Golden Moon, Sydney

EDIT: Golden Moon has closed


Peking Duck is my happy place. Part theatre, part luxury, eating a dish based purely on the crisp tiles of duck skin is like ordering a cake and having nothing but the icing for the first course - a deliriously decadent prospect.


Peking duck (2 courses) $49.80

At Golden Moon, the ducks are wood-smoked in brick ovens, visible through the glass windows of the open kitchen. A waiter trundles a trolley to our table, set with a glistening roasted duck on one side, cucumber and scallions on the other, and a bamboo steamer holding soft flour pancakes.

Carving the Peking duck

There is no conversation or welcoming chit chat as the waiter silently dons a pair of plastic gloves. With calm surgical precision, he slices the duck skin at an angle, taking a small layer of fat but taking care not to remove too much flesh. A second waiter stands nearby, quickly transferring each piece of duck skin to a pancake, resting it gently on top of a bed of cucumber and shredded scallions.


Duck pancakes

He dabs each fragment of skin with hoi sin sauce, and then hands them to us, ready to roll up and consume. There is plenty to go around. We are sharing a whole roast duck between three: gluttony loves company.

The duck pancake is amazingly good, a superb crisp skin that is sweet and smoky, shattering at first bite. Crisp skin, cool cucumber, peppery scallions, sweet hoisin and soft warm pancake. We feast like kings although by the fourth pancake, we're starting to realise you can have too much of a good thing. 


Roast duck

The second course of Peking Duck is usually served either as a stir-fry or shredded for san choy bau to be served in lettuce cups. We abandon both options and elect to have the duck simply chopped into pieces and brought to the table. I much prefer the duck this way, scraping the meat off with our teeth and sucking on the bones to taste the marinade of star anise and five spice.


Deep-fried tofu

We continue with deep-fried tofu, triangles of dry crunchy soy bean curd that are refreshed with a vinegar dressing served on the side.


Bean curd braised vegetable in Luohan style $16.80

Bean curd braised vegetable comes gift-wrapped with a thin skin of bean curd.


Tearing open the bean curd skin



We tear open the skin to find a huddle of mushrooms, bamboo shoots, carrots and white fungus bordered with baby bok choy. The oyster sauce is thick and sweet, and we relish the greens, which provide some welcome relief after the richness of the Peking duck.


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Golden Moon (CLOSED)

321-325 Sussex Street, Sydney

Tel: +61 (02) 9261 2177

Opening hours:

Open 7 days 11am-3pm, 5pm-4am