Escape in Hangzhou » no smoking

New Starbucks opened – Hangzhou EAC

SWG — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 02:32:36 +0000

Starbucks is slowly creeping west. If I can hold on a couple of years there might even be one downstairs from me.

Ajisen Noodles

SWG — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:29:43 +0000

Hunting around you can still find a bowl of noodles in Hangzhou for very little money so Ajisen Ramen’s 20-30RMB per bowl seems a little cheeky. Of course your local Xinjiang Hand-pulled Noodle cupboard isn’t exactly 5-star comfort, in fact most of those places don’t even have a front door, a slight turn-off in the winter. But paying four or five times the rate for the pleasure of a front door?

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
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Ajisen Ramen | 味千拉面
Huashan Restaurant, Huashang Supermarket, 2 Wener Road West | 杭州华商店文二西路2号世纪联华超市1楼
0571-8 8924627
Stadium Restaurant, 132 Shuguang Road | 杭州市曙光路132号好又多购物中心
0571-87633552
Hubin Road Restaurant, 10 Hubin Road | 杭州市湖滨路10号
0571-87172496

Food
Service
Decoration
Toilets (No star means didn't go!)
Price (1 star per 50Y per person)

IFE Cafe

SWG — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:51:26 +0000

IFE – anybody know if that is a name, or initials of something else? – is a local daytime hangout aimed firmly at the foreign students living and working at Yuquan Campus of Zhejiang Uni.. The place is tiny, self service, cosily decorated and has pretty good coffee, both to drink and beans to buy. Despite being full most of the day, and nearly everybody in the place armed with a laptop, the internet remains surprisingly quick; maybe that had something to do with 6 of the 8 laptops in there when I was being Macs, not so many Windows machines and Internet Explorers playing havoc… (I’m biased, maybe)

The place is no smoking and there are signs up ‘SShhhhh!’, so providing there is a chair spare, you can get on with work.

IFE Cafe, 418 Xixi Road | 西溪路418号

Starbucks

SWG — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 02:54:58 +0000

Of course Starbucks is in Hangzhou, where is it not? This isnt a ground-breaking review about coffee, just a map of all the Starbucks I can think of.