What waddles on two legs and is disappearing faster than they can be roasted? It is Beijing’s signature dish: Peking Duck.

The kitchen in Beijing’s Olympic Village, which houses over 10,000 athletes from 208 countries, is preparing more than 300 ducks daily, and they all are eaten by 8 p.m., local caterers say.

"You cannot come to Beijing and not have its eponymous dish," said one British archer.

The ducks are delicately roasted for about an hour in fruitwood ovens, then ceremonially sliced before each guest, wrapped in pancake, and served with brown or plum sauce with spring onion and cucumber.

Many restaurants serve Peking Duck, whose gastronomic history goes back 1,600 years, but the most well-established chain is Quanjude, which in Mandarin means "the gathering of all virtues" and which has been in business for 146 years.

Its main restaurant has been frequented by dignitaries from all over the world. It has also been featured in movies and in TV soap operas.

So popular is the dish and its folk culture status in Chinese society that a rival chain, the Bianyifang, has opened a Peking duck museum at one of its restaurants that narrates its history and culinary techniques handed down the ages by master chefs.

The Quanjude, which figured in the China Daily as one of the leading Chinese brands today along with Tsingtao beer, Lenovo computers and the Bank of China, has an interesting history.

Its founder, Yang Quanren, made a living selling ducks and chicken in the meat market before opening his own shop. He changed the method of roasting from a closed-oven method to an open-oven method to simplify and expand production. The number of ducks said to have been roasted at the Quanjude restaurants is now said to number over 100 million.

Everyone who dines there is given a certificate with the number of the special duck that had been roasted for the guest.

Last year Quanjude, tried to modernize the method of roasting by using an electric oven but there was such an outcry that the company hastily went back to roasting it in a six-foot high drum-shaped fruitwood oven.