Hotel Review: Marriott Chongqing

The Marriott Chongqing is located on the south bank of the city. There isn’t much around here…

…but its position gives it some really great views.

Be sure to book the river view rooms!

I was surprised, as a Marriott Bonvoy Gold member, that I was upgraded to the Executive Floor with lounge access. One of the amenities in the room was a fruit plate, with an apple, banana, and longans. It was definitely a welcome snack to have fresh fruit after traveling.

The bathroom was beautiful and spacious, with these cool shelves to the left of the sink to put your toiletries on.

There was a separate tub, toilet stall, and shower stall with a very high-powered rainfall shower head. All of the internal walls were glass, and the bathroom was separated from the bedroom with a glass sliding door, so I’m not really sure how the visual and aural privacy would be, when traveling with someone else.

I made a short trip up to the Executive Lounge. They had packed up the buffet by now, but they did offer me a beverage, so I got a mango juice. Downstairs at check-in, they said that reserving a meeting room would cost 300 RMB per hour, but here they told me that I could use their meeting room for 2 hours free each day, and every hour after that would be charged 300 RMB per hour. But actually, they ended up letting me use it more than 2 hours, because I reserved the room in the morning before the lounge was open at 3pm, and they just had the Ayi open the doors for me each day.

I really couldn’t get enough of this view! I guess late at night the flashy lights turn off.

Here was the view in the morning.

I booked a rate which included breakfast, and it was served in the all-day Western dining restaurant one floor above the lobby.

I really liked their mix of Western and Chinese dishes. On the Chinese side, I loved their fresh vegetable dishes. And on the Western side, I loved the potato logs! Unfortunately these didn’t reappear in subsequent days.

There was also a noodle station, where they cooked the noodles and you put the toppings on yourself.

My toppings included the marinated egg, yellow beans, and a minced chicken which was very savory.

The pastries were also excellent. The egg tart kind of looked old and dried out, but was actually extremely creamy inside. The green bun with crunchy topping had a kind of mochi filling inside.

We were traveling right around winter solstice, and I’ve learned that it’s a tradition around many parts of China to eat something special: dumplings in some areas, lamb soup in others. Here, the tradition was tangyuan, or rice dumplings. At the Marriott, they had servers passing individual servings to guests at breakfast.

My bowl included goji berries, and a ball of compacted sweet, lightly fermented rice.

And the tangyuan itself was filled with black sesame. My favorite!

The next day, there were some new appearances. They had these beautifully tender pea shoots (I think that’s what they were at least), both stir-fried…

…and also at the soup station, where they were cooked with the noodles. I traded in the chicken egg for quail eggs today.

They also had a purple sweet potato congee taking the place of millet congee from the day before.

On this day, new fruit was put out in my room as well. I ended up taking these back to Shanghai with me - too much to eat! The green fruit on the right was a very watery, crisp pear-like fruit.

We had a very late lunch as a team, and as a result I didn’t plan on having dinner this day. But during a work break, I headed up to the Executive Lounge for a snack. I saw that they were putting away real dinner food - I only caught sight of a steamer tray of tomatoes stir-fried with eggs that they carried away. But they did leave out desserts, fruit, and mini tea sandwiches. Well I took one of each cake! (And a selection of fruit!)

My favorite desserts were the one on the left, a mango mousse-type cake, and the one two cakes away, with the cube of mango on top and chocolate square set upright. That one was coffee flavored. I also quite liked the tea sandwiches - though they only had processed ham and cheese inside, they somehow hit the spot. For not having planned on having dinner, this was one indulgent “snack!”

The last morning, I really wanted to try this Chongqing specialty which they had a station for, but I didn’t know how to mix myself.

Luckily, there was a chef nearby today, who assembled it for me. Basically, you choose between a kind of thick rice soup (with no visible rice kernels), or soft tofu (but not tofu custard). Then there’s a topping of various condiments and oils, and the most interesting parts were a sprinkling of sugar, a very strong black vinegar, and very spicy chili. It was then all topped with crunchy fried noodles.

I asked for one of each, to taste the difference between the rice soup and the tofu!

The dominating flavors were the sour and spiciness!

In fact it got a bit too sour and spicy for me when all mixed up. But still it was fun to try! I guess next time, I can put just a drop of the crispy chili oil myself.

I rounded the selection out with some more vegetables, that delicious egg tart, and sweet potato. At the buffet, they had this huge square steamer with a variety of different root vegetables, including sweet potato, purple potato, the thin white roots which I don’t know the name of, and various steamed buns.