In advance of today’s self-funded search event, the organizer hosted a dinner for all of the speakers and sponsors. Since the event is in the financial district and he is a foodie, he picked a Peking duck restaurant in Chinatown. It was one of those restaurants with such a literal, on-the-nose name that you know it is the real deal, complete with a large flag overhanging the sidewalk with a duck on it, and it did not disappoint.

The first time I experienced Peking duck I was in Peking, or Beijing as we now call it. It was a trip during a January term in college. There, they kept bringing out more duck and more beer and more duck and more beer. Before the meal ended one of the chaperones fell out of his chair, and it wasn’t from eating too much. That incident and how much I enjoyed the duck were the two standout memories of that evening though I have many other fond and not-so-fond memories of that crazy trip.

In comparison, this was a much tamer affair. No one had more than a drink or two, people discussed business topics and swapped industry war stories rather than what a group of college students might discuss, and there were other dishes on the family-style table for those who didn’t like the idea of eating the roasted duck. The duck itself was very good, though in fairness none of the times I’ve had Peking duck has ever lived up to my memory of the first time I ate it.

I capped off my evening with a cup of strawberry lychee ice cream. It isn’t a normal combination as lychees are native to Asia, but as I was in Chinatown in NYC it was available. Both flavors were mildly sweet and the ice cream was more an amalgam than an even mixture of the flavors. It wasn’t as layered as some ice cream I had on a Marrakech rooftop at the start of the year (that one also had a citrus bite that I like on the odd occasion when I don’t stick to vanilla), but it made the walk back to my hotel more pleasant.