Since I'm feeling a bit better, I shall take some time to blog about my Christmas in Shanghai.
We woke up bright and early to take a stroll in Ruijin Hotel's garden before checking out and going for brunch.
The garden looked so pretty in the morning despite the few renovation works going on here and there.
I love the look of shriveled and dry autumn leaves.
This is the main building where we do our checking in and checking out of the hotel
Spotted a cute baby in the garden playing with his spade
Autumn colors <3
Had to go back to the room to do some last-minute packing before checking out and taking a cab to the next surprise hotel. (:
So the next hotel was Pudi Boutique Hotel. It was quite an epic failure when we arrived as there were no bell boys at all so we had to carry our luggage into the hotel ourselves only to find one lady working at the reception alone. She didn't bother to help us when she saw us carrying so many baggage in as well. Epic fail. But then, the following day, we saw at least 4 people at the reception so we were guessing it's because of Christmas so everyone's on leave. But still...
This hotel was awarded the Golden Pillow Award in China Hotels. I'm guessing it's one of their most prestigious hotel awards or something like that. And it was even more expensive than Ruijin Hotel. :/
J booked the suite so we got another extremely HUGE room.
Everything in this room could be controlled by a remote. Very awesome. And their plugs are western plugs so we don't have to use an adaptor. + points.
This was the bathroom that I am super amazed at. On the far end, it leads inside to a huge sun shower and the other end, is the toilet bowl. I am not a fan of wearing bath robes, but apparently, Jesse claimed that the robes were made of super expensive material.
We couldn't laze around for very long because our Christmas brunch seating was at noon.
We had brunch at Tavola - An Italian Dining restaurant located along the bund.
We were one of the first few ones there so it was pretty empty when we got there.
There was also an alfresco dining area for dinners I suppose, to have a better view of the bund
They had an open concept kitchen where you can view the chefs preparing and cooking. It was a semi-buffet for the Christmas brunch. We had to pick a main course, the starters, sides and salads were all free-flow.
They didn't exactly label their food but there was rocket greens, parma ham, cauliflower, zucchinis, fried shrimps and capsicums. The shrimps had amazing flavour.
For mains, we had turkey and a pasta to share.
TACCHINO AL FORNO
Roast Turkey with Chestnuts and Berries
The meat was really tender and the sauce went well with the turkey.
LINGUINE AL GRANCHIO
Linguine with Crab Meat
The pasta was really al dente and there were huge chunks of crab meat in the dish itself. However, think the two of us will always prefer cream base pastas to tomato based ones.
The brunch also included a glass of Prosecco. The waiter totally forgot about it until we mentioned so he offered us another glass each.
Most of the desserts were super yummy. I especially liked the pie and the profiterole. YUM.
Yummy yummy desserts. Wish I had saved more stomach space for them.
I think I look really weird in this photo and there is a random man in the background but I'm just going to post it up because it's the only photo of the two of us haha.
I would say overall, the food was good but not that fantastic. It is a franchise brought down from Beijing and they are famous for their wood-fired pizzas and pastas with ingredients imported directly from Italy. The ambience and location is perfect for a romantic dinner by the bund if you fancy.
We went to take a short stroll along the river. Couldn't stay for long as I really wanted to visit the Shanghai Aquarium and we still had to rush to get my secret present and get to dinner.
[T]AVOLA Italian Dining is located at
2500 Binjiang Avenue, Pudong New Area, Shanghai, China
滨江大道2500号
Reservation: 139 1657 7140 / 021 2022 8588
Email: contact.sh@Tavola.cn
Next post: Shanghai Aquarium and Christmas Day Dinner
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