Wuhan City (武汉) is the capital city of Central China’s Hubei Province (湖北省). Besides being the most populous city in the country’s central region, it is also one of China’s nine National Central Cities which include Beijing, Shanghai and Xi’An.
I had a chance to visit Wuhan on a working trip just before this Chinese New Year. Traveled there on a weekend thus managed to have some time for touristy stuff like sightseeing and shopping. We visited their famed sights: Yellow Crane Tower (黄鹤楼), Hubei Provincial Museum (湖北省博物馆) and Jianghan Road Walking Street (江汉路步行街).
Yellow Crane Tower is one of Wuhan’s most prominent attractions. First built in AD 223, it had been destroyed 12 times and repaired 10 times throughout history. Today the tower stands at a new site 1km from the original and proudly proclaims itself as ‘The first tower under heaven (天下第一楼)’.
Hubei Provincial Museum is located in East Lake Scenic Area of Wuhan, housing 200,000 pieces or sets of cultural relics. Among these, there are about 1,000 pieces or sets of First Grade Cultural Relics, enabling it to rank in the forefront of provincial museums in China.
If shopping is your cup of tea, then Jianghan Road Walking Street is a must-visit. You can shop at the malls located at one end of the street in the late afternoon then stroll along the walking street at night when it is cooler. International and Chinese brand name shops lined both sides of Walking Street, housed in low-rise buildings. Here you can find a good variety of shops, restaurants and at the other end of the street, there is also a night market. Though not really into shopping, I bought myself a pair of leather boots for RMB190 and happy with the quality.
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Novotel Xinhua Wuhan is located in the financial centre of Hankou (汉口). The surrounding streets are part of their old town with lots of good food and traditional ‘mom-and-pop’ stores. Enjoyed a hearty breakfast of braised beef noodles at one of these shops.
View of the street alongside Novotel Xinhua Wuhan.
Besides eateries, the hotel is stone throw from New World Trade Tower, with an upscale mall and a supermarket. If you are traveling via public transport, the hotel is around 5 minutes walk to Qushuilou (取水楼) Metro Station.
The room I stayed in was clean but the furnishing looked tad bit tired and dated. House-keeping was so prompt that they even went in when the ‘do not disturb’ light was lit.
Room rate included daily breakfast which turned out to be quite a spread, with International and local selection. The crowd, though, was missing as many were likely to have gone off for their Chinese New Year break.
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Besides the three tourist attractions, the other main feature of my short trip was their food. Wuhan’s cuisine is typically oily and spicy with mala (麻辣) sauce used in many of the dishes. Being a big fan of hot and spicy food, Wuhan’s cuisine suits me to a tee. To say I enjoyed all the meals is an understatement.
Xia Shi Claypot Restaurant (夏氏砂锅) is one of the eateries we dined at, near Novotel Xinhua Wuhan. The restaurant specialises in claypot dishes and heard they served good porridge for supper too till early morning.
Top left-right: restaurant interior, Beijing roast duck with garnish and pancake. Bottom right-left: the ‘ugly-looking’ but refreshing Chinese pear juice, spicy frog legs in claypot.
Top left-right: stir-fried local vegetable, clam stir-fried with onion and spring onions. Bottom left-right: thick chicken broth with rice, stir-fried bak choy stem. 2 vegetable dishes with just the stem, wonder why did the leaves go. LOL.
On our last night in the city, we had our dinner at Rong Xiang Restaurant (蓉香美味馆) which is also within walking distance from our hotel. The food was good but had to survive dinner with the space filled with cigarette smoke and culture shock of seeing the service staff sweeping food from tables onto the floor! Did not see that at any of the eateries before that.
Top left-right: cucumber with dipping sauce appetiser,sour plum drink. Bottom right-left: glutinous rice ball with minced pork, clam with glass noodles.
Top left-right: stir-fried French beans, braised bean curd. Bottom: Their signature mutton stew.
We had 2 meals in AEON Mall, the fourth large-scale commercial complex to open in Wuhan. In Lao Wu BBQ Restaurant (老五烧烤), diners get to order skewered meat and vegetables from their ala carte, which are barbecued and served hot to table.
Selection of vegetables included potato, lotus root, enoki mushroom, chives and green pepper at around RMB8/portion. Meat selection includes seafood, pork, mutton, chicken, beef and offal. Some portions come in 3 sticks while others are just single sticks and we got to choose how spicy we wanted them to be. Other than fried rice and noodles, their porridge is good and a lighter meal of carbs to go with the grilled food.
Shang Yu Wei (尚鱼味)’s speciality is Wuchang fish cooked in duo flavours. A specialty of Hubei province, Wuchang fish got its name way back in Three Kingdom Period (221BC – 256 AD). The blunt-snout bream became well-known after Mao Zedong cited it in his famous poem. A must-try while visiting the city.
We tried Wuchang fish in spicy mala and non-spicy bean sauce version. The fish meat is delicate without too many bones.
Our meal also consisted of a soya-sauce based fried rice and spicy frog leg. The spicy dishes in Wuhan are always covered with cut chilli, making them look aesthetically pleasing and appetising.
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As for dining habits, we observed a prevalent habit of over-ordering during meals, large food serving and subsequent wastage. While dining when we look around us, the surrounding tables were usually piled up with food with not many diners. And the large serving means there will be wastage if the diners want more variety of dishes (we were also guilty of that). There are even stickers on most restaurant tables, reminding diners not to waste food.
Chinese New Year reunion dinner and wedding banquets in the city are also astonishingly extravagant. Here’s a snapshot of Novotel Xinhua Wuhan’s menus placed in my room. Each set menu consisted of 18 dishes, far more than the 8-9 dishes we have in Singapore (or even lesser during festive season). For a price ranging from around RMB 1388/table onwards for reunion dinners and RMB 1988/table for wedding banquets, the spread typically consist of appetisers, seafood, chicken, duck, mutton, beef, vegetable, rice dish and 3 desserts. And for all this amount of food per table, it is stated for 8-10 diners. From what I saw at their restaurants, servings are usually large and I believe so for their banquets as well. That inevitably creates a lot of food wastage and increase in carbon footprints.
This culture was also observed during one of our meals at Mr. Xie’s Restaurant (谢先生餐厅). The restaurant is located in a low-rise opulently decorated building with dining spaces spanning over the different floors. Whilst there, there was a wedding banquet ongoing on 1st storey and the mood was joyous. Walk-in dining is at one of the upper floors.
For a group of 5, we ended up with 11 dishes. Each time we told the service staff, we thought the order was sufficient, she sounded doubtful and encouraged us to order some more. So when the first two dishes of roasted pigeon and pork ribs were served, we even thought she was right.
Top left-right: stir-fried glass noodles, fried pork ribs, fried rice with preserved vegetable. Middle left-right: restaurant interior and signage. Bottom left-right: roasted pigeon, Sichuan chicken in chilli oil sauce (口水鸡), stir-fried slice fish with water chestnuts.
Top left-right: stir-fried egg with celery and minced meat, mala flavoured roast beef. Middle left-right: pork liver and glass noodle soup, local beer and braised duck. Bottom left-right: mian wo (面窝 – Wuhan fried doughnut) and complimentary fruit dessert
But you guessed it, in the end, the food was way too much and we hardly touched some of them.
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If you love snacking in between meals, try the famous Re Gan Mian (热干面), a traditional dish of Wuhan. The main ingredient of dry alkaline noodles is typically seasoned with soya sauce, sesame sauce, chilli oil, hot Chinese radish pickles and chopped spring onion. This is a favourite breakfast for the locals as the dish is easy to prepare and economical.
Image Courtesy of ‘ZhengZhou’
The city’s famous spicy Jingwu duck neck is also a ‘must-try’. I tried both of these and also bought peeled raw chestnuts, steamed cakes and ‘paper walnut’ for snacking. Fret not if you do not have small change to pay for your street food. Most of these push-cart vendors accept cash-less payment with their own QR codes via Alipay (支付宝), a third-party in-line payment platform.
Besides restaurant dining and street food, Wuhan also has a vibrant cafe and bubble tea culture. Familiar coffee chain Starbucks can be found in many malls and their desserts look so tempting. Oh yes, they have a little piggy decorated cake for the upcoming CNY too.
Chilled out at Hollin bubble tea cafe at M+ Mall.
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Keen to visit Wuhan? SilkAir flies direct from Singapore to Wuhan with sales fare starting from S$598. If your prefer to fly via Singapore Airlines, then you will have to fly to Guangzhou before changing to China Southern Airlines to Wuhan.
