I have been to the JinBao Jie branch countless of times and I never get bored of the food. The menu is very picturesque and huge with a large array of dishes for you to choose from. The food here not only tastes good but it looks good and you know the chefs have definately paid lots of attention to the plating and structure of their dishes. The roast duck here is the best in beijing, the skin is thin and crispy and the meat tender. My favourite way to eat it is to dip in sugar and put into one of those shell like pastry. You can order those extra for RMB 1 each. My other favourite dish is the Abalone rice with Chinese Yam and Truffle. It is one of the best dishes at Da Dong, though a bit costly but you definately get what you pay for. The abalone and chinese yam are cooked for approx 48 hours hence the really tender abalone meat and when you bite into the chinese yam bits you get a burst of truffle flavour, overall this whole dish just screams delish. I really recommend this dish if you want a taste of something extraordinary! (remember, its the abalone rice dish with yam, not the abalone dish because there are three different dishes with similar names, do not order the abalone alone because its not worth the price, and not as good as the rice one)
If you like crab or steamed egg or either one, the Alaskan crab steamed egg with chinese hua diao is also another dish to try, but be aware the smallest portion feeds four.
The warm soups/ chilled soups here are not worth trying so don't waste your stomach space on any of these. However, try one of those exotic dishes like duck tongue or duck gizzards.
The service here is average, there are waiters assigned to every section of the restaurant. It gets pretty busy during peak hours and on weekends so do make a reservation if you aren't the type who likes to stand around and wait. (keep in mind that waiting ranges from 15-30 minutes)
Overall, the food here is great though can be quite costly. A meal for two here can range from RMB 200-1500.

The hard part is finding one's seat, even with a reservation, as the fu wu yuan are crazy busy trying to handle a huge volume of customers. Once the meal starts, the food is divine. We paid about CNY200 per person.

Great place to eat or to drink. Everything is cool there, atmosphere, food always really good, service is perfect!
Try it, you won't be disappointed! Maybe I am excessif, but the dinner was really great!

The food is amazing. one of, if not the best duck i have had in beijing. NOTE: it is a MODERN beijing duck, meaning it is cooked longer to drain most of the fat turned oil. it is more dry.
The menu is huge and overall delicious. alot of fusion food

The food is presented tastfully in a modern context. The setting is really good. nothign crazy good but It is above average in everyway.

Service is good for Beijing. You have to realize that china is not a service oriented country. this is crazy good for china. i wouldn't really complain even if it were the states.

BE SURE TO RESERVE A TABLE. OR PREPARE TO WAIT. BUT IF PEOPLE ARE WILLING TO WAIT FOR A HOUR YOU KNOW ITS GOOD

I have eaten here several times. The duck at Da Dong is even better than the more famous and much older Quan Ju De. There is simply no better peking duck to be found anywhere in the world. The other menu items, which are extensive, are overwhelmingly good and last but not the least staff are much prettier and efficient than other such chinese restaurants.

The title speaks for itself

That's what happened when my family and I had New Years Eve dinner there and got F00D P0IS0INING before daylight even hit. Poor sis had to throw up her whole dinner and got into cold sweat =(

The worst part is the management was really unfriendly, unhelpful and IN DENIAL when I phoned up to complain

I suppose that's what you get when they realise you're a LaoWai and don't think you can do much to complain about them

So here's me sharing my 2 cents worth

Ate here during the first week of Oct. Had an entire duck and 3 other dishes. The other dishes do taste delicious but are pricey. The duck is good--nice and lean too. I would go back for duck and some of the dishes but the service is unacceptably horrible. Once the restaurant started filling up with other patrons, the service got worse and worse. I had to yell at servers to get their attention in order to get another drink. And it's not natural to yell in a restaurant like this. Hand waving didn't work as the staff avoids looking at you altogether.

Worst part: asked for the bill twice. Each time was about 15 minutes apart. So after half an hour of not getting the bill I was about to leave without paying. I've never done that before. The waitress naturally ran after me apologizing, considering the check has been sitting in front of her on the table for over half an hour. I asked her to speak with her manager and she didn't dare budge to go get her. I told her i'm not paying for their 15% SERVICE fee, but she claims that's a food tax. Because the bill was about 700 yuan i decided to pay because I don't want to be the cause of her being fired. In retrospect, I should have just gone through with it and tried to get her fired. I was just so angry at the time, it felt best to pay, leave and never go back.

15% service fee is a joke considering the service is worse than McDonalds. They need to hire a better staff.
And i was not the only one with an issue. I saw a couple who was ignored and couldn't order until the guy got the manager who poked in to have a look. Inexcusable.

Maybe i was lucky, but i just strolled in on Sat afternoon around 3pm and it was almost deserted.
Obviously i went, like everyone else, for the duck but living in HK it was going to have to raise its game to be any better than what we have down here.
It was good, i wouldn't say it was any better or any worse than what we get down south.
I also ordered a standard order of Scallops and the same of Spicy Prawns and WOW.
Both dishes were sublime not only in taste but also presentation and definately portion size (at least a dozen or more of each and less than 100RMB for each dish too).
The scallops and prawns were utterly sensational and i was soon disappointed i was alone and could not try more dishes from the menu, but any more and i would have seriously burst.
Three Tsing Tao's washed it all down and i was so content i could have rolled up in a ball and slept it all off there and then.
Stunning food (do not just rely on the duck).
Dadong has a huge reputation in BJ and i for one would find it hard to disagree.
Heaven.

The conversation for where to go for Beijing's best duck pretty much begins and ends with Da Dong. There aren't other spots that can offer this kind of consistency and quality and across multiple restaurants. It isn't just Da Dong's duck that's great, the entire menu serves as an excellent example of modern Chinese food and would make a hell of a food porn book. The experience is not cheap, but as a splurge every now and then, its well worth it. After having Beijing relatives say that having eaten duck for many years, only after eating Da Dong did they realize how special the experience could be did I realize this was the spot for duck.

I went to DaDong recently for a welcome dinner and I was thoroughly impressed with the restaurant even coming from New York City. The decor is elegant--white table cloths and marble floors evoke a classic upscale restaurant feel and it manages to retain a Chinese air as well--and I found the presentation of the food to be equally pleasing. I would particularly recommend the smoked salmon appetizer, which came in the shape of a flower and was surrounded by some fried dough kind of like a Japanese dish.

I don't consider myself a duck connoisseur, but I wasn't particularly impressed by the duck. It was flavorful and the skin was crispy, but it didn't seem that different from the other top duck restaurants in Beijing (like quanjude). Also, the presentation of the duck, while cool, didn't actually seem to taste that good (particularly the demonstration when skin is put into straight sugar, which was pretty gross I thought). Overall, it's a beautiful dinner but not worth the pretty hefty price tag.