Giving up a job with a salary of thousands of dollars, 8X went back to work as a "night roast duck", selling hundreds of ducks / day

“In order to be successful with this roast duck, I had to experiment for a long time, taking about over 100 ducks. So every time I try, my wife screams.”
That is the sharing of Mr. Truong Ngoc An (SN 1981), owner of a dark roast duck shop in Go Vap district (Ho Chi Minh City) about his start-up process with the first bamboo charcoal roasted duck in Vietnam. .

Having graduated from University with a major in Finance - Business and became the CEO of a foreign business with a salary of thousands of dollars/month, however, Mr. An decided to give up everything to return to his hometown. family roast duck oven.

Giving up the position of CEO of a foreign business, An returned to roast ducks to sell.

“Despite being the CEO, I find the work nothing groundbreaking. I have nothing of my own because I still work for other people. So, I decided to go back to my hometown, take over and develop my family's nearly 40-year-old roast duck oven in Soc Trang," An shared.

In 2021, An returned to his hometown, instead of selling traditional roast duck, he decided to tinker with making crispy roasted duck in the style of Peking duck. During a trip to Japan, seeing strange black bread or dishes made him very curious.

Crispy-skinned roast duck combined with bamboo charcoal starch into a dark roast duck.

Back home, he studied related documents and learned that in Japan, the use of bamboo charcoal starch is considered a healthy, delicious and nutritious culinary trend. So he decided to use bamboo charcoal starch in his roast duck.

It took a lot of time to experiment with hundreds of ducks that were damaged because of the wrong taste, An was not discouraged but carefully recorded each step, aligning it to the best.

Roast duck uses unique black bamboo charcoal starch.

“I worked over and over again for a very long time on hundreds of ducks. Every time I try it, my wife screams because it's broken too much. When it's successful, our own family members also get to eat it first, because it's so delicious that they try to sell it to customers," An said.

At first, bringing a black duck to sell to customers, many people looked at it and criticized it, but did not buy it. However, after being explained and tried, found that the taste was fatty, crispy and delicious, since then more and more orders for his "night roast duck".

Thanks to this unique and tasteless "dark" roast duck, more and more people know An's shop.

According to An, in order to make a delicious and flavorful roast duck with bamboo charcoal, he must carefully choose from the stage of buying ducks. Ducks weighing over 3kg must be placed with thick breasts and lots of meat so that when finished, they can still reach over 2kg/head.

In addition, bamboo charcoal starch is also imported directly from Japan, which is safe for use in food and good for human health. Before filming, An used bamboo charcoal starch to brush on the surface of the skin, making the duck fatter, crisper and more fragrant.

In addition to night roast duck, An also makes yin yang roast duck to serve customers.

“Choosing duck is difficult, but when processing, you have to be very careful. Ducks are boiled in water from 80-90 degrees Celsius to make the duck skin white, not yellow. In particular, I have to keep up with the correct number of ducks each day I sell, not take the excess.

During the filming process, the worker must stand close to the rotary kiln, not to be neglected because he does not have to rotate a fire, but has to adjust the temperature from low to high, requiring precise time levels," An analyzed.

Quartet roasted duck costs from 400-450 thousand VND/head.

In addition to the night roast duck, An also created quartet roast duck, yin yang roast duck. Each roast duck is sold by Mr. An for 350-450 thousand VND/head, depending on weight and taste.

Succeeding with a roast duck shop in Soc Trang, An continued to open more branches in Ho Chi Minh City. Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho, sell hundreds of ducks/facility every day.

The roast duck dish at night receives the attention and orders of hundreds of customers every day.

Sharing his plans in the near future, An said that he will develop his roast duck system in the provinces. In addition to selling take-out, he will proceed to serve customers on the spot to meet the needs of customers.