If you are trying to figure out where to go for a good dinner on Friday evening, this might help: weekend seafood buffet designed for a carefree Friday evening at the Caf Restaurant of Days Hotel & Suites Beijing.
The hotel's ground floor caf restaurant prepares all the most desirable seafood choices including lobster, shark fin, oyster, salmon and tuna. The lobster and shark fin are served to your table, while salmon and tuna on plates cushioned with ice, along with plates of fresh shrimp and scallop, at the sashimi station.
Seafood can also be found at the grill station, where a hotel chef will make what you want on the spot: salmon, shrimp, or squid. Seafood, beef, mutton and pork are also available for grilling.
Another important feature of the buffet is the hot dishes contained in the dish roll top chafers. There is an emphasis on Chinese dishes, but there are also plenty of Western choices. There is seafood ragout with mushroom, cumin flavored salmon, grilled beef tenderloin with gratinated snail, and mandarin dish with bread crust. There are also Cantonese dim sum dishes as well as Hangzhou style sauted vegetables with seafood.
The noodle station is also worth visiting. As well as pasta and seafood laksa, there are Chinese dumplings, wonton, and hand-stretched noodles.
You can choose from six Nestle ice creams. But it is also not a bad idea to have them mixed with other ingredients at a station besides the ice cream refrigerator. There are pine nuts, walnut kernels, cashew nuts and fruits such as oranges, peaches, blueberries, as well as dried lichee and kernel of apricot seed.
Along with the aforementioned foods, there are a salad station, bread station, and dessert station. There is also a chocolate fountain which you can dip fruit skewers into.
Beer and several soft drinks are served with unlimited refills. That makes the price 158 yuan, plus 15 percent surcharge per person well worth it.
The seafood buffet will be available every Friday evening until the end of May.
Text by Ye Jun and photo by Yang Shizhong
Caf Restaurant
Address:1/F, Days Hotel & Suites Beijing, 27 Huaweili, Chaoyang District.
Tel:010-6773-1234 Ext 3930.
(China Daily March 30, 2007)