This article is reproduced from the author | Zhang Lushi's article
The view from the window of the serviced apartment on the 39th floor of the hotel
From Singapore, you will always encounter familiar elements in the Pan Pacific Hotel, such as Chinese paintings, orchids and Nanyang cuisine. Outside the window is the unrivaled high-altitude view of London.
Standing in front of the 30-degree corner glass of the Pan Pacific London suite is a bit like standing on the bow of a ship. The "Pickle" building designed and built by Norman Foster is within easy reach, and the busy traffic of the Financial City is at your feet. Although the "Pickle" has been standing for 18 years, it is still a representative of London's new landmark. I knew this view would be the key to the Pan Pacific Hotel in London; just like the hotel on the 72-storey Shard, which was built 10 years ago, was to tourists from all over the world. Suites with different orientations can also see London landmarks such as St. Paul's Cathedral and Tower Bridge.
The infinity pool at the Pan Pacific Hotel in London
I also noticed another unique feature of the hotel: the central London area Hotels with swimming pools are still rare, and even if they do have swimming pools, they are mostly located underground. There is a spacious infinity pool on the 4th floor of Pan Pacific London, facing the old church, new buildings outside the floor-to-ceiling glass, and the constant traffic of red double-decker buses. In normal times, this place would have been full of dumplings; but when I checked in, the area around the swimming pool was quiet. The hotel did not answer my question about the current occupancy rate. Judging from the situation during breakfast and lunch times, it is probably not too high. The epidemic delayed the hotel's construction process for 10 months. Although it is now open to welcome guests as scheduled, it seems that it still needs to go through a buffer period before international travel can fully resume.
Many modern high-rise buildings have been newly developed in the Financial City area, which is completely different from the old city center full of cultural relics. The first hotel opened by Pan Pacific Singapore in Europe is 43 floors high, but the guest rooms are only on the 19th floor, and the 20th to 41st floors are serviced apartments "The Sky Residences". Compared with new domestic hotels, it is not considered "sky-scraper"; but if compared with London itself, where modern buildings are still scarce, the newly opened London Pan Pacific hotel property is one of the few hotels in the city with high-altitude views. The Sky Residences has been launched this summer, with room types ranging from one to three bedrooms and one living room, starting at 1.3 million pounds, with access to the hotel's swimming pool and fitness facilities. I took a look at the three-bedroom and one-living model apartment on the 39th floor. The view from the "pickle" to the Tower Bridge is unrivaled. Of course, the price has also soared to more than 4 million pounds.
The hotel is just a few minutes' walk away from the busy Liverpool Street train station. There is also a newly opened Italian food center Eataly, which is very popular with the public, but as soon as you walk in Inside the hotel, the fully soundproofed floor-to-ceiling glass blocks the hustle and bustle of the city behind you. Throughout the hotel, whether in the public space or in the guest rooms, the New York designer duo Yabu Pushelberg has uniformly used soft and neutral tones without fancy treatments. It is said that the design goal is to make guests "instantly relax." You will encounter familiar elements at any time in the store, such as the Chinese paintings in the corridor; the "Orchid Lounge" in the lobby is filled with small orchids; the cocktail bar is named "Ginger Lily". When I heard the name, I I have smelled the familiar fragrance of Lingnan summer. It is said that florists have tried hard to find ginger flowers from the tropics in the UK, but unfortunately they have failed in the end.
At the end of the day, I feel that the food is the biggest feature of this hotel. This includes not only English breakfast, lobster egg pancakes, but also breakfast porridge, side dishes, and chicken shredded rice noodles; the Straits Kitchen has Nanyang-style meals prepared by Malaysian chefs, such as fried crab with chili, shrimp paste chicken, and Xingzhou fried rice. There is also a homemade cocktail named "Yang Guifei"; and a Chinese and Western afternoon tea hosted by Cherish Finden, a Singaporean pastry chef from Teochew.
Singaporean pastry chef Huang Shurou
A special feature of afternoon tea is the choice of various teas with unlimited refills. The tea brand comes from "Rare Tea" founded by a British tea lover. In recent years, it has been sought after by many high-end restaurants in London. I have drunk a lot of loose tea of ??this brand in different hotels and restaurants over the years, but unfortunately I cannot agree with the tea brewing method preached by the founder of Rare Tea that everyone carefully follows. The freshness and quality of the tea leaves are already debatable, so let’s not mention them for the time being; the large teapot that was served contained only very light-colored tea, and the tea leaves had been removed. I asked the waiter and the answer was "it has been brewed according to the tea brewing instructions". No matter what you drink into your mouth, it is as light as clear water. The British have become more and more interested in tea ceremony in recent years. It is expected that when this Singapore hotel enters the European market and brings Nanyang food culture, it can also take the lead in breaking the current status quo of following others' opinions and inviting the British people to drink real good tea.
Many diners who came to attend the afternoon tea came for Cherish Huang Shurou, a judge of the British TV Channel 4 cooking competition "The Great British Bake Off". Cherish moved to London 20 years ago. More than 10 years ago, he was invited to serve as the pastry chef of the Langham Hotel in London, which pioneered afternoon tea in British hotels. Seven years ago, he became a frequent guest on the British TV cooking industry. In the past few years, she has worked closely with Belgian Gopa Chocolate. She originally planned to return to Singapore for a while, but she happened to be contacted by Ann, the general manager of Pan Pacific London Hotel, asking her to serve as the executive chef of the pastry department. Cherish once worked at the Pan Pacific Hotel in Singapore when she was young. In this new store of her own, she obviously has more room to innovate and share. In afternoon tea, Huang Shurou has been imagining for a long time how to combine Asian flavors with British tastes. In the end, she designed a set of interesting tea dishes that "what you see is not what you get."
The dessert part of the afternoon tea meal designed by Huang Shurou recalling her childhood
For example, for the mochi (glutinous rice balls), Cherish used creamy chocolate sauce (ganache) instead of something that the British are not used to. For red beans, she replaced the traditional British mini sandwiches and scones with snacks such as shrimp dumplings, mushroom buns, barbecued pork puffs and curry puffs. The dessert part was a plate from her childhood memories in Singapore: using grapefruit, matcha, and black sesame seeds. She made a "long gown" (cheongsam), used lychee puffs, rose dew balls and cream to create Huang Shurou's favorite fruit-lychee-shaped dessert, used chocolate to make a "coconut shell" filled with mango, and finally designed it herself. The 67% chocolate created is filled with praline, brownie and other fillings. But the most special thing is that before serving dessert, Huang Shurou uses a small piece of "Umami" snack as a transition between salty snacks and desserts: caramel with soy sauce, sandwiched in seaweed and sesame butter biscuits, without A particularly striking flavor, delicate, harmonious and wonderful. On this snack, Cherish also pasted a carp pattern, bringing in the "goodwill" in Nanyang tradition, and the background was paved with "Chinese red". Before, every time I had English afternoon tea, I was so tired that I didn’t want to go back; this time, I was still a little bit unsatisfied after the afternoon tea.
Chocolate and lychee ice cream dessert designed and produced by Huang Shurou
Huang Shurou said that the home-cooked taste she misses is Hainanese chicken rice. I also had it in the hotel's Straits Kitchen, but in order to cater to the tastes of British diners, the chicken skin had been removed, and the main ingredient was chicken breast, which is preferred by locals. After the meal, I tried the chocolate dessert Cherish specially designed for the hotel. The sorbet next to it was made from the pulp of soursop, a common tropical fruit in Singapore and Malaysia. It was very unique. When I first heard that "Pan Pacific" was opening a store in London, I really didn't expect to have such a warm feeling.