Our hotel in Nanjing was pretty sweet. It felt and looked like it was a 4 star hotel by international standards, though it was probably a 5 star hotel under China’s rating system.
The breakfast at the hotel reflected it. Though there weren’t enough tables and seats to accommodate all of the tour groups eating breakfast at the same time, the food was pretty good. But some of the better breakfast choices, like the croissants, danishes, sesame balls, and youtiao, were the first things to be emptied and ignored by the hotel staff.
For my first plate, I went with the tasty-looking round noodles, a muffin (for the road), a white breakfast sausage, hash browns with ketchup, and bacon-looking protein.
Of all the different stir-fried noodle options during the various hotel breakfasts (in Guilin and Shanghai areas), these tasted the best. The noodles weren’t over cooked and the seasoning was just right. I have to say that my standards of the stir-fried noodles at hotel breakfasts had dropped during my time Asia, but I was glad to see that this particular version rose above the others. There were shreds of sauce-drenched eggs and slices of sweet onions to keep the noodles from being so monotonous.
Aunt IS’s first plate represented the Chinese breakfast options. Fried rice, stir-fried peas, some pickled veggies, steamed potato, youtiao and custard buns. The over-easy egg and slices of bread in the background were mine.
Second round:
I had the aforementioned over-easy eggs with bread and steamed buns filled with meat. Someone had mentioned that they were good, so I gave it a try.
Third round:
As you can see, I enjoyed the meat-filled steamed buns. The filling reminded me of a meatball with a sweet Chinese glaze – but in a steamed bun. Although I liked the buns, I didn’t eat these. No, no. I packed these up and stashed them in my bag for a later time.
The youtiao plate was empty. Aunt IS was one of the last people to get them (on her first plate). After waiting a round, I flagged a hotel staff over and asked if there would be any more youtiao coming. He glanced over at the bare greasy platter and went into the kitchen. He brought back with a mountain of youtiao that happened to be cooling off. As he walked towards the platter, I noticed that everyone was eyeing the youtiao.
Mom said these were properly made. I totally agreed when I took my first bite. Although they weren’t hot, they were light and bready – perfect for dunking in sweet coffee. I shared these warm youtiao with the table.
As I was enjoying my third round of food, I noticed that someone had a bowl of noodle soup. I didn’t see the noodle station when I scouted out all the options. That’s when I saw people in the back of the dining area, standing in front of the kitchen counter. I wandered over and saw that there was a whole condiment bar right beside the egg station. How did I not see this when I was waiting for my over-easy eggs? Tunnel vision.
By the time I was standing in front of the noodle station, my stomach was reaching the limit I had set since the whole Taiwan thing. I asked for some wonton soup instead of noodle soup. Gasp!
These tiny wontons barely had any filling. Now, I’ve realized how much meat we eat in North America but could you really call these wontons if there’s no filling? The cilantro leaf was larger than the filling of one wonton. There was something comforting about slurping the slippery wonton skins down with the MSG-seasoned broth though. The soup had a weird package taste, but it tasted good to me. Is that bad? I'd rather have a naturally flavoured soup like a bowl of
shio ramen any day though.
After a
very enjoyable breakfast in the hotel, we were brought to see the
Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge. As we sat inside the bridge’s museum, we were given a brief history lesson before we went up the sketchy elevator to the observatory deck.
