The Five Great Avenues are located in the southern part of central Tianjin, consisting of five east-west parallel streets named after famous cities in southwest China: Chongqing, Dali, Chengdu, Munan, and Machang. Locals refer to this area as the “Five Great Avenues.” It gathers over 230 historical buildings in various architectural styles from countries such as Britain, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain, along with more than 50 former residences of notable figures. These historic buildings feature diverse architectural forms, including Renaissance, Greek Revival, Gothic, Romanticism, Eclecticism, and Sino-Western fusion styles, earning the area the title of “Exhibition of World Architecture.”
The Five Great Avenues actually cover a large area. Since most of the buildings are ordinary residential homes, their preservation condition is generally average. However, several zones have been renovated into small communities similar to Xintiandi, comprising boutique hotels, restaurants, bars, and art galleries. Examples include Xiannong Courtyard, Minyuan Xili, various former residences of celebrities, and Prince Qing’s Mansion. On nice days, it’s quite pleasant to take a stroll and relax here.
Xiannong Courtyard
Xiannong Courtyard
Xiannong Courtyard
Minyuan Xili
Minyuan Xili
Minyuan Xili
Prince Qing’s Mansion
For lunch, we chose a Japanese restaurant in Minyuan Xili called Geba Geba. It has quite high ratings on review sites and is indeed very popular; even on a weekday noon, it was fully packed. The ambiance and service were pretty good, but perhaps because we ordered a set menu, we didn’t get to experience any particularly standout dishes…
Without a reservation, only the last two seats at the counter were left… We went straight for the lunch set: sashimi, seafood soup, cheesy mashed potatoes, salt-grilled salmon, udon noodles, egg pudding, and coffee. Basically, only the sashimi and pudding tasted great; everything else was just so-so, and the coffee was especially bad…
The sashimi was of good quality.
Seafood Soup
Cheesy Mashed Potatoes
Salt-Grilled Salmon
Udon Noodles
Egg Pudding and Coffee
Photos in this post taken with SONY NEX-5R + 16-50mm f3.5-5.6, post-processed in Lightroom.
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