PETALING JAYA, May 10 — As a neighbourhood, Section 17 is blessed with a wealth of affordable eating.

One particularly abundant stretch is the flats along Jalan 17/1A, where locals head to long-time stalls like Nasi Lemak Pak Din in the gerai makan centre on the corner, or frequent newer arrivals like Bilal Nasi Kandar, which has quickly become a favourite among the working crowd.

The rest of the street is home to a diverse mix of mostly Malay and Chinese eateries, with tomyam and ayam gepuk spots standing side by side with dai chow restaurants and kopitiams.

The proximity of Universiti Malaya student housing has also made budget-friendly Chinese options like Restoran Chuan Xiang Ke, a popular haunt for the university’s international students.

Newer arrivals in recent years have taken on a slightly different character.

A cafe with a baffling retro office concept — and equally bizarre marketing — opened on the street, alongside a tiny soft-serve shop conveniently located next to Bilal, just in case you needed any more calories in one sitting.

The shop is located between a printer and a tailor. — Picture by Ethan Lau

One of the newest additions, however, bucks that trend: Fragrant Town Restaurant, which brings classic Cantonese roast meats, with a focus on roast duck and goose, to the area.

While places serving roast meats with wantan mee and rice are dime a dozen across the Klang Valley, roast duck and goose have never been more widespread in Petaling Jaya than they are today.

Previously, your best bets were specialty spots like Sunrise or Loong Foong, but newcomers like Yat Gor Roasted Goose Noodle House and a branch of Kopitiam 7 have since entered the arena, likely driven by the recent influx of imported birds into the market.

At Fragrant Town, you can get a single portion of roast duck with oil rice (RM12.50) or springy wantan mee (RM13.50), or double down by pairing it with another protein.

The ideal combination, in my eyes, is the roast duck and roast chicken combo. — Picture by Ethan Lau

I’d recommend the roast chicken and roast duck with rice (RM14.50). The prices are not rock bottom, but you could do a lot worse in PJ, especially as gentrification sinks its teeth into every neighbourhood while we navigate an energy crisis whose full extent we still have not seen.

The defining quality of the roast duck here is its juiciness. Every piece I tried — whether from the individual portion or an à la carte order of the lower quarter (RM28) — was profoundly juicy, with tender meat dripping in savoury liquid gold seasoned with medicinal herbs.

Not every piece had shatteringly crisp skin, but there was not a single dry bite of roast duck.

The white-cut chicken isn’t life-changing, but it’s moist where it counts. — Picture by Ethan Lau

The roast chicken is similarly succulent, while the white-cut chicken (RM19 for a lower quarter) is moist and slippery in all the right ways.

The only let-downs were the roast pork and char siu, both of which were merely unremarkable.

The roast pork and ‘char siu’ isn’t bad, but it’s just alright. — Picture by Ethan Lau

Roast goose, meanwhile, is available by advance booking only, priced at RM268 for a whole bird.

Fragrant Town does not reinvent the roast meat shop, but it does serve some genuinely juicy roast duck at prices that still feel reasonable for PJ. In a neighbourhood already packed with cheap eats, that is enough to make it worth a stop.

Fragrant Town Restaurant

58, Jalan 17/1A,

Section 17, Petaling Jaya.

Open daily, 8.30am-3pm, 5.30-9pm

Tel: 016-314 9029

Facebook: Fragrant Town Restaurant

* This is an independent review where the writer paid for the meal.

* Follow us on Instagram @eatdrinkmm for more food gems.

* Follow Ethan Lau on Instagram @eatenlau for more musings on food and occasionally self-deprecating humour.

Special time. #grickledoodle #duck #night #thoughts #cartoon #art #drawing #funny #humor

Eudaemonius posted a photo:

Eudaemonius posted a photo:

There are a number of iconic moments from classic cartoons, and Rabbit Fire has a lot of them.

This month marks the 75th anniversary of the first time Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Elmer Fudd began a feud in this Warner Bros. short that has gone down in the annals of animation history.

Rabbit Fire opens with one of those iconic moments, as Elmer Fudd carefully makes his way through the forest, shotgun in hand, and turns to the camera to inform the audience, “Be vewy vewy quiet, I’m hunting rabbits.”

Tracks lead to the rabbit hole of one “B. Bunny” (stated on his mailbox), but it turns out that Daffy Duck is making the tracks with a pair of fake rabbit feet.

Elmer tries to hunt Bugs who is trying to convince Elmer that he should instead be hunting Daffy, in the now iconic “Duck Season! Wabbit Season!” exchange between the two. This results in Daffy getting blasted by the shotgun and his bill being shifted in hilarious, precarious positions (more cartoon iconography).

They dress up and imitate each other to throw Elmer off, and Bugs dresses in drag (another iconic gag used in this and future shorts) as a female hunter with Daffy as his dog. When Elmer eventually sees through this, Bugs and Daffy begin tearing “Rabbit Season” and “Duck Season” posters off a nearby tree (again, iconic), eventually revealing one that reads: “Elmer Season.”

With a vicious glare, the two turn the tables and begin hunting the hunter, ending the short by stating: “Be vewy, vewy quiet. We’re hunting Elmers.”

Rabbit Fire came to be courtesy of the genius of two legends, who teamed up quite a bit at Warner Bros.: director Chuck Jones (billed here as “Charles M. Jones”) and writer Michael Maltese. Jones and Maltese created memorable sight gags, slowing the animation down for pauses, and allowing the audience to anticipate the laughs.

All of it delivered perfectly by Mel Blanc as Bugs and Daffy and Arthur Q. Bryan as Elmer.

In one sequence, Bugs tries to get Elmer interested in sports other than hunting, at which point, Daffy emerges, dressed in whites with a racquet in his hand, asking, “Anyone for tennis?” Elmer immediately shoots him, the smoke clears, and a scorched Daffy wearily declares, “Nice game!”

The comic timing in Rabbit Fire rivals anything seen in live action.

Adding to the brilliance of the short are backgrounds by Phillip DeGuard, and animation from Lloyd Vaughan, Ken Harris, Phil Monroe, and Ben Washam.

Following Rabbit Fire’s success, Bugs, Daffy, and Elmer teamed up again for two more short subjects, Rabbit Seasoning (1952) and Duck! Rabbit! Duck! (1953). Collectively, these cartoons have become referred to as “The Hunting Trilogy.”

The second of these, Rabbit Seasoning, came in at number 30 in our own Jerry Beck’s 1994 book, The 50 Greatest Cartoons. In it, author Joe Adamson notes: “The dialogue in these cartoons, savored by connoisseurs for years, was an element singled out for praise by Boxoffice as soon as the first of the trilogy appeared. Since Carl Stalling wrote the scores, there are now published pieces of music entitled ‘Rabbit Season,’ ‘Duck Season,’ ‘Elmer Season,’ and ‘Pronoun Trouble.’

The levels of irony, role-playing, role reversal, and slapstick that rebound, highlight, overlap, intensify, and ricochet off each other in all three of these cartoons have been the subject of endless analysis.”

Released on May 19, 1951, Rabbit Fire remains a shining moment in the Golden Age of Looney Tunes.