Four Seasons Hotel, Puxi
During my Dec 2016 trip to China, I stayed in 2 different hotels in Shanghai. Upon arrival, I stayed the first night in Grand Hyatt at Jinmao Tower in Pudong which is near my office. Then I went to Hangzhou and when I came back to Shanghai on Friday evening, I decided to stay at the Four Seasons Hotel in Puxi for a change. The Four Seasons at Weihai road in Puxi is a very old hotel, but conveniently located near Nanjing West Street 南京西路. The room here is small but very clean and in a classical design. Very different from the huge modern rooms that I have stayed at the Four Seasons in HK and in Guangzhou. The rooms here are pretty basic by comparison but is still comfortable and adequate nonetheless. It is also equipped with L’occitane toiletaries like the other Four Seasons. At corporate rate of around RMB1000++ including breakfast, it was much cheaper than the Grand Hyatt.
That night, after my shopping (which I will come to later), I decided to have room service for dinner. Although not on the Room service menu, they were able to serve me the hairy crab from their Chinese restaurant 四季轩. It was the most expensive hairy crab I had on this trip at about RMB300. I ordered the salted fish and chicken cube fried rice 马友咸鱼鸡粒炒饭 (RMB98) as well. The food was excellent. The fried rice was so fragrant and portion was huge. It can easily feed two. I finished half of it only. The hairy crab came with the Yangcheng Lake authentication and had so much roe! Yum! A very satisfying meal.
My room rate includes breakfast. The breakfast restaurant of the Four Seasons was very pleasant with full length mirror looking into the street.
Breakfast selection was good with a decent selection of local and international fare. Instead of my usual local breakfast, I decided to go for the international choices. I had a fried egg, baked beans, bacon and some scrambled egg on toast, a bolo bun and some fruits.
My overall experience with the Four Seasons in Puxi was good. Concierge was helpful and provided the the stuff I needed to pack my hairy crabs for bringing home!
Nanjing West Street – Shopping for Hairy Crabs!
The plus of the Four Seasons Hotel, Puxi, is its proximity to Nanjing West Street as mentioned above. It is 5 mins walk to Nanjing West Street. From there, you can turn right and walk towards the Bund, or head left for more shopping if like me, you have seen enough of the Bund. There are many high street brand stores in Nanjing West Street, including a huge multi stores Uniqlo store and Sephora store. The Uniqlo store here is much bigger than any in Singapore and has a much wider selection., especially winter wear. Pricewise, it is similar to Singapore. The Sephora store here is multi storey too and even has a Browhaus outlet within the store.
Along the same street is a huge Isetan department store. I headed there, not for clothing but for food. It has a basement food hall when you can find cooked food stores and fresh seafood. I headed here for the fresh seafood, yes the hairy crabs!
These are all hairy crabs from Yangcheng Lake. Authentic hairy crabs from Yangcheng Lake are individually tagged with a bar code. These crabs all had the original bar code tag. There were different sizes of crabs available. Smaller ones were on promotion at RMB38 per crab and buy 2 get 1 free. But those were really small. I decided to get the big ones which were around 200gm and were going for RMB58 each. They provided a styroform box and then placed it in a carton box. My plan was to check in the whole box. I bought 16 male crabs which fitted nicely in one box. The lady gave me a bottle of vinegar for the crabs. The vinegar is already pre-mixed and tasted the same as what is served in the restaurants. No need to add ginger anymore.
Packing my Hairy Crabs
Back in the hotel, I asked for ice cooler packs for the crabs. Hairy crabs needs to be kept cold to stay alive. The next morning, I asked for fresh ice cooler packs again, to be packed into the styrofoam boxes. The hotel also provided me with tapes to seal the styrofoam box and carton box. The service provided by the Four Seasons Hotel was excellent.
Did my crabs survive the flight back to Singapore? Yes!! All arrived safe and sound! They were really yummy. So full of roe and at a reasonable price! It was worth the effort. The whole family enjoyed it!