Given that the restaurants in the Wanda Town commercial area offer the same fare you can find in Changchun,
and with the intention of experiencing more local specialties, all four meals we had in Changbaishan Wanda Town were at hotel restaurants…
I have to say, regarding the service industry in the town, some of the locally hired staff are quite speechless…
But the service at the hotel restaurants was pretty good~~~
Also, since it’s currently the off-season, some restaurants inside are closed…
Park Hyatt’s Yue Ting
The Park Hyatt’s all-day dining restaurant was completely empty; from the moment we sat down until we finished, not a single other guest appeared…
The menu is pretty much like any standard hotel all-day dining venue,
featuring simple Chinese, Western, Japanese, and Southeast Asian dishes. We ordered a burger and roast chicken.
The burger was decent, but the roast chicken was overcooked, the portion was small, and the taste was just average…
We tried the Changbaishan Strawberry Cheese Parfait and Schisandra-flavored ice cream…
The parfait was okay, but the ice cream wasn’t really ice cream at all—the cream content was so low that it was basically flavored ice…
Seeing that a scoop cost only 18 RMB, I thought it was a bargain, but the quality was quite disappointing.
However, the ambiance and service here were truly excellent, though the flavors didn’t quite live up to the brand…
Hyatt Regency’s Market Café
This is also the Hyatt Regency’s all-day dining restaurant. It’s very spacious and much livelier than the Park Hyatt… A company was holding an event with a buffet open. The à la carte menu was identical to Yue Ting’s, but they had some extra set menus. We ordered the BBQ set, which included steak, lamb chops, chicken cutlet, pork chop, and a pile of vegetables… Upon arrival, the server mentioned that service might be slow due to the corporate event and offered us complimentary drinks.
Actually, it wasn’t that slow, but during the meal, we overheard a female chef asking how to make a Margarita… The male chef said, “You don’t even know how to make a Margarita?” The female chef replied, “I know how, I’ve just never made one before…” Sweat.
All the food was served on a gigantic platter, which was quite spectacular. The foreign head chef even came over specifically to say in Chinese that the steak was imported from Australia and specially cooked well-done…… Speechless. Such good beef wasted; the texture was terrible. The rest of the items were quite good, though… A while later, the chef came back to ask how it tasted. I simply said, “I prefer medium.” The chef apologized, went back, and prepared another one medium-rare, though this time it was local beef, which was obviously much better~~~ Then the chef returned again to ask about the taste, apologized once more, and asked if we wanted a few more pieces~~
The chef’s service was truly excellent, the ambiance was great, and the food was quite tasty. If only the server had asked about the preferred doneness when taking the order…
Holiday Inn Suites’ Chuan Le Ju
This restaurant is newly opened and located in a rather peculiar spot—in the unoccupied building of the two Holiday Inn Suites towers… So, this entire building has only this restaurant with people in it…. It’s usually not very crowded, and prices are relatively affordable. We ordered Sliced Pork with Garlic Sauce, Boiled Fish, Hand-Torn Cabbage, and Shredded Chicken Noodles. The taste was just average, and the ingredients weren’t top-notch, but the service was good~~~
Westin’s Korean Restaurant
The ambiance is excellent; it feels like it might be the best-decorated Korean restaurant in the entire province… All the BBQ is grilled by the staff for you and served ready-to-eat. Suffering from decision paralysis, we just ordered the set menu for two, which included eight side dishes, Pine Nut Seafood Salad, Vegetable Porridge, Grilled Venison, Grilled Yellow Croaker, Korean Fried Chicken, Seafood Pancake, Stir-Fried Vegetables, Stone Pot Bibimbap, and a mooncake… Everything tasted quite good, and the portions were generous enough to leave us very satisfied… The only issue was that the dishes arrived in no particular order, and one item was missed…
Photos in this post taken with SONY NEX-5R + 16-50 f3.5-5.6, post-processed in Lightroom.
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