Best Food In China

Location

If you’re craving the cozy, festive atmosphere of the holiday season, look no further than Aroma Restaurant at the Holiday Inn. Dedicatedly decked out from head to toe in holiday cheer, Holiday Inn is chock full of goodies ranging from German chocolate Santas to adorable gingerbread houses strewn around the hotel. Entering Aroma was a nostalgic experience for someone who had been dearly missing Christmas songs and reindeers. Located on the second floor of the hotel, Aroma sets the holiday mood with Santa outfits on the waitresses and beautiful live renditions of Christmas music.

A fairly new addition to the Holiday Inn that opened on October 1, Aroma is an international buffet that caters to both Chinese and western tastes. Some notable dishes include noodles cooked to order in their impressive hot dish stations. A lovely vegetarian option with mushrooms and Chinese bok choy, the noodles were cooked perfectly by the chefs who painstakingly cooked all of the components separately and slowly to extract maximum flavors from the vegetables. I was quite impressed at how flavorful yet subtle this dish was. In addition, I was favorably impressed by the cold smoked duck with raspberry vinaigrette. The meat retained its smokiness while being nicely acidic and sweet with a hint of refreshing raspberry that kept it from being too rich. They also have a lobster promotion, and being accustomed famous Maine lobsters in America, I was pleasantly surprised by these lobsters, which were imported from Australia. These lobsters are smaller and grilled with a lemon, garlic and butter sauce. It’s significantly easier to eat since the diners do not need to crack open the lobsters. They also have a meatier, more robust texture with a hint of smokiness from the grill.

One of the most noteworthy features of Aroma’s buffet is the tableside presentation of steak and as a dessert option, Christmas flambéed rum cake. The chefs will come to your table to personally grill the steaks to your exacting standards. Mine was beautifully grilled to a medium rare and served with rich black pepper sauce that didn’t overwhelm the beef. Imported from Australia, the steak had an earthy flavor with a buttery texture. The chef also presented it beautifully with some heirloom tomatoes. Since I don’t eat much steak in China, I appreciated the quality of the meat greatly. Meanwhile, another tableside presentation appeared in the form of traditional English rum fruitcake. A special Christmas promotion, the chef also presents this tableside by pouring rum over the cake and flambéing it right next to the diners. Nutty, fruity, ever so tart and lightly smelling of rum, this dense fruitcake is a festive treat for all diners. The tableside flambé presentation is also a charming addition to the dining experience.

I was also quite impressed with the dessert selection, which feature an expansive mixture of traditional Chinese and international Western selections. The ice cream was deliciously creamy and not overwhelmingly sweet, concocted specially by the pastry chef of Holiday Inn. They also had crème brulee, one of my personal favorites, in addition to bread pudding, chestnut crumble cake and a scrumptious marzipan cinnamon cake with praline butter cream. These are all desserts entirely appropriate for the holiday season and a welcome addition to more traditional Chinese options such as black rice pudding and red bean and coconut pudding. These are rich and satisfying desserts to top off your palate. In addition, there’s also an abundance of fresh fruit and poached pear in red wine.

Aroma is a welcome addition to the international buffet scene in Hangzhou, with a dedication to quality of ingredients and their consideration of international tastes. Not only do they promote monthly tableside presentations such as the Australian steak and Christmas rum cake of this month, but will also feature a New Year’s Eve dinner buffet, New Years Day Seafood Buffet Gala Dinner and a New Year’s Day Brunch. Furthermore, Aroma offers a special brunch deal for younger children every weekend, which would be a perfect excuse to try the restaurant.

--by Kate Moon

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