Excelsior - Lounge on the 1st

Very quickly, this was the WORST afternoon tea place we have been to yet. First, it was being renovated so there weren't that many seats and then there were a lot of "si lai" (noisy, asian middle-aged housewives) sitting at the next table and then a man on the table near us decides to give himself a manicure and clip his nails at the table (how are you supposed to have a nice relaxing conversation with people when you can't really hear your friend and you also have the sharp "click, click" of the nail clippers.

Ignoring all that for now and go to the food... the team came in one of those glass pots where you put the tea in the metal strainer. The strainer wasn't fine enough (or the tea was too fine) and so you have tea leaves floating in a very weak looking too (the water wasn't hot enough either).

The Tea Pot

So we ordered the afternoon tea set for two... it was very disappointing...



It "looked" ok but the sandwiches were dry, the cakes nothing special - as testament to that we didn't even finish most of it. I think the carrot cake was the only decent thing in the whole set (and i don't really like carrot cake). There was a ham and cheese quiche and that was just foul (no other word for it, it smelled funny and tasted bad).

Thinking we were going to be hungry we ordered their house salad... nothing special about that either. The pre-made salads from the supermarket tasted better than it.

Overall a very disappointing afternoon (and it considering it was our first in quite a few months, it was depressing)

Conrad - Lobby Lounge

Well this one is quite an old one and was a buffet.... the only thing we remembered of this buffet was that it wasn't that good... we were hard pressed to even remember where we had it!

Langham Place Hotel Hong Kong

Stay tuned, we're hitting Langham Place this week! Our first Kowloon afternoon tea (since Intercon)

Mandarin Oriental

Gosh, it feels like it's been a while since i last went to high-tea. have to get back into the mode but the last few months seems to have been flying.

On Sunday Erica and I hit the Mandarin Oriental (the one on Connaught Rd), we accidentally got there a little early so spent some time at Oliver's doing some shopping, i made a mental shopping list to come back AFTER eating - considering how hot and humid it was, definitely not a good idea to be wandering around with raw meat without any cooler bags.

Back to the reason for this post, at 3pm we headed up to the lounge (reservations are recommended as it can get quite busy, it a 'quiet' way - not like the Peninsula which is a bit of a circus).

The menu. In terms of black tea, not much to choose from they have a wide selection of "asian" tea but given this is good old English afternoon tea, definitely should stick to 'english' tea - so i went for English Breakfast tea while Erica went for Earl Grey. Actually thinking about it, none of the places i've been to so far actually serve "afternoon tea" leaves - quite interesting..

Anyway the tea arrived in nice silver tea pots, the strainer wasn't fineenough to get all the tea leaves though but the tea was nice enough.

Well considering we were there for afternoon tea we hardly had to decide what we were going to order. the benefit of going with two or more people is that you don't have to choose what savouries/scones that you'd like - we had to wait quite a while for the set to arrive:

Tier number 1: the sandwiches: they were pretty nice, bread was a tiny little bit dry though
Tier number 2: The savouries. All were delicious (i was in a savour mood though)
Tier number 3: the dessert - i have to say, we didn't actually finish it off, it was too sweet...
The scones! Verry nice and i just realised i didn't get any photos of the jam and cream. The jam was very tasty it was strawberry but also had a hint of something else... neither Erica nor I could place it but it was like strawberry jam made with rosewater or something. the effect was quite pleasant and the scones were pretty good as well - I can't remember all the scones i've eaten so far but these rank on the top of the list.

Atmosphere: it was quite, conversations were kept soft but that could be because the tables are fairly well spaced. Seats were comfortable as well... unfortunately i'd have to say there is something about the Intercontinental - it's still on the top of my list. I will probably have to do Intercon another go, just in case i'm biased because it was the first one we hit on this High Tea of Hong Kong journey...

On a separate note, the problem with the Peninsula is that ... for such a 'high class' hotel, the lounge is too much of a zoo. It lacks the style associated with the name of the hotel - probably because it's now a tourist trap... I'd have to say that so far, the Mandarin Oriental has been the classiest hotel we've been to - probably because it's a little out of the way, it is really an enjoyable place to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Aside from the afternoon tea buffets, i think we've pretty much done all the afternoon teas on the Hong Kong side - we will start hitting the Kowloon ones next albeit a bit reluctantly since we both hate the crowds associated with the Kowloon side...

Revised High Tea list

Sheraton - Sky Lounge
Conrad - Lobby Lounge
The Excelsior - Lounge on the 1st
Grand Hyatt - Tiffin
JW Mariott - The Lounge
Langham Place Hotel Hong Kong
The Landmark Mandarin Oriental - MO Bar

So many places! Not enough weekends!!

High Tea #4 - W Hotel

[I didn't go to this one but my High Tea buddy (Erica) did!]
Verdict: "Don't bother with this one"

From what i gather, there are multiple sets to choose from. Erica chose the Oriental one

I have to say presentation looks good (different to the tea trays that we've had so far)

The experience is best described by Erica herself:

so besides the oriental pastry, you get "scones". It was sooooo not a real scone.. it's the front two in the picture.. yep can be eaten with one bite.. then the cream for the scones were ordinary cream, not the clotted cream style..

We had iced coffee rather than tea, but I saw on other tables that it wasn't the silver teapot style...

Then let's move onto the ambience... well W hotel is a funky retro style hotel so it didn't have the english high tea feeel so I guess for me the food didn't do it and the ambience was way off...

It was the most disapointing high tea ever!!!

High Tea #3 - Shangri La: Lobby Lounge

Good progress on the journey to tasting all of Hong Kong's High/Afternoon tea locations. This time it's at the Shangri La Lobby Lounge (on top of Pacific Place in Admiralty).

This is the first place to offer the choice of three tea sets: Wimbledon, Shangri-La and Traditional.We had a bigger party this afternoon and so managed to order all three sets. The scones came in their own separate basket and i must say these are the best scones out of the ones i've been to so far. Soft and not too big/small. The condiments were also tasty as well.



This is a single serving of the Wimbledon and Shangri-La set:
My friends tried the strawberries and found them a little sour... i guess it's just hit and miss with fruits...
and this is the traditional set - i opted for this one as it was closer to all the other sets that we have eaten so far (best to compare similar things, to be fair)
What an oversight! I just realised i hadn't taken any pictures of the teapots! But they were tea leaves and steel/pewter things. The tea was nice the only gripe is they explicitly say only ONE pot of tea (unlike the other contenders which have replaced the tea leaves/bags upon request)

The sandwiches were a tad small, just a little bit bigger would have been great. The madelines didn't compare to the one at Intercontinental either.

Atmosphere was good though - instead of havint the tea at the lobby lounge, you can opt to have it at the cake shop down one floor (i can't remember the name) but glancing at it on the way it. it's not as relaxing as having it in the lounge.
Verdict: Intercontinental Tsim Sha Tsui is still the winner for me.