Buffet Breakfast in CHIC Restaurant at Hotel de la Coupole Sapa - MGallery Collection [Vietnam]

I didn't opt for breakfast when I booked Hotel de la Coupole Sapa - MGallery Collection, thinking there should be other nearby options! But it's our last day in Sapa and knowing my mom always prefers hotel breakfast, we decided to give it a go.

Located on the top floor of the hotel, it was a long corridor of tall ceiling, as if we were exploring the palatial grounds of buildings in Europe that had stood for centuries. 

Insides of the CHIC Restaurant; like a classic, grand ballroom with no columns supporting the ceiling and natural sunlight streaming in from the skylights. Only one word best describes the feeling; wow!

Huge circular dome at the far end. Recommended to sit here for the best environment although the disadvantage is that most of the food would be placed at the other end. Okay for me, less so for my mom who had to walk a long way! 

There's also the option of dining outdoors but they appeared to be disjointed from the restaurant, and the weather wasn't exactly highland cool.  However, you would have full view of Fansipan on a good day, as the above photograph shows. 

We decided to opt for the above "thrones".

Have to live like "nobility" for a morning.  

Nearest station for us at this faraway spot would be the drinks and eggs, and there's only so much eggs I can ingest in one morning! Not to mention I had to save enough stomach space for the rest of the stations.

Rest of the food stations; variety was wide, including your usual salad, local delights, western, porridge, fruits and also cheese with salami (including blue cheese) and even bibimbap!  

Plating was high class, and imagine having a honeycomb slowly dripping real honey as the spread for your bread! Almost like walking into a dining room with tables filled with delicious looking food in a medieval fairy tale! 

Only problem was the lack of space, especially during the peak breakfast period! p.s. the above photographs were taken past the peak, with more breathing space.

My mom can sit for hours in a hotel breakfast buffet, especially if my elder sister is with her! I am more an eater, preferring to concentrate on food, and read the online Straits Times. So how did the food fare?

Well, they were not exceptional and I eventually focused on fruits. Missing the amazing breakfast from the nearby ALIANA Boutique Sapa Hotel & Spa instead! 

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Address

No. 1 Hoàng Liên, Street, 

Hotel de la Coupole Sapa,

Sa Pa, Lào Cai 330000, Vietnam

Map

As above.

Pricing

Buffet Breakfast - 450,000 Vietnamese Dong Per Adult

Day 3 for the 8 Days Huangshan, Tunxi, Yixian, Wuyuan, Mount Qiyun, Thousand-Island Lake, Hangzhou Tour Package to China

<<< Days One and Two

Detailed Postings for the Day

1. Unscheduled Morning Walk at Huangshan
2. Trespassing a Private Space (Upcloud Shilin Villa)
3. Second Day @ Huangshan
4. Lakeside Ancient Village along Xin'An River
5. Cruise Along Xin'An River
6. Cultural Show on Huizhou Culture
7. Huangshan International Hotel

Woke up to a freezing temperature of just seven degrees celcius, and I could only be grateful to be borne in an era when heat radiators / heaters are the norm to be installed within hotel rooms! 

I was up very much earlier to hopefully catch the sunrise but as it was drizzling; I decided to go back to sleep! Rain had stopped when I once again awoke from my slumber; and I joined my family members for a unscheduled morning walk surrounding Shilin hotel!  

Unwittingly trespass a private property which looked like a pretty high-end hotel called Upcloud Shilin Villa. Bet the surrounding views would be unmatched in a cloudless, blue sky day.

Had breakfast in Shilin hotel which was alright. Nothing to complain about since they were just stomach fillers for a stomach that had emptied overnight, and I am not so much a breakfast person.

Start of our morning trek down the mountain! Pity the drizzle had returned and it was such a pain to walk in the rain! Not to mention that the whole mountain was shrouded in mist and fog, and I can't make out much of the scenery for most of the trek!

Photographs and more photographs, nevertheless! Unlike in the past, I have more or less abandoned my bulky DSLR for comparatively more light-weighted camera phones. Imagine having to haul along the heavy DSLR and its lens along this trip, and worry that the equipment might have water damage due to the rain!

Quite an interesting sight to see those vibrantly colored raincoats trudging in the rain, in the midst of brown and green surroundings.   

Rare blossoms beautifying the environment! As it was still too cold up on the mountains, we could only see more blossoming flowers halfway or at the foot of Huangshan.

Finally back to the base station of the shuttle bus!

A conclusion to our Huangshan visit, on our 3rd day! 

Lunch time! Typical of tour packages in China, variety is limited to really Chinese cuisines, where you get communal dishes of meat, vegetables, soup and fish, and yes, white rice. 

Loving the braised pork belly here!

Only bad thing; you need plenty of white rice! 

Forgot to mention as well that another standard for meals (except breakfast) in China tour packages would be bottles of Chinese branded beer! And while I don't drink that much in Singapore, I was guzzling beer for lunches and dinners during this trip!   

Waste not.

End of our lunch; honestly, the sustainable soul in me can't stand seeing food wastage but the selfish devil in me was telling me that I could eat all that and endure a spike in weight gain after I return home. So, selfish won the argument, over sustainable. 

Back on level of the restaurant and it was packed with customers! Now, restaurants in China are cut throat businesses and it was reassuring to see so many people; after our meal though, so didn't quite matter.

The pot of braised pork belly that I had earlier! So tempting to ask for takeaway but I knew dinner was just a few hours later. Being in tour packages mean you will seldom go hungry. 

Back on the coach, which we have missed for almost 24 hours, since it can't drive up to Huangshan! A large coach for 40 persons; we had plenty of spaces since our tour had only 12 persons. 

I thought the rain would have relented at the foot of the mountains. Turned out to be still a pain in the ass; who likes rainy weather while travelling? Not for me for sure.

 

Exploring the Lakeside Ancient Village along Xin'An River, which was so quiet; I think we were the only group for most parts of the walk. Boring it sure was, and the rain didn't help.

Cruise Along Xin'An River - a heavy lunch, a rainy day, a boring village; elements that eventually contributed to a sleepy cruise along the 365-kilometer long river. Thank god it was less than an hour long. 

Rain seemed to get heavier. Good thing, we will be checking in to our next hotel on this trip; the Huangshan International Hotel! And we were given free time to rest before the next item on the itinerary. 

I had ice cream before hitting the hotel gym! 

It's just right to have something cold, in the cold.

Dinner time! Instead of travelling outside, we had the meal in the hotel's grand ballroom! Again, the communal dishes, and the beer. In usual circumstances, I am able to balance the calories intake with plenty of walking but with the rain, it's just impossible! 

Attending the Cultural Show on Huizhou Culture at Huangshan Performing Arts City; I have watched enough of such shows in China to assume that they would roughly be the same setup, just focusing on the differences in regional culture.

My assumptions had been broken every single time as I was hooked on it for the entire one-hour performance! It was entertaining and the use of technology was just eye-popping; with movable audience seats, water gushing from platforms to emulate floods and LED panels that showed stunning graphics! 

Kudos, kudos, kudos.

Back to the hotel, feeling totally overwhelmed by what I saw during the show and wondering if my workplace can replicate, albeit to a small extent given how little budget we have. 

Night was still young; so we ventured out of the hotel, only to find that there's really nothing much around the hotel, and Google Maps don't quite work in China, making own-self exploration a challenge. Well, guess safer to go back to the hotel.

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Click HERE for our 8 Days Huangshan, Tunxi, Yixian, Wuyuan, Mount Qiyun, Thousand-Island Lake, Hangzhou Tour Package to China via CTC Travel Agency