in this dish -- not that there was much to begin with.
While we waited for our check, I looked around the dining room filled with patrons. Some were celebrating their birthday, others stopped in for a quick bite before getting back to the grind. I felt bad for the patrons, especially the birthday celebration table there, who spent their hard earn money at a mediocre place on their special occasion, but I felt worse for the Sang Kee in Chinatown (yelp review, official site). That Sang Kee would only attain such popularity on weekend lunch and dinner -- they would never dream of having this kind of crowd on an uneventful Wednesday night. Yet, the quality of the Chinatown Sang Kee’s saute dishes were far superior to this Sang Kee in University City (yelp review, official site). The Sang Kee in University City would not have survived under the wheels of gastronomy outside University City, just like the saute satay chicken couldn’t hold up against the flavorful duck. Simply put, there were no better Chinese options in this neck of the woods.
As we paid our bill, our waitress informed me that this Sang Kee is not owned by the same folks as the one in Chinatown. No wonder they don’t bear the same psychedelic duck tale logo as their counterparts. The University City Sang Kee is a homonym to the Chinatown Sang Kee indeed.
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