Red Garden and Our Hotel

We are very happy with our hotel, the Chulia Mansion. Not only do they have an outstanding breakfast buffet, but they also have tea, coffee, cookies and ice cream available from 2:00 on, and a free drink of wine or juice at the rooftop bar at 6:00. We partook of both -- after a large breakfast tea and a snack is plenty for lunch, and the view from the top is nice. The hotel is five stories high. Yes, it was raining lightly when we went up there at 6:00, but it didn't continue much.

Rooftop Terrace

View looking over some of the city

We decided to try the Red Garden for dinner, as it was rated quite highly on TripAdvisor (a great source for information on all kinds of travel-related topics) and it was a short walk from our hotel. It was a large food court with booths encircling a large area of tables. The tables are numbered and whatever you order will be delivered right to your table. The first thing we saw was this large rack of chicken wings barbecuing.

Every food booth had photo menus posted. Some were quite interesting. I'm not sure if these dishes actually had frog in them, or if the word means something else here (not likely?).

Some of the sausages and other meat items for sale.

Here is a view looking over some of the tables. It wasn't very crowded, as we were there before 7:00. I suspect it is a real mob scene later in the evening.

Everything was quite inexpensive, and all cooked freshly to order. We had some fried prawns and spring rolls to start.

We ordered an egg biriani. Even though the photo showed a hard-boiled egg, this came with a fried egg on top of the clay pot. A few papars were on the side.

Here is how it looked once we chopped up the egg and emptied the pot onto the plate. It was very good.

While we were at our table, I noticed this sign -- I wonder what is special about an OBAMA vegetarian spring roll?

We were told that oysters are big here and an oyster omelet is something we should try. However, neither of us is particularly fond of oysters.

We headed down to breakfast just after 7:30 when the buffet opened. We were amazed at the spread. This photo shows the fruits and some more. Along the wall were a number of hot dishes, mostly Asian, but including baked beans. You could order eggs any way you want, including Eggs Benedict.

These were all delicious; nice to have small pieces to try. (Spring rolls, Chinese BBQ puffs, and sausage rolls)

Here is what my plate looked like, a sampler of the hot foods -- noodles, macaroni, rice, BBQ chicken, and baby bok choy.

There was a beautiful tower of sweets, tiny pieces of various cakes and jelled desserts, some served in Asian soup spoons. But I didn't have room to try any. There was also an assortment of breads and rolls. The tea/coffee machines are very high-tech, including giving steamed milk for my tea.