Four Seasons in Hangzhou day 4: breakfast with a view

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It's our last morning in Hangzhou, and although I was totally stuffed from last night's dinner and absolutely did not need the calories, I dutifully made my way to Charm, the all-day dining venue at Four Seasons Hotel Hangzhou at Hangzhou Centre. The kind people at the hotel had reserved a corner private room for us, and Chef Neal Zeng (曾东海) was in the kitchen to cook a few special dishes for us.

Before the special dishes arrived - and there would be four of them - of course we had other items from the kitchen as well as the buffet...

Lotus root with glutinous rice, honey, and osmanthus (桂花糖莲藕) - not as luxurious as the one I had yesterday, but I love it all the same. Would love to have it any chance I get.

Almond cookie (杏仁饼)

Pan-fried pork bun (嵊州香煎小笼包) - picked this up from the buffet. Xiaolongbao (小籠包) from Shengzhou (嵊州) come without any soup inside, and I gotta say I've never had them pan-fried till crispy on the bottom.

My strange obsession with sausage at breakfast buffet continues...

And I do try to gauge hotels for their pain au chocolat.

Steamed vegetable dumpling | mushroom | back truffle sauce (黑松露素菜蒸饺) - I really, really love steamed veggie dumplings. In fact, I usually order them when they're on the menu. These had very delicate wrappers.

Love how so full of green, and the ones made with mushrooms are always so fragrant and tasty.

Pan-fried dumplings | mantis shrimp | bottle gourd | nepeta (荆芥蒲瓜虾肉锅贴) - I also love these elongated, pan-fried "pot stickers (鍋貼)".

The flavors really stood out, especially with the seafood.

Double-boiled osmanthus soup | black sesame | glutinous rice dumpling (桂花糖水，宁波汤圆) - we have a fantastic Ningbo restaurant in da haus, so of course the tangyuan (湯圓) was good!

Look at the black sesame seed filling...

The team wanted us to try their signature congee, which is apparently very popular with guests.

Cantonese hot pot seafood congee (粤式火锅海鲜粥) - adding some youtiao (油條) is always a nice touch.

We also had some fresh peaches, which are in season and very, very juicy.

Sautêed rice noodles | clam | squid | dried shrimps | pork | onion (海鲜炒粉干) - the rice vermicelli were fried at high heat to deliver wok hei (鑊氣), and there were quite a few different ingredients to make it tasty.

This seems to have been seasoned with some five spice powder (五香粉), and in some ways reminded me of Singapore fried noodles (星洲炒米)...

It IS just a few days from someone's birthday, so the team made a custom cake for the birthday boy...

Matcha coconut (抹茶椰子) - matcha mousse, yuzu (柚子) gel, and coconut cream. All flavors I like.

I find it unbelievable that we had so much food less than 2 hours before lunch, which would be another huge meal. But... I am grateful for the warm hospitality from Chef Neal and the team, and it really has been a privilege to have been able to rely on the Four Seasons as our safe harbor over the last couple of days.

I'll be back.