Shanghai You Garden opens inside 99 Ranch in Westbury

A Peking duck powerhouse from Queens has officially opened its third location at the 99 Ranch Market food court in Westbury.

A cult favorite since 2016, Shanghai You Garden has been a pivotal stop on any Flushing food tour. The shop/restaurant is famous for its juicy Peking duck wrapped in puffy white bao (at $2.50 apiece, a snack for kings). The original stall across the street from the New World Mall in downtown Flushing draws people in with a glowing diorama of duck figurines, hanging from chains inside a flaming oven. The kitschy display looks like a Chinese version of a yule log fireplace.

The Westbury location has all this too. The flaming ducks act as a lighthouse, drawing you in toward the real Peking duck, which hangs from a rack behind the counter. But there's also a staggering menu of soup dumplings and other Shanghainese dishes like their salted tofu pudding, silken and savory as it jiggles in your spoon.

The largest city in China, Shanghai boasts a lot of heavy hitters of Chinese cuisine, but it's perhaps most well known for its soup dumplings. Shanghai You Garden takes a festive approach by dying them different colors for every filling, using natural food colorings made from veggies and squid powders. The Lucky Six combo ($10.95) lets you taste all the different varieties in their multicolored splendor, and keeps well in a takeout box, as the dough is on the thicker side. The dumpling menu is large for such a tiny storefront, and it also includes the larger bowl-sized soup dumpling ($6.95) that you can pierce with a straw, plus some solid sheng jian bao ($9.50), pork buns with crispy fried bottoms. 

Surprisingly, a simple Shanghainese side dish of sauteed snow pea leaves is packed with a powerful garlic flavor. Alongside all these fatty dumplings and roasted fowl, the greens are a godsend and well worth the $21.95 price tag. But if you're going to Shanghai You Garden for anything other than the Peking duck, you're missing out. This food court version, packed into a plastic takeout container, had crisper skin and more flavorful meat than many upscale restaurants. And at $18.95 for a half duck with enough meat for leftovers, it's a steal. Or,, just stop by for a piece wrapped up like a taco in the puffy white dough. Served in a decorative paper box and garnished with sweet hoisin and slivers of leeks and green onion, it's one precious bite. 

Shanghai You Garden, 1500 Old Country Rd., Suite 112, Unit 103, Westbury, 516-832-8800, shanghaiyougardennyc.com. Open 10:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. daily. 

By Andi Berlin

andi.berlin@newsday.com

Andi Berlin is from Arizona and does not know where she is going. But when she gets there, she’ll find something beautiful and delicious that the world needs to taste.