Pretty in Pink, Duck in Orange

There are certain dishes that just never fully clock in your culinary consciousness. Duck à l’orange, for me, has somehow always been one of them. Which is odd because it’s not exactly rare. You see it on French bistro menus often enough, but somehow it never left much of an impression on me. It always felt a little old-school — like a once well-known television star now exclusively doing Lifetime Christmas movies.

And yet I can’t remember ever having a version that made me understand the hype.

Until now.

And naturally, the duck revelation arrives not at some classic French restaurant, but at a seafood spot.

Yes. A seafood restaurant.

Specifically Seahorse on Union Square, where I apparently ate seafood at some point during the meal, though I couldn’t tell you a single thing about it now. I’m sure it was fine. But all memory has been eclipsed by the duck à l’orange, which was absolutely killer.

The skin was perfectly crisp while the meat stayed rich and juicy. And the sauce — where lesser versions often go full sticky orange glaze nightmare — actually had balance. Bright but not sweet. Deep but not heavy. The kind of sauce that has you dragging bread and potatoes through it long after the duck is gone.

What’s especially confusing is why this dish hasn’t had a bigger place in my life until now. Have French people been quietly enjoying citrus-enhanced duck while I’ve been missing out?

Thinking the answer is: Oui!

Now I suddenly want to go on a full duck à l’orange tour. I need to know whether this version was uniquely transcendent or if I’ve simply been late to the party.

Also, Seahorse may need a rebrand. If the duck is this memorable and the seafood this forgettable, we need truth in advertising. Call it Duckie’s — although then everyone’s just going to think of Jon Cryer in Pretty in Pink. So maybe just Canard en Orange.

But I do know this: I’m officially a convert. And if duck à l’orange is regularly this good, then yes, I’ve absolutely been sleeping on it.

But now I kind of want to be sleeping with it.

Maybe I need to be Duckie’s girlfriend. Where is Jon Cryer when you need him? (He likely has enough Two and a Half Men residuals to skip the Lifetime Christmas movie cavalcade.)