JUQI — Restaurant in New York

Came here for an early Father's Day lunch and did not regret it. Presentation of the food was meticulous and taste met my expectations. Ordering the duck is a must - it is an culinary experience in of itself.

We walked in as a party of 4 around 2pm. Considering that it was the weekend, and that the mall was packed, I was expecting to wait for half an hour or so, but we got the text saying our table was ready within 15 minutes.

Regarding service, there are some concessions that must be made considering that this is restaurant is in Flushing. As I don't speak Mandarin, I did have to clarify a couple of times that we were trying to get seated and not order takeout to the front desk, but we figured it out after showing our text.

Ordering was a relatively painless process - they give you a tablet with accurate photos of the food, you select the items you wish to order, and then call the waitress to put the order through. Note that the menu sections were completely written in Mandarin, but the food descriptions were written in English.

These were the dishes we ordered in order from best to worst in my opinion:

The star of the show: Juqi Homemade Roast Duck (whole) - A feast for the eyes and the stomach. They carve the whole duck right by your table, and the crispiest slivers of duck skin are served with caviar and bread. The standard accompanying fixings - pickled vegetables, cucumbers, spring onions, Chun Bing, and sauce - are arranged on a beautiful wooden chest to the delight of the Instagram addict.

The duck was the best I've ever had in NYC, and honestly, maybe even China. Hands down. Skin is so crispy, and somehow the meat does not have the slightest hint of a gamey taste. Towards the end of the meal, even though we were stuffed, we just kept eating the duck; it's that addicting.

After the carving of the meat has completed, they will ask you if you want to turn the remaining bones into soup or stir fry - pick the soup if you enjoy traditional Chinese soups. (We do)

Pork Braised in Brown Sauce - I would order this again. It's cooked in a way such that the sauce worked its way into the fat of the pork belly and the stir fried quail eggs. I normally don't have a big portion of meat that is too fatty, but this dish tempted me to otherwise.

Fried Leaf Mustard in Casserole - I did not particularly love this dish, but it served the role of a much needed palette cleanser while we ate the pork and duck. I wish they had included more fungus in the dish.

Seafood Hot & Sour Soup - Nothing noteworthy, a standard soup

Mashed Potato in Shape of Master Hare Doll - I ordered this purely to amuse my inner child. It did not amuse my palette or my wallet; it's essentially potato salad. Despite this, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the waitress mix the potato Master Hare into nothingness...

Service (5/5): You jump on a virtual queue using an iPad at the front entrance where they update the wait times depending on your party size. They provided a toothpick and hand wipes at the start of the dining experience that you can use for later. The food came out all at once with lightening speed so we definitely were not prepared for that. They also packed up all our food for us! Ambiance (5/5): The inside is beautifully ornate with detailed decorations throughout. The back has private dining rooms and private space as well. The way to the bathroom is gorgeous. Drinks: The cocktails were delicious and also beautiful. Food: The dishes were all beautifully plated. Some with extra flare in the presentation (displayed in chests, fire, dry ice, chefs cut the duck in front of you, etc.) The below are the dishes from best to worst: • Sliced Beef in Chili Oil (5/5): this was my favorite but also I love spice. For several at our table, it was too spicy. The meat was very tender! • Peking Duck (5/5): the crispy bite with caviar on it was divine. The duck comes with several sheets of wraps to enjoy. A worker also helped to demonstrate how to make them prior to. The gloves were necessary to keep the mess contained. • Pork Belly Casserole (5/5) – the braised pork belly was very tender, not dry at all, and had a nice flavor. • Eggplant (5/5): this is such a unique way to cook eggplant! The bites were lightly battered and fried. I loved it. • Crispy Shrimp (4/5): Lightly battered but delicious and perfectly cooked. I don’t usually eat shrimp so I can’t rate it with justice. • Leaf Mustard (4/5): Cooked with a nice crisp. • Stir fried sliced fish (3/5): This was way too thick of a batter. While the taste of the batter was good, it didn’t feel like I was eating much of the fish. • Lucky Bag (2/5): The dumplings were beautifully presented but lacked any sort of flavor. • Fried Tofu (2/5): Came with ketchup and mustard but the tofu itself had zero flavor. Inside was soft tofu which surprised me. • Mr. Rabbit Mashed Potato (1/5): the picture was nice but the taste fell flat. Something about how it tastes was...

I was really excited to have dinner at Juqi last night but this restaurant did not live up to my expectations. We had a reservation for 9pm, we arrived at 8:45 and were seated immediately. After, a waiter came over and provided us with the menu which was on the ipad. However, we could not switch the language to English so it was difficult to navigate from page to page. After putting the food items in the cart, another woman came over to confirm and submit the order, it really felt as if she was rushing us. We also ordered a bottle of white wine and for some reason, two servers came to our table with red wine first then after informing them of our order, they came back with the white wine. For appetizers we ordered the lychee shrimp balls and steamed dumplings. Appetizers were delicious but came out at room temperature. For entree, we ordered the full duck that came with the chest. The presentation was amazing and love that they duck was carved in front of us. Once we received our entree, we didnt have space on the table so the servers had to remove our appetizers, which I wanted to continue eating. When we ordered I did ask if we had enough space for our dinner and the server said yes but this was not the case. The duck was good but we have had better. Throughout our dining experience, we had so much traffic walking by our table because we were the first table as soon as you enter and I did ask for another table but they were busy. Along with this we didnt have one server but multiple different servers which did not make this experience great. Also, when the table beside us finished eating, the woman who rushed us to order started cleaning the table and dropping food and plates on the floor right next to us while we were eating, the food fell basically close to my feet and she just walked away. Overall, the actual food was okay but I will not be returning because this dinner felt so rushed and the only person server who was friendly was Tang. We left dinner at 9:40pm. We didnt even spend an hour there die to how rushed we felt. Very disappointed with this experience and really wanted...