"Brighten Up Your Day" Afternoon Tea Inspired by Cath Kidston and Penney Pang @ Feast (Food by EAST), EAST Hong Kong: Part II

Three days after having the Cath Kidston tea set, I visited Feast again - this time with Evil Girls - for the Cath Kidston weekend tea buffet. I am now qualified to call myself a Cath Kidston afternoon tea expert! ;P

To be honest I was not too excited about the buffet... those who have read my review on the Cath Kidston tea set should have no problem understanding my lack of enthusiasm. Besides, I always prefer tea set to tea buffet. In my opinion, the former represents the authentic afternoon tea experience, whereas the latter is simply what hotels invented to make easy money between lunch and dinner hours. I did look forward to meeting my dear Evil Girls after a long, hectic month though!

The buffet started with a surprise: a tea set was included in the price! The set was similar to what I had last time, except the scones and sandwiches were replaced by a tier of cookies, cream puffs and fruit tarts. While these were far from being memorable, I certainly liked them better than the oily scones and dry sandwiches. 

The buffet was predictably limited in terms of variety. They clearly had compromised quality as they tried to keep the price competitive. The most attractive item at the embarrassingly small salad bar was, guess what, lettuce! :0 Dry sandwiches that appeared in the weekday tea set could be found next to the salad bar. 

At the savoury station, there were a number of dull-looking pastries which I didn't bother to try. The adjacent hot food station offered wanton soup noodles and dim sum. I understand that it's very common for local restaurants to serve Cantonese food in tea buffet, but aren't noodles and dim sum a bit outlandish in a Cath Kidston themed buffet?  

Here's the "interactive(?) live crepe and waffle station", where you can order crepe with your choice of filling. Terrible ordered a crepe with various kinds of fruits, which sounded delicious but was a total disaster. The fact that she could not even finish the crepe said it all.

Ice cream was okay, but it's maddening that they rationed it in tiny cones! A range of toppings was available, which was pointless because I wasn't able to put more than 6 chocolate pearls onto the little scoop of ice cream... :(

Grilled ham and cheese panini turned out to be the best thing about the buffet... anything with melted cheese will never go wrong, after all. I won't recommend it to any health-conscious person though - there's so much butter in the bread that it's literally dripping with oil after grilling. :0  

THE VERDICT 

Ambience: B

Service: B+ (We did not get any free gift this time because the gift was out of stock. Not a problem for me because I had already got the gifts when I tried the tea set. What displeased me was that I actually booked the buffet A LOT EARLIER than the tea set, only the buffet was scheduled after the tea set... instead of giving out gifts on a first-come, first-served basis, wouldn't doing it on a first-book, first-served basis be fairer??)

Food: C-- (Let's face it, the food isn't going to brighten up your day)

Overall remarks: What will you choose: spending ~$125 on bad food, as in the case of Cath Kidston tea set, or spending ~$220 to get a wider selection of bad food, as in the case of Cath Kidston buffet? 

Me? I'd rather spend £20 (~$260) on a Cath Kidston cake stand.



INFO

Feast (Food by EAST) (website)
1/F, EAST Hong Kong, 29 Taikoo Shing Road, Island East, Hong Kong
Cath Kidston tea buffet: 3:00-5:30pm (Sat, Sun and PHs), $195 per person
* Cath Kidston afternoon tea available from now to May 18 2014. 
** Tea set with Cath Kidston theme available on weekdays. Click here for the review.