Cheapest Roast Duck In Singapore - $13.90 !

Recently, my weekends have been spent on driving lessons at Ubi. Once per week either on Saturday or Sunday and usually 3 hours straight. I am not quite sure how those taxi drivers managed to stay awake on the roads, but I find long hours driving exhausting. My concentration drifted off after one and half hours of driving….

Then at one of the U-Turn point, I always noticed a lot of cars parked at the side along a stretch of road. (Actually, I am always cursing them for blocking my way…) Then, there will be queue at one of the shop house. Of course, how can curious me pass-by without finding out what is going on?

One day, I requested to my driving instructor to let me off there…I happily hopped out of the car, whipped out my camera and looked on curiously at the queue. I noticed the long queue forming in front of a particular shop.

Strangely… the queue is made up of mostly Aunties and Uncles. They were queuing in front of a roast meat shop.

The roast meat shop or Roaster is called Yan Chuan or in Chinese 炎全烧腊.

It is actually wholesaler shop, specialising in Cantonese style roast meat, roast duck and cha siew. Guess what caused the long queue?

Their Pekingese Roast Duck (more like roast duck, explain later) only cost $13.90 which is unbelievable cheap! Reputable roast duck stall charges about $30 plus dollars for one whole roast duck! Take the famous Toa Payoh Lorong 1 roast duck, Hua Fong Kee, as example, half a duck cost $17 dollars already…

I am not sure what is the market price for roast suckling pig, but I supposed it should be cheaper - $128 for one whole pig.

I found out that the roast meats are freshly roasted next to the shop. Coincidentally, one batch of roast ducks just came out of the roaster and I have never seen anything so “magnificent” before. They did not just roasted like 5 or 6 ducks per time. They were like 50 ducks hanging on the racks.

Ok, for vegetarian, I admit that it does looked a bit scary – somewhat like a scene from the horror movie “Hell Raiser”…

Someone also ordered a roast pig from them while I was there. As I was queuing myself, thus missed the opportunity to take photo of the roasted pig…

Hot from the over, these amber coloured ducks have shiny amour-like skin which glittered beautifully under the flash lights.

I bought a roast duck that day and some roast pork. I was quite surprised that the duck was still hot when I reached home. Though it was called “Peking Duck”, the skin was not as crispy as I imagine it would be, but the meat was surprisingly juicy and somewhat tender. Maybe it was freshly out of the oven, I guess.

At $13.90, the duck is considered a good buy, very worthwhile and could rival some of those neighbourhood hawker centre’s roast duck stalls. However taste-wise, Toa Payoh Hua Fong Kee’s still win hand down.

Yan Chuan Roaster(s) Pte Ltd is located at Ubi Ave 2. Peking Duck cost $13.90 and Roast Meat cost $10 dollars per Kg.