“The chopsticks are flying again”: Hot Duck, Uppermill, reviewed

Hei Hei Eaterie is known as the best Chinese takeaway in Uppermill. Open since 2012, it has become the Pavlovian answer to anyone who likes Chinese on a Saddleworth Saturday night.

Not content with traipsing the local market in a high-end, sofa-standard Chinese takeaway, it has now opened its own restaurant upstairs – with a dumb waiter when you need one.

Hot Duck walks like a Chinese restaurant and poops like a Chinese one, but looks a lot sizzler, sleeker and more modern, all with stylish understatement and rounded edges. In many ways, you wouldn’t know the food on offer if you had just left the furniture, but then why should it matter? It’s about what comes to the table.

I’m happy to say these weren’t your snake oil salesman’s idea of ​​a Bao bun

The light sign on the side street next to Hei Hei invites you in and up the stairs. After all, if you want to ensure appetite spikes and intrigue, make them work for it. Luckily, this is the last job you’ll do all evening. After that, there’s a carousel of dim sum, shrimp toast and everything you came for.

Hot Duck’s approach to ordering is refreshingly straightforward, with one side of the paper containing everything you need and a pen to tick off anything that’s bothering you. This, that, a bit of the other. Tick, tick, tick. Well, we have two.

Do I even need to say we started with prawn crackers (£5). What right-minded person in their right mind and body would order anything else? Of course, there’s never enough, but isn’t that shrimp crackers? They’re there in the early salvo, cannon fodder to be crushed under the wheels of rampant appetites, knocked off in search of spare ribs and steamed dumplings.

Prawn Cracker Anticipation (matched only by Poppadom Impatience) is one of the great trials of restaurant dining, pitting you against a vague and uncertain clock with only snacks for company. Provided this doesn’t turn into a Galileo trial, it’s usually worth the wait.

The first to appear over the horizon was the prawn toast (£7). Shaped like a perfect triangle and smothered in sesame seeds, the slice looked like a cartoonish, sarcastically accurate depiction of a shrimp toast and tasted exactly as you’d hoped. A cobbled, crunchy top layer of deliciously oily seeds gives way to a rich shrimp paste that, unlike your lesser efforts, had actually come into contact with shellfish. Also, the plate it was served on was more than kitschy, which I enjoyed.

Dim sum is a must. Even if it’s just one lump, it gets everything going. And if a Chinese restaurant makes good dim sum, chances are you’re in for a treat. We jumped at the chance and had the jiaozi pork and prawn dumplings (£8), which proved the enduring strength of that unusual pairing. The crustacean flavor of the shrimp emphasized the fattiness of the ground pork, and when a touch of soy is splashed on top, a perfect triangle of flavors is created that makes things move ahead of the food.

Salt and pepper. What a combo. Forever bound together, but for good reason. Lennon and McCartney, Fire and Brimstone, Salt and Pepper. We always go for the tantalizing chicken wings (£9). The wings were plump, well seasoned and juicy. A generous serving of those soft, spicy onions and a touch of fiery chili you can find when it’s too late and you’ve had an appetizer that leaves you chewing on the leg of the table for whatever comes next.

Last in our small selection of starters were the toasted bao buns (£7). Normally I’d say I’m fine and really bad. Their popularity in recent years and the atmosphere of their easy execution is so great that they have become ammunition for every chancellor with a mixed menu and a few tables and chairs. Too much fluff and not enough substance.