[caption id="attachment_1064" align="alignright" width="180" caption="Duck Chang&#39;s"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/405344_ratio4x3_width180.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-1064" title="405344_ratio4x3_width180" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/405344_ratio4x3_width180.jpg" alt="" width="180" height="135" /></a>[/caption]

I had completely forgotten about Duck Chang's Chinese restaurant until a friend mentioned it on Facebook earlier today.

It's strange for me to remember, but I didn't eat Chinese food at all until I was 26 years old. I don't remember why I was such a limited eater when I was younger, but I think I was 14 or 15 before I even ate pizza. I remember I started eating Chinese food in Vienna in the summer of 1976, when Leslie and I were living in Austria. I started out eating <em>langusten mit champignon</em>s, which translates as lobster with mushrooms but was actually prawns with mushrooms.

Still, it was pretty good, and I started enjoying Chinese food.

I don't know when I first heard about <a title="Duck Chang's" href="http://dc.metromix.com/restaurants/asian/duck-changs-annandale/405344/content" target="_self">Duck Chang's</a>, which was very well-known in the Washington, D.C., area for its Peking Duck, and all these years later, I don't remember how many times I went there. I'm pretty sure I never had the Duck.

In fact, if I hadn't seen it mentioned on Facebook, I'm pretty sure I would never have thought about the restaurant again in all my remaining years.

But I had a very pleasant evening there in February 1980, when I took a lovely young lady out to dinner a few weeks after my first wife and I separated. It was our first date, and we spent the entire evening talking. I believe we were the last ones to leave the restaurant, and most of the other tables already had the chairs stacked on them.

We hit it off, and we dated on and off for several years. We're both married to other people now, but we remain friends.

When I thought about that night, I realized it had been more than 31 years since it happened.

Half a lifetime ago.

I finally did have the Duck.

In October 2008.

In Beijing.