Great Wall Village Story Hotel

We had lunch at this little hotel after our morning visit to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. It was part of our private tour booked via a German agency and not even our local guide had known what to expect... To make it short - no other guests were around and the lunch that had been prepared exclusively for the three of us would have been enough to feed a group of six... It was genuine home-made cooking, and I regretted deeply that I wasn't able to communicate with the landlord's wife who had done her very best to introduce us to unfamiliar delicacies such as Chinese egg drop soup. It wasn't just egg flowers we found in the soup but there was a sort of comparatively firm egg yolk layer on top of the spicy soup and it was ever so good!!! I also had some of the other food, such as shrimps, pork belly and lamb (both very good), braised celery (mmmh!) and rice, but the soup and the (braided) deep-fried pastry alone would have been sufficient to make me happy... While eating away we did not touch the hot water in the thermos jug - silently wondering whether it was meant to be used with non-existent tea bags or whether we were supposed to use it in the bowls for cleaning our hands after peeling the shrimps. It was only when we had left that the guide explained to us that Chinese do not necessarily drink tea with their meals but a lot just drink hot water - an information quite new to us on the first full day of our China tour. We also had a glimpse at one of the rooms which looked quite nicely decorated. But while we cannot judge accommodation quality we can fully recommend the restaurant (though you'd better announce your visit in time).