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It's Saturday morning, and despite waking up in the luxurious, tranquil surroundings of my room at
Four Seasons Hotel Hangzhou at West Lake, my first order of business was to do some work. Thankfully there were still some berries left on my fruit platter from yesterday, so I nibbled on those while staring at the screen.
Given all the calories I took in last night, and am due to consume later today, I honestly didn't need any hotel breakfast. However, we were told to try the dim sum items coming from the kitchen at
Jin Sha (金沙厅), so I went down to
West Lake Bistro (西湖餐厅) to check out the spread.
Hangzhou is well known for two things - Longjing tea (龍井茶) and osmanthus flowers. I've long loved the combination of both into
osmanthus Longjing (桂花龍井), and happy to see it on offer here.
I saw some
youtiao (油條) and decided to dip it into a bowl of soymilk. I haven't had this in a while.
Whenever I'm having hotel breakfast buffet, I somehow always get the urge to check out their sausages... and it doesn't matter if they're the cheap, factory-made franks. Today there was more than 1 type on offer.
We were able to order individual dim sum items from a list, so I ticked off a few of them. The
deep-fried spring rolls with pork and vegetables (三丝春卷) weren't particularly impressive. They came a little limp and soggy. Stuffed with shredded pork, cabbage, and I think yellow chives?
Steamed pork dumplings (沪式小笼包) - these
xiaolongbao (小籠包) were OK.
Pan-fried dumpling with shrimp, pork and chives (虾仁猪肉韭菜煎饺) - these were pretty good with crunchy water chestnuts inside. I wish I had taken another order of these.
Another thing I do at a breakfast buffet is check out the
viennoiserie. This
pain au chocolat was decent. I also had a few fresh winter jujube (冬棗).
Before leaving the hotel, we have one final item on the agenda. Chinese tourists nowadays seem very eager to dress up in costume for photoshoots. The hotel actually offers a photo session with a photograph on-site, and the first three photos from the shoot is complimentary. Well, the ladies were definitely interested, and somehow I was the lone holdout who ended up succumbing to the incessant demand that I join the "group session"...
The only item of clothing they had which fit me was a thick, traditional jacket. This meant I was sweating profusely while waiting for the ladies to have their solo sessions, before joining the group shots at the end of the session. I don't think I am allowed to share the end results, but I guess it didn't work out too badly.
We bid the team at West Lake goodbye and thanked them for their hospitality, then got into the cars for our transfer to
Four Seasons Hotel Hangzhou at Hangzhou Centre (杭州中心四季酒店). Our driver took the scenic route along the banks of the West Lake, and this would be my first look since 1998... Looking at the lotus leaves sticking out of the lake, one can see the wind was indeed picking up as Typhoon Bavi heads in our direction.
Upon arrival we were met by our hotel contacts, who led us straight to
Song (颂), the marquee restaurant serving Ningbo cuisine. Per SOP we were given a tour of the restaurant, before settling into the private dining room with a view of the patio outside. Details of the lunch is
here.
We have some time to unwind after our lunch, and this was our first chance to go and check out our rooms. I was fortunate to have been given a corner room, with unobstructed views of the both north and west sides of the city.
This would be the first time I've laid eyes on the
Grand Canal (大運河) - the canal built over centuries linking cities like Beijing, Luoyang (洛陽), and Hangzhou. I learned about this in grade school, and now I'm staring at a section of it from my hotel room. This part of the canal was built during the Sui Dynasty (隋朝), and dates back to around 610 A.D.
And the hotel has left us some pastries inspired by the history of the Grand Canal.
The hotel was also offering us a cocktail/coffee session at the Lobby Lounge, and I wasn't really in a drinking mood this afternoon. I was simply too stuffed from our huge lunch, and I needed to somehow digest all of it before heading out to dinner. So I chose to have one of their coffee creations. As it's getting close to 5pm, I chose the one that's suitable for this time of day:
Dusk • Warm Mist | Wuyi Mountain (日暮 • 温岚 ｜ 武夷山). It's got an espresso base, with Lapsang Souchong (正山小种), Ice Bock, and vanilla - served dirty. Effectively this is a fancy
yuenyeung (鴛鴦)...
The wind was picking up and the weather was turning for the worse, but we've got a dinner to go to...
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