Thirty-two ducks rotate on sturdy metal hooks hanging from the ceiling of two walk-in ovens at Vinh Phat, a tiny Vietnamese barbecue on North Sheridan. Another dozen birds cool on a wire rack, a deep pan underneath them to catch the fat drippings. In a heated glass display case up front, cooled ducks hang by their necks. A prep cook stands behind the counter with cleaver in hand, ready to chop one into a dozen perfectly even pieces, which he’ll tuck into a foil to-go container along with a piquant sweet sauce.
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Vong and his wife came to Chicago in 1978 and settled in Uptown. He was 25 at the time and relieved to get out of the Malaysian refugee camp where they’d spent eight months living in a shack he’d built out of scraps. He worked as an auto mechanic for 11 years. After getting laid off, he went to work at his friend’s supermarket, Trung Viet. When the market moved to a bigger space next door, Vong considered renting the vacated storefront to open a restaurant, something he’d always dreamed of. He was swayed after a two-week visit to Orange County, where several of his friends from Vietnam ran barbecued duck shops.
Bay doesn’t speak English, so Robert translates for him as he explains his cooking method. “At the end of each day, he rubs the ducks with a mix of ginger, garlic powder, five-spice powder, black pepper, salt, and sugar.” Bay piles the ducks onto a pan, covers them with plastic wrap, and lets them cure overnight. The next morning he sets two huge woks boiling–one filled with water, the other with a mix of water and the spice rub. He briefly dips each duck into the boiling water, to remove the spices from overnight, then into the spiced water, where he leaves them for a minute or so to absorb the flavor and render some of the fat.
–Laura Levy Shatkin
