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August 17, 2016

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Home » City specials » Hangzhou

Kerry Centre captures city’s local character

By Xu Wenwen | August 17, 2016, Wednesday | Print Edition

LUXURY malls packed with high-end stores are nothing new in today’s urban China. But the newly opened Kerry Centre in Hangzhou is different — it only offers local brands, and brands selling products related to Hangzhou culture.

Standing between West Lake and Wulin Square, the new Kerry Centre property occupies one of the busiest commercial areas of Hangzhou. With the surrounding area already filled with competing shopping centers, the newly-opened Kerry Centre property decided to do something unique and fashionable. Its stores are filled with, among distinctive local items, porcelains, bamboo-made accessories and silk costumes.

Additionally, at the Midtown Shangri-La Hangzhou, located on the shopping center’s second floor, one can find Cheng Zhong Chinese Restaurant, which serves Hangzhou cuisine mainly.

“We make honest Hangzhou food,” said the hotel’s general manager, Bernhard Wimmer. “It’s supposed to be a priority to maintain and show local culture.”

Shanghai Daily visited the center recently to check out some of the center’s best Hangzhou-inspired shops.

HGHI 和兮

It’s always good to combine your interests and career. So, Gui Na quit her public servant job and became a tailor specializing in Western suits four years ago.

After a while, she became interested in Chinese embroidery and Chinese traditional costumes. So she asked herself, why not pursue this interest?

Today at her HGHI store sells Chinese cheongsams, Chinese tunic suits, silk Chinese shirts and embroidered bags. The cheongsams are made of silk and feature elaborate embroidery — designed by Gui and embroidered by Suzhou workers.

The suits are light colored, feature mandarin collars and are made of linen and cotton. Gui also added some local design flourishes, such as red Chinese buttons on the collar.

Every cheongsam is tailor-made and takes three to four weeks to finish.

Delivery is available.

Lu Ming Tang 露茗堂

Providing skin creams and toners made from Chinese tea, Lu Ming Tang is actually a product of Frenchwoman Marie Amiand’s love for Hangzhou green tea, one of the most famous green teas in the country.

Four years ago, Shanghai expat Amiand fell sick from heavy metal pollution. Doctors prescribed her not medicine, but tea to her heal body. It was then that she started to drink different teas and went to nearby Hangzhou for tea tours.

After she got better, Amiand, a serial entrepreneur, smelled a business opportunity. As she discovered, no one had ever made a cosmetic brand that used tea as an ingredient.

After three-year research and development with a top Japanese laboratory, Lu Ming Tang now offers a cleanser made from Oolong tea, cream with Longjing tea, paste featuring pu’er, toner with white tea, and about a dozen other skin care products.

“In each product, from 95 to 98 percent of the ingredients are natural,” said Garbo Huang, the brand’s retail director. The brand’s products are specially designed for women in China due to their unique “air-pollution-blocking” properties.

Cheng Zhong 城中中餐厅

Located at Midtown Shangri-La, Cheng Zhong has drawn queues of diners since opening last year.

With its reasonably-priced dishes, and no service fees, this Hangzhou specialty establishment is already a favorite on local review websites.

Popular local dishes include the Marble Goby fish poached with sweet and sour sauce (88 yuan/US$13.25). This is Cheng Zhong’s version of Hangzhou’s signature dish, West Lake vinegar fish.

River shrimp sautéed with chili and soy sauce (68 yuan) is another take on a Hangzhou favorite dish.

Some Shanghai dishes are available as well. Deep-fried perch with sweet sauce is another recommendation. With a refreshing scent from jasmine flower, the fish is crunchy, sweet, and seasoned just right.

Recommended Cantonese dishes include the roasted goose (58 yuan), made with organically-fed goose meat. “We don’t make money by making this goose,” said chef Yu Feipeng.

Dessert lovers cannot miss the walnut cake made with rice, brown sugar and local walnuts; and cream pudding with longjing tea sauce, which smells full of lovely green tea aroma and tastes neither too sweet nor too creamy.

For customers who book and enjoy meals in VIP rooms, the chef picks the menu for them.

“Early every morning, I buy fresh foods ingredients at local grocery markets,” said Yu.

CHE 澈

Che offers bamboo fashion items and accessories.

“Bamboo-fiber textiles are more breathable than cotton, and more sweat-absorbent than silk,” introduced the manager Zhou Rang.

Textile printing is not available on this material, but the traditional Chinese zha ran (tie-dye) process is used to add color and patterns.

The shop’s signature product is a bluish scarf dyed with an overlapping mountain motif. Each mountain layer has a different hue, shifting from heavy to light blue.

Another new product is a handbag made of woven bamboo and leather. The shop’s craftsman can only make three such bags per month.

“Because it has to be hand-made,” explained Zhou. “The woven bamboo bag size is not fixed, so the leather is only cut and sewed with bamboo after the bamboo part is done.”

Hangzhou


 

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