To be fair, when we arrived in Ninh Binh and were brought to the gorgeous Mountain Side Homestay by our gracious and kind host, whose name is, no kidding, Tony, it was already evening and we were hungry and wanted to get out to a restaurant ASAP to get something to eat. So Tony directed us to the same place he probably directs all the tourists, which was a bit of a letdown, if I’m honest. Of course, the Southeast Asia Escape Plan had not, despite its massive appeal and far-reaching readership, become all the rage in Ninh Binh yet, and so Tony didn’t know that we are not tourists and so do not crave burgers and pizza and spaghetti. He had no idea that we’ve already braved the dreaded bún dậu mắm tôm and earned some pretty serious cred in the streets of Hanoi and that we were sure to be disappointed in the fare at the tourist restaurants of Ninh Binh. So he had no way at all of knowing that what we really desired at this juncture was the mighty duck. The time had come. 

The food is everywhere in country. Everywhere. For example, you can see food in the form of  live chickens in cages strapped to the backs of motorbikes on their way to become delicious grilled chickens or chicken soup for the Vietnamese soul. You can see food walking along the roadside in the form of goats and cattle. You can see it in the massive fish caught by two young boys out of the pond by our homestay, which started to flop toward the water and freedom, but which the boys secured in time, and which you just know will be on the table in a few hours. Because despite their youth, these boys are serious fishermen, and so there’s no chance they’ll ever have to give foot massages to tourists on Decatur Street in New Orleans to make the old ends meet. You can see it in the shrimp and mollusks and cuttlefish and other sea creatures you buy at the street market that also flop around. And you can see it in the vegetables at the market that are so fresh even they flop and cry out in pain. You could lay money that whatever you’re eating in country was still alive only a short while ago. Except that you can’t because nobody’d be fool enough to bet against you. The food here is everywhere and it is fresh, fresh, fresh. So when you go out for the mighty duck in Ninh Binh you’re not only sure it was alive earlier that day, you’re also pretty sure you saw the poor bastard swimming and frolicking in the pond with its ducky friends. 

You can find the mighty duck on Google Maps, which is pretty surprising because it seems like a lot of the best food in country isn’t on Google Maps because it’s served on the street and not in a proper restaurant with a pronounceable name and website and reviews. But the mighty duck place is right there on the map, listed as Fire Roasted Duck and Pork, and it has five reviews that will not lead you astray. Fire Roasted Duck and Pork was just a seven-minute walk from the gorgeous Mountain Side Homestay so we hoof it because suggesting to Gina that we walk is a good way to get her to agree to have duck for dinner because she’s not a huge fan of duck. This was, of course, before she’d tasted the truly unctuous and mighty duck to be had at Fire Roasted Duck and Pork. 

Fire Roasted Duck and Pork is quite an operation to behold. It’s basically a food cart with a two by four foot open flame grill with spits that turn automatically at about the same rpm as a record player. The spits and the fan that blows constantly on the coals to stoke them bad boys up run on a small battery that probably came out of a motorbike. The whole ducks turn and turn and turn on their spits until they’re the perfect golden brown of perfectly fire-roasted ducks on the outside and juicy and unctuous on the inside. Whole means whole in country, so if you’re uncomfortable with seeing the head of the animal who gave its life so you can dine extravagantly on roasted meats, you should maybe forgo Fire Roasted Duck and Pork and have the mediocre burger or pizza or spaghetti instead. But if you’re like us and have absolutely no problem looking your dinner in its beady little eye and are even a little disappointed when you discover they didn’t give you the head when they hacked the poor bastard up, then you will be rewarded for your gustatory boldness with a truly unctuous fire-roasted-to-perfection duck that was plucked from the local pond just a few hours ago and is now your dinner. For this culinary delight, you will pay 160,000 dong for the entire bird sans tête, which in your filthy American lucre is a bargain at under seven dollars. 

They start serving the ducks at 6pm and go until they run out, which is inevitable and doesn’t take very long. There’s already a line of locals when we get there around 6:30. It’s worth pointing out that they always run out of duck before they sell any pork. And the night we went there was also a massive fish turning on a spit that could easily have been the same fish caught by the boys from the pond. It’s also worth pointing out that just around the corner there was another grill and spit and fan roasted duck operation that had no line whatsoever. And since this second place was right there in plain sight, it’s clear it’s not a secret that simply hasn’t been discovered by the local gourmands yet, and that the reason there’s no line surely has to do with the duck there not being as unctuous. I’m sure they sell out of their ducks after Fire Roasted Duck and Pork has sold out of ducks and pork and that massive fish, but not before.

You eat the truly unctuous fire-roasted-to-perfection duck with your hands, dipping it into the sweet and savory sauce they give you to dip it in. The juices will run down your arms and chin and you will use many of the little and not very absorbent napkins you find on the tables here in country. If you know what’s good for you, you will wash down your unctuous duck with a nice little Australian cabernet that winds up costing about as much as the duck, which isn’t very much at all because clearly the economics of the gorgeous Mountain Side Homestay are in a whole other universe compared to those of Hanoi. And this despite Tony’s wife being an accountant. 

“But wait a minute, Kampff,” you might think to yourself and be inclined to type into the comments section if there was one. “You’re practically rhapsodizing over these freaking ducks here. Don’t you think you’re maybe exaggerating just a little bit?”

Au contraire.

I’ve had duck before. Lots of it. I’ve had it prepared all sorts of ways at all sorts of restaurants. I’ve eaten Long Island duck with Long Island merlot at very posh Long Island restaurants. I’ve eaten Peking Duck in the Chinatowns of NYC and Philadelphia. I’ve had duck confited and gumboed and l’oranged. I’ve eaten duck foie gras and duck tongue soup because, when it comes to food, I think anything goes (and so will you when the ecological shit really hits the fan). Given a choice between a duck egg or a chicken egg, I ask, “What sort of animal do you take me for?” And I do so indignantly. If there’s duck on the menu, there’s every chance I’m ordering it. I even use the phrase “fuck a duck” when the occasion demands it. And I tell you in no uncertain terms that the duck at Fire Roasted Duck and Pork is by far the best I’ve ever eaten ever.  

But it’s not just the unctuousness and juices and sweet and savory complexity of the sauce that makes the duck at Fire Roasted Duck and Pork so good. It’s also the deep, practically evolutionary, satisfaction of eating a premium waterfowl that has been snatched that very morning from its carefree life on the pond and roasted to perfection over an open fire that is such a clear reminder of the way food ought to be prepared and which, sadly, you just don’t see in the States. Because Americans have clearly lost the plot food-wise. For example, we take perfectly plump chickens that have been raised in factory-farm conditions that are so disturbing it’s illegal to photograph them and what do we do with them? We turn them into dinosaur-shaped nuggets so our snotty kids can dip them in ketchup because they are picky eaters, for fuck’s sake. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. This is no way to respect the cock. The Vietnamese, who don’t even have a word for picky eater in Vietnamese, have it right. They know that a premium waterfowl such as the mighty duck should be respectfully snatched and killed and prepared and hacked into pieces using only time-honored traditional methods that include skewering the poor bastard from its ass through its neck and turning it on an automatic spit over an open flame that is constantly being stoked by a motorbike battery-powered fan on a roadside in Ninh Binh. This is the way.