Life here is like a hurricane, here in Duckburg. Race cars, lasers, and aeroplanes, it's a duck blur. A duck blur is exactly what I experienced at Hawkers on 14th street. Oh, by the way, if you didn't know what the hell the first two sentences were, here is youtube to help you out... But I mention that it's a blur because the dictionary tells me 'blur' is something that's indistinct, hazy in outline or appearance. So, something that was supposed to be duck bun, looks and quacks like a duck bun, but wasn't necessarily a duck bun.

Steph and I walked by Hawkers on 14th street between 2nd and 3rd ave, and thought the menu was interesting. It's basically a take on Asian street food, at prices that Asians wouldn't pay for street food. You follow me? So the Flushing Beijing Duck buns were $1 dollar each. In contrast, pork buns at Momofuku are around $5 after taxes. Here, you get two duck buns for $7.35 after taxes so that's like a little more than $3.50 for a bun. What we have is a duck bun priced between the Flushing-cheap-as-shit model, and the Momo model of my-dead-pigs-ate-better-than-folks-on-food-stamps model. So what's the verdict?

I dug into the first one and it was alright. They had some slivers of cucumbers that provided nice crunch, and extra hoison sauce on the side if you needed it. The duck was meatier than the one at Flushing, but the skin wasn't crispy at all. The advertised crispy duck buns but no crispy here. Then Steph tried hers... first bite and she didn't even finishing biting through it before she figured out she didn't get duck. All she got was duck fat. That piece you see in the picture, that's the 'duck' that was in her bun. I like duck buns. And maybe one could make a duck fat bun, but when you're selling duck buns, don't give me duck fat buns.

Then we got to thinking... suppose the cook was in the back and was like "A take-out order for duck buns? Do I wanna cut another duck just for that or just give them this piece that's only fat? Would they actually take-out and come back to complain?" If we just revisit the bribing issue... if you're making a duck bun for someone that you invite to your restaurant to eat for free, I think you make damn sure you're not offering up just a piece of fat. If you're making it for a random customer in the store, you might be less inclined to make every bun perfect, but you might do enough so it won't get sent back. But if you're making it for take-out... do you care less? That's my thought about restaurants that cater mostly to dine-in clients...

Lastly, I wanna offer the Duck Tales song in French. It's different from the English version but just as great. Apparently they had the show in all sorts of languages... youtube.

Hawkers
225 E 14th St.
New York, NY 10003
212-982-1688

Posted by Danny on August 16, 2010 at 12:05 pm

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• @James,

  hahahahahaha wow

  Danny
  September 13, 2010 10:23 am

• YOU MIGHT SOLVE A MYSTERY

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmpAx8Z5z40

  James
  September 12, 2010 4:26 pm

• the original food in mouth. accept no substitutes or imposters.

  Jonathan
  August 18, 2010 11:13 am

• @Jonathan,

  Seriously. No poseur zone.

  Danny
  August 18, 2010 4:02 pm

• I'm all for inclusion of fat in foods... when it's tastefully done. There's nothing greater than a 1/2 fat 1/2 pork gua bao in my mind. When you shove pure fat into a sandwich, or serve pork slices that are 75% fat and tell me to to like it after paying? That'd be crossing the line. I actually do wonder what they would've done had you gone back though...

  Nicholas
  August 17, 2010 9:04 am

• @Ang,

  They are indeed selling Southeast Asian street food. All we wanted to try was the duck bun because everything else looked pricey for a snack. We walked by around 5pm on a sunday. No crowds.

  @Nicholas,

  Oh yea, braised fats are super awesome. Roasted fat is sometimes not as awesome, especially like you said, it's kinda billed as a thing with meat. They probably would have replaced it if we had gone back, I think most places would do that. But hey, treat your take-out customers with the same consistency as the dine-in customers. I know that if they're reading it, they might be like, 'fuck, we are better than that.' And they very well might. The bigger thing I wonder is if traditional sit down restaurants care about take-out folks as much. Who knows though...

  Danny
  August 17, 2010 10:45 am

• I saw a blurb about this place in the NYT last week, which billed it as a restaurant selling Southeast Asian street food. Did you guys get anything else? And was it crowded?

  ANg
  August 16, 2010 6:06 pm