Thankfully, our fair city has plenty of indoor options. Restaurants (and increasingly better ones), bars and clubs abound in Hangzhou.

So grab some friends or your sweetie and find a hotspot to bunker down in on this blustery Tuesday night!

Without a little guidance, you might not find the place. Thankfully Landison thought of that and have a waitress to meet you on the 25th floor where the main lifts let you out. Round the corner there is another tiny lift that takes you up to the 26th and 27th floors. The layout of the restaurant is a little weird, cant put my finger on why, but at least there is a still a smoking section.

Some menus leave you stuck with what to choose because you want to eat it all, and some leave you hard pressed to pick anything because for one reason or the other, you don’t want anything on it. Valentino’s definitely falls in the latter category of the two. First courses offer a fair show: soups, a range of differing antipasti, couple of salads. We opted to share a couple of the antipasti – a meaty one and a fishy one. Both were good, served with good bread. The problem comes with the main course. Pasta, pizza and steak to choose from. There is some grilled fish too, but the MP in the price column always makes me a little worried. Of course, if you are in the mood for a bowl of pasta, that is great, although the one I make at home is pretty good too. The steak is expensive with many of the cuts well into 300RMB, which frankly, is unnecessary these days. After much deliberation, I chose a Lobster Risotto and my friend a minestrone soup. The lobster was small – probably illegal in some countries and rice quite salt. The wine list offered nothing much very unique looking, except for the pricing which favoured the restaurant.

The piano was tinkling away in the background, lighting good and service attentive without being in your face.

I do not pretend to be an experienced restaurant critic and so I have no idea why this place just doesn’t quite do it. Perhaps simply a lack of joie de vivre?

Valentino’s Italian Restaurant | 26th Floor, Landison Hotel, 333 Tiyuchang Road, Hangzhou.

Exploding popcorn man. (From Agriculture Online… 3rd March 2010)

Does anybody know where to find this geezer?

I dreamt about a Chateaubriand last night. 20 centimeters long, it was the whole tail end of  a filet of beef. Slightly blackened on the outside, this gargantuan piece of beef cleaved open, almost poetically, to show the soft juicy pink centre. I woke up just as that first piece was about to be gently and lovingly savoured. What a dream.

Actually, it wasnt a dream. It’s much better than that; we can all enjoy it. It was a flashback from dinner last night at Angelo’s new restaurant – Angelo’s New York Italian Restaurant and Bar, and that huge piece – 400g or about 10oz – of seriously delicious steak can also be yours.

Angelo’s is tucked up No.2 Side Street of Baochu Road. No2 Street is quite old Hangzhou – lots of little restaurants with doors wide open despite the advertised -4‘C, neon signs selling shrimps, groups of people stuck well into their baijiu screaming numbers at each other. Further in you might start to doubt that any western restaurant could be possibly be here, and Lo, the house of Chateaubriand appears next to the Minsu Hotel.

The restaurant is simple and slick inside. Plain white walls with dark furniture, large frameless black and white prints of old New York on the walls, and black laser-cut lampshades showing the New York skyline provide a modern clean feeling without being minimalist. The small bar at the end is a hive of activity as the barman, an old friend of Angelo, is doing something aggressive with a cocktail shaker – out comes a large Dry Martini, which has my name written all over it. “I’ll have one of those too please”. The drink is 3 minutes in the waiting. Good start.

Angelo is excited. It is only the second day of the soft opening period and people are coming in. “Too busy too busy we are still learning how to do things!” He grabs a menu and talks about it as if it is a list of his child’s A+ school grades. The menu looks good and feels good – has the feel of James Taylor’s handiwork. There seems to be a good range of stuff with obviously a strong American bent, not limited to New York. I didnt see the Reuben Sandwich on there (isnt that a New York staple?) But lots of other tasty looking things – mini burgers, crab cake burgers, pizzas galore, fish and chips, deep-fried calamari and mozzarella. Salads soups. Pasta. And of course that Chateaubriand. This restaurant is going to take a few visits.

And lest I forget to mention, the Martini is good too.

Three of us had the mini-burgers and fried calamari to share as a starter, both from the Share section of the menu. Personally, I felt the calamari were a shade overcooked, but the covering was delicious. Perhaps a slightly smaller, younger squid would be better. Over the table, the Chateaubriand was served in all its glory, alone, on the white plate. On the side were fried potatoes, mushrooms and few other veg served in their own small dishes. The waiter offered to carve the meat, but my friend preferred to do that himself. On my right, the Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich looked and tasted perfect – so many restaurants make the mistake of substituting poor beef and cheap cheese into sandwiches, but that did not happen here. My Fish and Chips were not really the British style I was expecting, rather fingers of fish deep fried in batter, tossed together with fries in a tall, paper wrapped cone. The batter was delicious and fish cooked til it was just firm.

I didnt get too far into the wine list – Angelo suggested a great bottle. Will have a go at updating this page soon.

After dinner, we got stuck into the Grappa and Limoncello, perhaps a little too much of it. But hey, there is little better way to cap a very fine dinner than a few shots of grappa.

-

-

-

Check this for your nearest Starbucks

Verdict? Not at all bad. Big range of foods – carbonara was little too creamy (original raw egg and no cream always the best), thin sliced minute steak pink and juicy. It was kinda still morning, so the poached eggs and sausage seemed to fit the bill. Sashimi, pork spare ribs, fried cod. All good filling Sunday after the Saturday grub.

Included is a glass of sparkling wine, fruit juices and soft drinks. Oh. And the waitress double checked that I booked.

-

-

-

I was down in the hood smoking d’ crack
When the coppers broke in and grabbed d’sac
So I punched him d’face and told him d’rules
For coppers d aint no buffet at D’Cafe

Seriously though. D’Cafe isn’t actually a hotdog place in the Projects. Far from it. With the marble clad reception of the Dragon Hotel large enough to park a whole NBA teams’s worth of Hummers this place is more fitting to be seen drinking Crystal Champagne than chasing the dragon. With all this awe and glory and chandelier on the way in, it is slightly surprising that D’Cafe isn’t done up to the nines as well. This restaurant is simply comfortable, with a huge amount of light coming in the floor to ceiling glass walls, leaving views of the gardens outside. Coming in from busy dirty Hangda Road, the peace and simple clean lines and light of this dining room is perhaps the restaurant’s greatest success.

We had a table for 18 people booked for 11am Sunday Brunch. Traipsing in at 11 or 11.15 we were greeted by every single member of staff, of which there is a veritable gang, every which one of whom wanted to ask about the weather, enquire where I was going, say hello, Welcome, have I been the the new Dragon before that by the time I made it across the foyer and around the Veranda Restaurant to D’Cafe, I was out of breath from replying to all the pleasantries. All sweet and polite but doesn’t a nod and smile suffice?

And after all the niceties we get to business: claiming our 11am booking.
“So sorry Sir, but the restaurant doesn’t open until 11.30am,” said the receptionist
“But we have an 11am booking”
“Yes Sir, I know”
“Nobody thought to warn us that we wouldn’t be allowed into the dining room until 11.30?” Without an invitation to take a table, we sat in the hall.

Gigantic is a word that Dragon seems to have taken to heart. There is a gigantic amount of money being spent on the renovation. The hotel is gigantic with 500 rooms and 2 serviced apartment blocks; D’Cafe is gigantic; and you guessed it, the spread of food is gigantic. But it isn’t laid out very well, pretty but not very logical. And very Chinese choices to eat. Nothing wrong with that, but I was hoping for some good sunday brunch goodness. Fish bar is the best in town without a doubt, with oysters galore, huge crab legs, mussels and more. Roast beef, if you could find it nestled amongst the bread section, was pretty tasty too. There’s a parma ham to slice (mangle) yourself, a chocolate fountain and then of course all the Asian stuff. Gigantic too is the wine list, pages of it all at surprisingly low prices.

I am sure I will be back at D’Cafe. I might not choose it myself, but while there are free-flow oysters included in the 140Y set buffet, somebody will want to go.

-

-

On the other hand, Aijsen doesn’t have a happy family of rats kicking back at the next door table having had a good filling of Xinjiang Banmian. (And they probably wouldn’t be kicking back at all if they knew from which animal came that meat.) In fact, Ajisen, while a chain of almost fast-food restaurants ,is comfortable, with soft chairs, great decoration, and a speedy service.

The menu is huge, with photos of all items, and listings in English, Chinese and Japanese. The dishes listed as spicy are spicy so be warned. I would recommend getting a bowl of noodles and one other dish person – chicken wings, dumplings, spring rolls, deep-dried Yellow Fish filets are all good homely grub with a jig degree of consistency.

They shot me down trying to photos in the restaurant so I had to scrounge these from their uncopiable website.

There are 3 restaurants in hangzhou, and another 11 in Zhiejiang – maybe an option after one of those factory visits
-

-

-