金溪山庄风信子中餐厅 — Restaurant in Hangzhou City

If you plan on dining at the hotel after 8pm, acquaint yourself with Monty Python’s “Cheese shop” skit. I arrived at 8:15, after being told at check-in that the restaurant was open until 10pm. I was seated, handed a fine menu with gorgeous photos of every delicacy in mouth-watering detail. All had, along with the Chinese name, the English name of the dish in faint type, some of which could actually be read. How to choose? Did I want duck, sea cucumber, shark’s fin, steak, or to be surprised? It took me a while to decide but with the help of the waited ordered duck, sautéed slices of turnip, and a leafy vegetable, with a can of coconut milk to drink. I had asked for another drink and vegetable but was informed they were out. He went away and one minute later reappeared telling me the duck was not available and neither were the turnips. Oh well, I thought, I’ll pick another. How about this fish with peppers, I asked, pointing to the photo in the menu. He spoke to the head waitress who stood by, then turned to me and said, sorry, you can’t have that. A couple of choices later, he informed me that the chef had gone home at 8pm and there was only one cook. He suggested a beef dish with ginko seeds. “Is it fresh?” I inquired. Another discussion with the waitress ensued. “No,” he said, not fresh. After 15mins, a restaurant manager appeared and told me that after 8pm, they only served noodles! Funny, I thought, I am sure I was told the restaurant served meals until 10pm and I distantly remembered being handed a menu and the waiter taking a sequence of orders from a rapidly diminishing list. “So sorry,” she said with a smile, putting the menu before me turned to a page showing dumplings but with clearly more selections than the number of photos. She pointed to one. The English line read “Vegetables and pork fried rice.” Quickly, the waiter who had foolishly not retreated, pointed to another which read in part “Sichuan children.” I wondered how spicy they were. I asked the manager to stop kidding around and confess that there were no noodles either, since by then I had discovered that nothing on the page read “noodles”. The manager pointed to three dishes this time, including the previous two but the third did not sound as interesting as “Sichuan children,” which I chose. The waiter asked if I’d like a vegetable with the dish I had ordered (Sichuan children). I did not remember that vegetables fell under the general title of “noodles” and so asked for a recommendation. I took the recommendation only to be told a few seconds later that it was not available. “Go through the dumpster and see what you can find,” I said under my breath but they came up with another suggestion and off they went.||||Miraculously, after about 6 minutes, out came a steaming bowl of bright green leafy vegetables, cooked with slivers of garlic to perfection. It was delicious. Five minutes later out came a large very hot bowl containing a broth, meat, and noodles. Also delicious. ||||The hotel itself was magnificent in its tasteful use of lighting, space and décor. An open inner space had a large lily-strewn pond with koi and with ancient-looking walls and roofs. The room I had was comfortable and quiet—until 6:30 am when someone started throwing concrete blocks into the iron bin of a vehicle. They were preparing for the up-coming G-20 summit. I suppose after this event, all will...

I travel to China on business exclusively. I so tend to stay in nicer hotels because being from the U.S., these trips represent wear and tear on oneself. No need to suffer with respect to accommodations. This hotel is perfect, really. It is ideally situated such that on the one side of the property you can access all the hustle and bustle of being in a big city (er, I mean great places to eat). While on the other side, there is access to a beautiful lake. There you can run, walk, enjoy the scenery and get some relaxation outside of a hotel room. They tell me it is a "Chinese Style" hotel as if there would be an issue, but I'd prefer a Chinese style hotel to a Western hotel anyway. WiFi is included with the room and I don't quite understand about the included breakfast, but like other top level Chinese hotels, the breakfast is spectacular. I can "tank up" enough on great foods to last until dinner. The rooms are spotlessly clean and not everything is perfect. Consistent with most Chinese hotels (and many Western hotels) is the fact that there are no electrical outlets near the bed. I like to have my phone on my nightstand as I sleep and have it charging during that time. Not possible. I also suffer from sleep apnea and require a CPAP machine on the nightstand next to the bed. Very difficult to manage and I have had to rearrange furniture in some cases. The mandatory use of the hotel room key in order to turn on the room power is OK, but not in the summer. There is a work around for this and you can figure it out. Travel tip: I travel with electronics, I think most of us do, even on vacation. Outlets can sometimes be of low availability or in inconvenient locations. You can go to the hardware store and pick up (not that expensive, like $5) a "block." That is a three-way outlet splitter you can plug into an outlet and make it three outlets. Now I am speaking of the heavy duty type which can accommodate higher current. Sometimes, in China there aren't outlets that can take the third prong however. I also travel with a triple headed extension cord (I check my luggage, have grown tired of fighting the "overhead compartment wars") which has a similar triple splitter at the end, but gives me some length when outlets are in weird places. Back to the hotel, it is a good one. Every time I visit Hangzhou I will stay there and you won't be...

Spent a week in Hangzhou Jinxi hotel. ||Had a room with garden view in villa 3. Very clean, tidy, full of amenities (kettle, stationery material, Ethernet cable, tourist guides, iron board, slippers even razor and spare underwear...). the mattress was a bit hard for my taste and you can select different pillows if you wish with neck support (there is a paper inside the closet). The interior was not at its best state, a bit vintage I would say but nothing outdated!||The hotel is located just across of the west lake! If you want a grocery store you need to walk left from the main gate for 5 minutes and turn right on the first crossroad. Walk for a few hundred meters and you will spot a family mart store on your left across the street. There are souvenir stores, Starbucks, kfc and plenty of other stores in the area! ||Don't miss a walk around the lake and the impressions of west lake show! You can rent a bicycle and go around the lake. It will take normally one hour with the bicycle or five on foot. ||The breakfast is a mix of Western and Asian cousins. The restaurant is good with traditional Hangzhou courses but a bit on the expensive side. Huge portions though!||A taxi to the main shopping streets (In Time mall) will take 20 yuan. ||No one speaks English. Be ready to use a phrase guide! ||As a final note, I would definitely recommend this hotel for holidays and spent some relaxing time around hangzhou's...