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 Ramada - good service and facilities,  Friday, 24 August 2007 My boss stayed in this hotel a month or so ago and was impressed by the quality of the rooms (they had recently been refurbished) and the attitude of the staff, especially the Front of House Manager Romy Astillero and the Sales Manager Toshi Chigira - these are the people to contact if you want to make a booking.

It is a bit cheaper than the "established" five stars, and the only area it falls down on is the English ability of the reception and general staff. I will imagine there will be a slow improvement now there is a good management team in place.

 A quiet hideaway in Heishijiao,  Wednesday, 09 May 2007 This is a small bar frequented by an eclectic crowd of Russian, Japanese and Korean students, English teachers and Japanese businessmen not far from the coast in Heishijiao (down towards the software park).

The owner is a Chinese lady who seems to look after several cats, and she serves a variety of teas, coffees, beers, liquor and cocktails at pretty reasonable prices. No draft beers unfortunately but bottles of Qingdao / Harbin beer were 8RMB.

The mood is relaxing with an upper and lower floor. It manages to be quiet without being dead. If you live around the Heishijiao area it is a nice alternative to a long trek up to town centre, and you can meet quite a few of the local expats in here. No food except nuts and seeds unfortunately.

 Something of a revelation,  Wednesday, 09 May 2007 First of all, I am not a vegetarian but do have veggie friends, so I thought I would check out this restaurant. Next to the temple up the hill from Hope Square, it is a tiny place and unless you can read Chinese (天缘素饭店） you may struggle to locate it.

Anyway I went in and sat down at one of only about four tables in the restaurant (not a place for a big party). Reading on here that it was a vegetarian restaurant, I was a little disappointed to read the menu (Chinese only) and see meat, meat, meat. Had I been deceived? Still, since I was there and had been provided with a hot water I felt obliged to order something. Yuxiang Rousi, shuizhu Roupian etc. etc. Standard fare that you can get in any Chinese canteen and not remotely vegetarian. I resigned myself to a hundun (wonton) at just 5RMB and wrote off the restaurant as a bit of a hoax. Vegetarian my arse.

Anyway, the hundun turned out to be the most delicious I have ever tasted! It was in a nice soup with carrots, mushrooms, xiangcai and strips of tofu. The dumplings were excellent, but I could not quite put my finger on what was in it. Seemed meaty, and yet not quite.

Anyway I finished my meal and complemented the cook on a very tasty and reasonably priced meal, mentioning that I had heard that this was a vegetarian restaurant but was glad I had came anyway.

"We are a vegetarian restaurant!", came the reply

"But your menu is full of food that contains meat" countered I, pointing to a whole list of dishes on the menu containing the "rou" character.

"Ah, they do not contain meat, the meat is substituted for bean curd. Everything is vegetarian. The names of the dishes are just to explain what they would be had we used meat".

"You mean to say that delicious hundun had no meat in it?" I asked, quite gobsmacked.

"Bean curd."

So, there you go. A vegetarian restaurant from the sign outside, a misleading menu full of meat, but a happy ending to this review. If the rest of the menu lives up to the hundun I imagine they will make a lot of laowai veggies living in Dalian very happy indeed. I told her to expect a steady flow of foreigners after I wrote this review.

I only mark the restaurant down on ambience, which is not really fair as it does not attempt to be fancy. The prices were very reasonable with nothing more than 30RMB on the menu that I could see. Here are the details in Chinese if you need to find it:

唐山街松山寺1-1-4
天缘素饭店
83673110
贾女士 （Ms. Jia）