RESTORAN JIN FATT (Seremban)

Daisy Duck, Daffy Duck, Daphne Duck, Donald Duck, Moby Duck – all are but fictional duck characters, but Seremban Roast Duck is worth checking out for anyone visiting Seremban town for the weekend.

Laughing over the Cantonese proverbial saying, “Ducks don’t communicate with chickens”, restaurant proprietor, Au Siw Wah joked: “Here, we don’t talk about chicken; we only talk about Duck Rice for a change!”

His Duck Rice, in fact, has become very popular to the locals for many years. He mixes the ingredients from the ducks to prepare what he calls “Seremban Jin Fatt’s Duck Rice” that goes well with the crispy roast duck meat fresh from the oven. A plate enough for a good meal costs only RM4.

“Our prices are also very reasonable,” he said, while removing a whole bird from the specially-fabricated oven. “A whole duck costs only RM42 and a whole family can enjoy it in the comfort of their own home.”

During festive seasons, especially the eve of Chinese New Year, his roast ducks are very sellable. “We usually start to take orders about three weeks before the Chinese New Year,” he said. “We try to fulfill every order, and for festive season, it’s slightly more expensive.”

To make sure his duck meat is crispy, he uses the locally-bred Peking duck, which he claims to taste better.

Firstly, the bird is marinated with honey and vinegar for six hours to give it the roasted brown colour, before it is slowly roasted for about 45 minutes. “This is why our customers find our duck skin more crispy and tastier,” he said.

Thanks to a chef friend of his who was willing to teach him a new set of skills making roast duck in 1992, after these years of experimenting with the roasting technique, his roast duck has become very popular in Seremban.

When the 51-year-old from Mambau first started operating their roast duck business out of Jalan Tuanku Munawir together his wife, Wong Yoke Moy, he was only 32. Then, his eldest son, Au Wei Quan was only four years old, but now Wei Quan is 23, and together with his two other siblings, Shi Yen, 20 and Wei Cheng, 18, they help in the family business which can get quite busy during lunch hours and during weekends.

He wasn’t even ambitious. What he had in mind was just a simple thought: to earn a decent living. His business selling joss sticks and other paraphernalia used for Chinese ancestral worship was not doing well and he had tried something new.

Today, if you ask Au which he prefers, he would ask: “Duck business, of course!” With a quack, quack here, and a quack, quack there, people in Seremban already know him as the Roast Duck man. “I wouldn’t trade anything for my roast duck business,” he said.

Restoran Jin Fatt is located at 175 Jalan Tunku Munawir near the Seremban Central Market and on the way to Chung Hwa High School. Contact tel: 017-6571561 / 017-6777959. They are open six days a week, except Mondays, from 9am through 5pm.