About 3 weeks ago I had occasion to dine in the Italian theme restaurant. The 5 course meal was excellant and in Particular the fried Goose Liver, it just melted in my mouth with a wonderful flavor, I would go back just for that. My Compliments to Chef Joyce.

I am writing to compliment the exceptional service Lily Liu (front desk supervisor) and her team demonstrated during my recent stay in your Zhongguancun Beijing hotel.

Ms Liu’s professionalism of greeting the customers, remembering their names, offering the complete check in package impressed me and 3 of my company fellows from the US following my recommendation. Two of them also planned to bring their families to Beijing for vacation and staying at your hotel primarily due to the extraordinary service they experienced.

As an average business traveler, I stayed in a good number of hotels with the peak of 200 days on the road a year. I would say Ms Liu and other of your staffs’ professionalism of service differentiated Zhongguancun Crowne Plaza from other hotels managed by Hilton, Shangri-la, Hyatt and Sheraton in the US, Germany, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Malaysia. Even comparing to another close by Crowne Plaza (Wuzhou), Zhongguancun is superior.

During the recent a couple of years, Zhongguancun Crowne Plaza has been my hotel of choice whenever I am in Beijing. I am planning another Asia tour in Feb and I do not think I would ever consider any other hotels for my stay in Beijing.

The room is spacious, very clean, nice bathroom, WiFi has no issues -- everything looked like it was recently upgraded. The bathroom was nicely organized and the rain shower head was just awesome! Perfect after a long plane ride. I stayed four nights and had no complaints at all about the room. The staff were courteous and I took a trip to the Great Wall through the hotel. It is convenient if this is the first time you are going.

The breakfast was great. Plenty of choices of food and everything tasted great.

OK, now for the bad parts - The restaurants are not that good.

The first night, I went to the hotel's Chinese restaurant. There was a company party going on, so they seated me with other hotel guests in a separate conference room, a makeshift overflow area. I sat there 10 minutes waiting for someone to come even acknowledge me before walking out. I ended up going to the Cafe restaurant and it was OK.

The second night, I went to the hotel's Italian restaurant. The food was prepared in front of you and tasted good. I liked the service. I did not like the fact that I paid nearly $10 for a glass of wine and only got 1/4 of the glass filled -- and it was not even a big glass. I thought that the waiter may refill it, but he did not.

I came back to Beijing a week later and stayed at the Crowne Plaza Wangfujin. Given that experience (see other review), Zhongguancun was excellent.

This was a one night and my third stay for the last 12 months. I have to teach at the Peking University and this hotel proves to be the best location. Service was as efficient as usual. Taking a taxi to the airport is about RMB 100 so extremely reasonable. Internet is charged at RMB 120 per day and this is the only draw back.