HANGZHOU has just opened a new mecca for foodies, the picturesque 550-meter-long Gushui (Ancient Water) Street on the Shengli River.

It features everything from famous donkey meat hotpot and beef offal dishes to spicy Sichuan food and delicate Hangzhou dishes. There are also pizza, Western food and fresh-ground coffee as well.

The street has a charming watertown feel as the Shengli River belongs to the Grand Canal of China. The area is part of the renovation of north Hangzhou.

Colorful lights decorate the Southern Song Dynasty-style (960-1279) buildings housing numerous restaurants featuring famous local foods.

It is one of Hangzhou's five food streets.

All the restaurants are either old or distinctive brands and the government certifies that the quality is excellent and the prices are fair.

The south side of the street along the river features 10 restaurants, the north side contains three restaurants and a night market that will open officially in late February.

The restaurants have just startedtrial operations. Popular brands

Chuan Wei Guan

Known for Sichuan-style food and popular among hot and spicy food lovers, it has 20 branches throughout the city. Long queues are common.

It serves both hotpot and other dishes. Thirty percent of the dishes are not spicy.

Recommended: Steamed chicken with chili sauce; boiled fish with pickled cabbage and chili; braised baby lobster with hot spicy sauce.

Average price: 40 yuan



Grandma's Kitchen

A widely known brand in Hangzhou, it is considered an innovator in delicate and varied Hangzhou cuisine. Branches are crowded.

This one will open in the spring, the date to be announced.

Restaurant, cafe, bar

Illy Cafe

A cafe and restaurant before 9pm, it is transformed into a bar afterward. Music is blues and jazz. The cafe is the only one on the street with a full view of the river because of its 40-meter-high glass wall. It grinds Illy Coffee Beans from Trieste, Italy, which are popular worldwide.

As a Western-style restaurant and cafe, it has invented a novel kind of pizza, cone pizza. The crust is shaped like an ice cream cone and the pizza filling is inside. Each is under 30 yuan.

Recommended: Authentic Australian steak; salad with chef-made fruity caviar; lightly smoked salmon. English menu available. Thirty percent discount in test run until the end of January.

Average price: 50 yuan



Long Dining Room

Offering delicate Zhejiang-flavor food, including fine meats, vegetables and seafood barbecue, as well as fresh ground coffee.

After 9pm it's a bar and music cafe featuring blues and classic Chinese pop.

On the north side of the street, it's simply decorated with wooden tables, chairs and staircase. Dishware is enamel. One red brick wall contains the barbecue oven. A hand-painted white tree decorates the wall.

Recommended: Roast leg of sheep/lamb; special flavored pig's spine.

Average price: 40 yuan.

Typical local dish

Old Man's Sauteed Shrimp

It's the name of both the famous dish and the restaurant that started 10 years go with just four tables and created a stir. It served ordinary Hangzhou dishes but the food was (and is) so good that every day a long queue formed. Anyone who didn't book a seat in person before 3pm usually had to wait.

The place was so small that it didn't have a name: The characters "sauteed shrimp" on the window indicates the specialty.

Since the chef boss is an old gentleman, customers called it "Old Man's Sauteed Shrimp."

This new restaurant is much larger but there are still queues on weekends.

Recommended: Sauteed shrimp; fried shrimps and eel; sliced cold chicken; deep-fried hairtail fish; cold spiced duck

Average price: 30 yuan



Taiji Food House

Offering dishes from Dongyang City in Zhejiang Province. Known for stewed poultry and lightly spicy sauteed dishes.

The boss says the restaurant uses a secret recipe handed down from generation to generation.

Recommended: Stewed fish in stone pot; braised pork with soy sauce; Dongyang noodles

Average price: 40 yuan



Kitchen under Camphor Tree

The original restaurant in Jiande City in Zhejiang was built under a 300-year-old camphor tree.

It features Jiande's countryside food with simple ingredients. The branch in Hangzhou purchases ingredients from Jiande.

Recommended: Countryside steamed meatballs

Average price: 35 yuan



Gushi House

Offering mix-and-match dishes, such as grated cheese with Chinese sweet potato.

Yellow Mountain bamboo shoots with ham is another specialty. The shoots and ham are braised together for two days, then cooked over pine wood from the mountain so the dish has a pine fragrance.

The chef's salad isn't dressed with gooey topping, but simply olive oil and salt.

Average price: 70 yuan

Special food

Xufu Beef Offal

Hotpot is a favorite in winter and offal (the innards, not the muscle) are very popular. This is the restaurant's fourth branch in the city.

Side dishes vary but the main course is always beef offal, beef tail, beef spine and other parts of the beast.

The pot can be big and family-style or small for one person. Special sauces cost only 5 yuan.

Average price: 40yuan



Qingjing Seafood Restaurant

Offering authentic seafood from Xiangshan, a Zhejiang coastal city known for seafood.

It not only purchases seafood exclusively from Xiangshan but also employs cooks from that city.

All cooked dishes and fresh seafood are displayed, so menus are not needed.

Average price: 70 yuan



Jianguo Hot Pot

Offering both delicate hotpot and full-bodied favor.

Recommended: Chicken hotpot; country-flavor sheep stew

Average price: 30 yuan



Xiang Lin Xiang Qin (Neighbors and Relatives in Countryside)

It specializes in all kinds of home-style bao, meaning foods cooked in pottery.

All pots are cooked in a huge charcoal oven in the center of the restaurant.

It's good place for friends to gather in winter, and it's economical. Prices range from 20-50 yuan.

Average price: 50 yuan



Rongxiang Donkey Restaurant

Traditional Chinese medicine holds that donkey meat is good for blood circulation, the skin and kidneys (reproductive system).

"Above (in heaven) is dragon meat, below (on earth) is donkey meat" is the restaurant's slogan.

It serves delicious cheap hot pot, noodles, dishes with donkey meat and offal.

Donkey hot pot is around 40 yuan, noodles with donkey meat or offal are from 8-15 yuan.

Recommended: Braised donkey meat with brown sauce, donkey meat noodles.

Average price: 30 yuan