2-10 Kensington St, Chippendale NSW 2008, Australia
Restaurant
•Book your next event at Holy Duck and ...and treat your guests to Modern Chinese Delights. Located on the ground floor of The Old Rum Store, in the bustling Kensington Street precinct. Bright, Bold and Fun the restaurant includes an open duck bar, traditional heritage walls, neon lights and tables ready for a banquet. The space has all the well-loved elements of a Hong Kong eatery but with a modern east meets west twist. In China, coming together to dine with many is a treasured experience and Holy Duck! pays homage to this tradition with specially designed share menus. The menu pays tribute to all of the traditional Chinese dishes, with our chefs turning them into modern favourites. Holy Duck! is a nod to the joys of street food, whilst staying true to top-quality produce and exciting flavour combinations. A true showcase of next-level Chinese BBQ and roasts, with duck at the core of our menu, to give an otherworldly flavour experience.
Brought to you by the king of modern Chinese cuisine, Chefs Gallery. This place is best known for artfully transforming traditional Chinese dishes into modern favourites. We give a nod to the joys of street food, whilst staying true to us...
We went last week with my friend on Tuesday night. It was very busy around 7pm and less staff, however they still were very attentive and caring, especially Katie, she is very friendly and professional. I ordered the signature crispy duck, dumpling and seafood fried rice. The duck was amazing, even you can eat the bone as well ( so crispy). Drink was average, like lychee cocktail. Just a bit down point of table setting, quite narrow and close to other table.
The food at Holy Duck was very tasty and well cooked. However, the service was not great. The male staff member was friendly and helpful, but the female staff member was rough, throwing food on the table and almost making our plate fall. The food was amazing, but the service needs to be better!
Came for the all you can eat duck menu for $48. Started with duck spring rolls, you get 2 each and can reorder. We chose to move on so we could have the crispy duck. Next course was sang choy bao, I would have rathered more meat and less leaves. Then the duck fried rice and the signature crispy duck with pancakes, the first duck was very dry, the second one much better. You also get bottomless tea and ice cream. The cocktails were yummy and the service fast and efficient.
I want to preface this review by saying that, despite having disappointing experiences before, I've never felt compelled to write a review about it. We came for the All You Can Duck and, despite our tepid expectations, we left disappointed. The service was poor - we made the reservation at 7.30pm and on arrival, were ignored and got seated after a group of 4 who arrived at the same time as us, but did not have a reservation. Upon seating, it took about 10 minutes for the waiter to come and ask us for our order. We promptly told them we booked the all you can duck course, and they asked us for a booking confirmation. I questioned why we would need to show this, as we expected this sort of information should have been reflected on our booking in their system. The waiter completely ignored me and still demanded to see our booking confirmation. The rules regarding the all you can duck were incredibly restrictive and outright egregious. We were required to go through the menu, one dish at a time, and if we moved to the next dish, we weren’t able to go back and reorder a previous item. This did not make much sense to us once the food came out - the earlier dishes, the spring rolls, san choy bow and duck fried rice, were incredibly stingy in terms of the meat and filling. I don’t see the reason why someone would not be able to order more of these items, especially since they inherently have less substance than the last dish - the duck pancakes. Further, we were told we could not order until we finished our current course (eg when we get the order of spring rolls , we need to finish the spring rolls before asking to order another plate). This was incredibly frustrating because each dish would take 15 minutes to come out, and we would struggle to get the attention of the staff, some of whom would actively avoid eye contact. We spent a significant portion of our 90 minutes either waiting for food to arrive or waiting to order. The food itself was also not good. The spring rolls were mainly comprised of the wrapping paper - there was close to no filling in each one and they were drowning in sweet chili sauce, instead of having the sauce in its own bowl separately. Each san choy bow had a third of a teaspoon of filling (mostly green beans too) and we couldn’t hold back our laughter when we saw it. The ratio of lettuce to filling was borderline comical and, bluntly, embarrassing. The duck fried rice was similar - an experienced archaelogist may have found some duck in there, but to the ordinary layman, "fried rice" would have been a better name for this dish. The highlight was the duck pancakes, however, even this had significant faults. The pancakes were dry and doughy. The duck was extremely dry and was overcooked to the point where the flavour of the duck had long disappeared. In order to combat the dryness of the pancake and duck, you had to douse the entire pancake in hoisin sauce - also detracting away from the dish. We tried to order as much of this dish as we could as we wanted to get our money's worth, and it was frustrating, given how long it would take for the kitchen to cook, that we could not order in advance while we were still eating the current serving. We spent the entirety of the 90 minutes constantly waiting for food to arrive because of how small the portions were and how long each dish would take to arrive. We still left the venue hungry - which says quite a lot given we had a significant amount of time to digest throughout the meal. In summary I would not recommend this to anyone, and I could not see any redeeming qualities from our experience. After reading the other reviews here I question why they still have this option available - our experience seems to be shared by everyone else. The service by the maître d’ was abysmal and I question how he even managed to get hired. The fact that a portion of my bill has gone towards his wages is the biggest disappointment of all. Perhaps he would be better suited to running TED talks on how to scam your way into a job you're not qualified for.
We had a really pleasant experience here! We had the $48pp AYCE experience and would say it is worth it. My personal favourites were the duck spring rolls and crispy duck pancakes. I was a bit worried seeing some of the reviews mention the duck being dry, but we personally found the duck to be cooked perfectly. We also really appreciated the great service we received throughout the night, they were very friendly and accommodating :-) I note that you are able to order as much as you want but in a set order i.e. you start with duck spring rolls and can order as much as you want. Once you decide to move on to the next course, you are unable to order duck spring rolls anymore but can order as much of your next course as you want, until you choose to move on again. We would definitely come back again :-)
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