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It's a new day and I need some breakfast. I had originally thought about grabbing some noodles like the Hangzhou specialty
pian er chuan (片儿川), but the place Nicemo recommended would take 20 minutes by taxi - or 40 minutes round trip. That seemed like too much effort just to get breakfast on a workday, so I decided to walk around the hotel and see what I would come across.
Unfortunately, there were no shops nearby offering the noodles I wanted. Most were places offering simple takeout stuff and bakeries, which didn't offer any interesting local stuff. I actually considered getting brekkie at McDonald's... but eventually came across
Longquan Shaobing (龙泉烧饼) which offered simple
shaobing with preserved leafy mustard (梅干菜烧饼) - something I tasted for the first time two days ago. Actually, these also came with little bits of pork fat. So... totally up my alley! Happiness.
I went back to working in my room at
Grand Hyatt Hangzhou, but when lunch time rolled around, I decided to go back to
28 Hubin Road (湖滨28) for a simple lunch. There was another dish I wanted to check off my list, and I wanted to get this done in Hangzhou.
Once again, the restaurant serves up two snacks at the start:
Boiled peanuts
Chinese cabbage
Wok-fried shrimps, "Longjing" tea leave, traditional "Hangzhou" style (龙井河虾仁) - since I didn't get to have this Hangzhou classic at Ruyuan (如院) last month, I had my heart set on this for today. I wanted to see if I could taste the flavors from the tea. Theoretically, this should be one of the best places to have this dish.
Look how tiny these are! This is exactly hwo they're supposed to be. Tiny little babies. And to be fair, I haven't tasted a better version of this dish in a very long time. Maybe because I've stopped ordering them and just ask for the "plain" version without tea leaves. The shrimp were nicely coated with oil, but I'm still not sure I'm tasting any tea fragrance. But hey, this was pretty good so that's all that mattered.
Boiled noodle soup, sliced pork, bamboo shoots, preserved vegetables (传统片儿川) - the local classic, served up in a 5-star hotel. That's akin to ordering wonton noodles in a hotel in Hong Kong.
No complaints here. Comfy broth with familiar flavors from preserved leafy mustard (雪里蕻), and some porky flavors. What's not to like?!
I had already checked out but my flight was at night, so I parked myself in the lobby lounge of the hotel and worked for a few hours on very slow internet connection... then headed to the airport. Not wanting to eat airplane food, I decided to hit the airport outlet of
Zhi Wei Guan (知味观). They've got some noodles I could try...
Noodle soup with sliced pork, bamboo shoots, and preserved vegetables (片儿川) - well, this is the "common" version of the dish, which came in a bigger bowl with more noodles and a lot more toppings. This was meant to be a full meal by itself, rather than just one course. And yes, the use of MSG is heavy-handed and obvious.
They also served a side dish of
preserved radish (萝卜干).
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