Mountainous Lounge for Gourmets -- Songfeng Xuan

It's a rare treat to find an excellent restaurant embedded in a mountainous park. But Guangzhou is blessed with one; the Songfeng Xuan (Tower in Pine Breeze) Restaurant, at Mingzhulou in Baiyun Park. Two of us from GZ Daily were there as the guests of Managing Director Mr. James Chen, hot on the heels of the Gotherberg crew, who'd been there only a couple of days before and who after months on the ocean were probably grateful for something other than seafood!. To our pleasure, we were served the same exotic banquet the intrepid sailors had enjoyed.

Soup of Seabed Coconut and Crocodile in a "tea-port".   [More pix of delicacies] 

Properly prepared Cantonese fare is extremely healthy, with an emphasis on freshness that's not commonly found in many Western restaurants. Vegetables in particular, are served underdone to preserve their colour, texture and taste.

Braised Meihuaqian Fish  [More pix of delicacies] 

And what a banquet they serve. Barbecued eel, that old Cantonese mainstay boiled chicken – without the fatty white skin, a boiled spinach dish (yes spinach! not gok choy), a fish as tasty as was delightfully boneless, jiaozi served upside down and fixed to a thin layer of pastry.

The room was unpretentious, decorated in pale yellows with the usual tile floor. A large circular table in the middle and plenty of space around it. The restaurant can accommodate up to 1,000 people, in very tasteful surroundings. You wouldn’t know that from looking at it, but there are many private rooms, each with unpronounceable 8 syllable Latin botanical species names, some of which (eg. Clitoria Ternatea) really catch the eye. It must be fun trying to reserve them over the phone!

With the Chef  [More pix of my visit] 

Access to the restaurant is the only real hassle. If you live nearby, you can walk there or ride a bicycle if you like a challenge. If you have a car, you can drive it in and there are plenty of places to park. But therein lies the problem. You're also entering a quasi-national park, and it costs 5 yuan per person and 15 yuan per car. No major problem if you're driving your own vehicle – if you can afford the price of petrol you can certainly afford to get into Baiyun Park. The pointy end of the stick is that if you're relying on taxis, you can get one to take you in, but you can't get one to take you home again. Drivers are unwilling to pay 15 yuan to enter the park and take the risk they might not be able to locate their passenger at the top of the hill. And you can't blame them. So it's a brisk 20 minute walk down the hill, which is okay on the balmy summer nights but might be less fun in a sudden rainstorm.

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(Written by David Kellaway)