The people who were supposed to meet us at the airport in Beijing with a car didn.t show up. After a long taxi ride through dubious neighborhoods at night, we finally arrived at the Grand Hotel Beijing. The first impressions of the place might not resonate with the expectations one holds for such a hotel. The building squats like a toad on a busy corner of Chang An Avenue-an extremely busy major thoroughfare. Do not be fooled by first impressions, as they can be deceptive.

Lobby

The reception area is fairly small, and is paneled in dark wood. The main public space is the eight story atrium. Most of the restaurants and shops are to be found off the atrium. Furniture is quiet and subdued.

Dining

The Grand Hotel Beijing has many options from which to choose. At the upper end of the scale, the dining room offers a very extensive menu. Several items on the menu might raise Western eyebrows. Casserole of Dog's Meat in Garlic Sauce or "ox-penis jelly" are items I just couldn't work up enough nerve to try. The waiter wasn't even sure what kind of dog....The menus here will not disappoint, though. The cooking is of a very high standard. The room itself is softly lit and well furnished with good screens, comfortable chairs (how often do restaurants really give this any thought?) and good artwork throughout. The Red Wall Cafe is in the atrium and has more conventional coffee shop fare. There is a good bar as well, but for some odd reason, I preferred the bar at the Beijing Hotel which is connected to the Grand Hotel (different management). The old Beijing Hotel is quirky and unpredictable in ways that the Grand Hotel is not. It had an engaging decrepitude that only years of Communist rule could produce. This may have been restored recently. Although they are not in the hotel, two places not to be missed are the Quiananmen Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant and the Donglaishu-a Mongolian hot-pot restaurant on Tiananmen Square. The duck at the enormous Quanjude was the best I have had anywhere. Waiters carve the crackling brown birds in a matter of seconds at your table. As for the other, we could not decipher the menu, but had what everyone else was having-the Hot Pot and found it to be most unusual and good.

Rooms and Suites

We were first given connecting rooms facing Chang An Avenue with great views over the Forbidden City. We were also offered a suite and opted for the latter, due to space considerations. The furniture in the rooms was in the classic Chinese style-lots of mahogany and teak, with some surprisingly good art thrown in. The suite we took faced the atrium, so the amount of light coming in varied considerably. It was very large-probably 1300 sq. feet or so. There are lots of elegant little touches like silk telephone message pad holders everywhere. Only the fittings of the room itself were on the drab side. The rooms facing out had much more color. Baths are large and have lots of amenities like toothbrushes in them. Closets have lots of real hangers (there must be a special circle in Hell reserved for the designer of the two-part hanger).

Service

This deserves a special category because the service we got here (while unusual) was extraordinary. I had let them know that I am a hotel manager. Much to my surprise, i was invited to give a lecture to the Front Office and Sales staff. The staff are very eager to please and appeared genuinely pleased to have us visit. They even gave us a private guide to show us around the Forbidden City.

Recreation

There is a large indoor swimming pool with an adjacent health club. We felt much better after beginning each day with laps in the pool here. Luxuriously fitted out with marble and elaborate tile work, this is a really well done pool area.

Recommended: Yes