Can anyone recommend nearby restaurants?Also do you know where they serve tea in the long spouted teapots?

M on the Bund is near the Peace Hotel, if I remember correctly. It serves international cuisine. I can't think of any place right off hand that does the tea service you mention. We it in Guilin, but I'm sure it's available in other place. It's really neat to see them do that - they never miss.

I'm sorry - M on the Bund is in Shangahi. I wasn't paying attention to your post.

We stayed at the Peace Hotel in mid-June and found the restaurant on the second floor accommodating. The food was abundant, tasty, and priced right.

Suggest you try to get out and eat at the local places nearby. The Wangfujing Quan Ju De Beijing Duck restaurant is excellent. Many local places now have English menus. <BR> <BR>The long spouted water pots are typically found in Sichuan restaurants. The hotel staff can point you to ones nearby. Don't miss ba bao cha (eight treasures tea) or ba bao fan (eight treasures rice desert) if you get a chance.

A little caution with random wandering in Jin Yu Hutong and neighbouring streets. Small restaurants with English menus, and especially those which actually have 'English menu' written up all too often have double prices on the English version of the menu. There are too many five star hotels in this area and the smaller restaurants are happy to fleece incautious foreign visitors. <BR> <BR>Sichuan restaurants with the long-spouted teapots include the long-established Sichuan Fandian now moved to a new location and calling itself the Gong Wang Fu Sichuan Fandian in Liuyin Jie 14 north of the main entrance to Prince Gong's Mansion. <BR> <BR>The restaurant now occupying the original site at Rongxian Hutong 51, the Sichuan Lou (Sichuan Pavilion) doesn't use the pots as far as I remember, and the food is the hottest Sichuan in Beijing. But almost opposite on the south side of the hutong, a little to the east, is the Sianxia Jiulou, a regular restaurant visited by few foreigners, with much better prices and good food. Here the waiters have the ornate, long-spouted tea pots you are looking for. <BR> <BR>It isn't only Sichuan restaurants which have them, but many others priding themselves on being somehow traditional, including many of the currently popular 'lao Beijing' restaurants. <BR> <BR>Peter N-H <BR>http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html