Family Trip to Dalian -Finding Good Seafood-

We took a short trip to Dalian city last week during a 3-day weekend. I’ve heard that Dalian has good seafood because the city is surrounded by sea.

Dalian is a modern port city on the Liaodong Peninsula, at the southern tip of China’s Liaoning Province. Our main reasons to visit Dalian were 1) To eat good seafood, 2)Walk around the beach, 3) Visit Japanese style street (Old Japanese residence area), and 4) Visit an aquarium (Purchasing the entrance tickets in advance is recommended.).

It took about 2 hours by a bullet train from Shenyang to Dalian station.

For my next blog post, I will write about how to buy train tickets, the inside of bullet train, and also train kiosks.

We stayed at the Grand Hyatt Dalian for 2 nights 3 days.

The reasons why we picked this place were because there is a beach right across from the hotel and there are many small amusement parks around the area.

Teaching the girls how to do stone skipping. 🙂

There are many of these kinds of attractions around the area.

When the girls were tired of walking around the beach, we went to see the birds and fed them some corns that we bought from one of the stalls and watched the beautiful sunset.

Each attraction has an entrance fee, such as the carousel and playground, like the picture below.

For our first dinner in Dalian, I asked the hotel staff where we can try good seafood. They recommended us this place called “海味当家” 海味当家 , this restaurant serves steamed seafood. It was within walking distance about 15 minutes from the hotel. It was so cold in the evening, so we took a taxi home after we had dinner there.

The picture on the left is 海味当家, and the right is Crab and Japanese Wagyu restaurant.

Address: 海味当家 China, CN 辽宁省大连市沙河口区中山路 572 572号星海广场E区19-21号邮政编码: 116023

You can pick 3 or 4 live seafood from the tanks.

My kids were so excited to see a lot of seafood.

The staff at the restaurant helped cooking the seafood that we chose.

If you want to add more seafood, you can ask the staff for more seafood. 🙂

This was scallop with noodles and garlic sauce. It was delicious. 😀 We also tried oysters as they were recommended, but I totally forgot to take any of the pictures.. 　

This was rice porridge with shellfish, shrimp and crab. It was so good too.

My children had so much seafood at the restaurant; I was so happy to see my children could eat so many kinds of seafood at the restaurant. I thought it was worth coming to Dalian.

By the way, if you don’t want to order by picking seafood from the tanks, they also have some dishes like the picture below that you can order from the menu.

Next day, we visited Japanese style street in Zhongshan District.

住所：Qiqi Street, Zhongshan District, Dalian 116001, China

I read that this area used to be a former Japanese luxury residential area about 90 years ago. The buildings are mostly western/European style.

I think this area will be more lively and a tourist area after finishing up the current renovations in a few years.

My daughter found a lot of Daruma dolls alongside the street.

This place is a Japanese restaurant(力道山-Rikidozan). We decided to have lunch here because we felt like these Daruma dolls were inviting us in. haha

We ordered a chirashi “scattered” sushi for lunch. It was so delicious and the staff was so polite and kind.

Next we went to an aquarium called”大连老虎滩海洋公园”

住所：Dalian Laohutan Ocean Park (North Gate)

Binhai E Rd, Zhongshan, Dalian, Liaoning, China, 116018

We were told that the tickets were all sold out when we arrived around 2:30PM. If you plan to go to the aquarium, I would recommend that you buy the tickets online in advance.

※There is another aquarium near the Grand Hyatt just for your information. It is about 7 minutes away by taxi.

圣亚海洋界

住所：China, Liaoning, Dalian, Shahekou District, Zhongshan Rd, 608号-6号邮政编码: 116023

Personally, I would recommend to visit Dalian when the weather is warmer. But if you go like us during fall seasons, I suggest to bring more layers and kid’s jackets like these listed below as your reference.