Diptyque Moheli Afternoon Tea @ Cafe Gray Deluxe Hong Kong, The Upper House

Had a pretty depressing week and was not in the mood of writing. :( 

But as I was organizing the pictures of my first afternoon tea with Baby Valerie, I found myself smiling and feeling better. Babies are amazing, aren't they? Their every single move is enough to make your heart melt... as long as you are only responsible for playing with them instead of tending to them. :P

(Photo courtesy: Vivian)

We girls were having Diptyque Moheli Afternoon Tea at Cafe Gray Deluxe and were so excited that Ly had brought Baby Valerie along! We took pictures with her and forced Ly to promise that Valerie's very first tea-with-aunties姐姐-pix would appear in Valerie's wedding slideshow in the future, haha... 

Back to business - our Diptyque afternoon tea!

Top tier: curry poached chicken salad tartlet & ginger pear chutney, blackcurrant scones

Middle tier (from left): smoked salmon on bagel toast with salmon caviar & lime cream cheese; egg salad and cucumber finger sandwich; salami and Gruyère cheese pretzel bun with whole grain mustard; roast beef sandwich with pomegranate glaze, pickled red onion, and goat cheese

Middle tier from another angle

Bottom tier (from left): Tonga bean ganache and caramel, mini cinnamon roll with golden raisin, jasmine and rose bavarois on graham crust, coffee macarons; apricot jam linzer, almond milk rice pudding and marinated citrus

A better view of the rice pudding and apricot jam linzer 

(Photo courtesy: Vivian)

How was the food? I'd say that it's generally okay but Baby Valerie was far more interesting than it lor (I did spend more time playing with Valerie than eating!). :P While one normally expects fancy pastries and savouries with layers of flavours in a 5-star hotel, our supposedly Diptyque-inspired tea set was, sorry to say, unimaginative and straightforward. It was disappointing that the tea set had no connection to Diptyque at all... the brand was not even mentioned in the tea set menu! 

The food was so average that there wasn't much worth writing about. There's one thing I always like about Cafe Gray's tea set though, which is the scones! They are big and chunky so you can put lots of jam, cream and honey (honey is such a lovely touch :j) on them. I lurrrrve the sugar granules atop which give the scones an extra bit of crunchiness. There were only a few things that had really gone wrong, such as the stale macaron and the puddle of weird flavours that was named "milk pudding". 

Tea was a nightmare. I appreciate the fact that Cafe Gray have their own tea blends, but they should really hire a better tea master. Last time I had their signature Cafe Gray Tea, which contained roselle and was horribly tart. This time I knew better - I thought - and ordered Flower Blend. Given how the description was worded, I thought there were 2 choices of flower blends, namely either rose petal tea or chamomile and mint tea. I told the waitress that I wanted the rose tea, but in the end I was given a pot of tea which tasted like anything but rose. It was bitter and very herbal, much like Chinese medicinal herbal tea... :0 A waitress confirmed that it was indeed my order, and she added that it was not a pure rose tea. So perhaps Flower Blend was actually a BLEND of rose, chamomile and mint!?? My advice: stick to the classics...  

When we asked for the bill, we were given 3 vouchers for Diptyque Moheli gift set. THREE!? There were 5 of us! We then found out from another waitress that because we ordered 2 x tea set for two persons and 1 x tea set for 1 person, there would only be 3 vouchers. Jesus Christ! Could they not be so miserly? They should have stated clearly in the menu that vouchers are issued according to the number of tea sets instead of number of persons. Not wanting to start a fight for gifts among ourselves, we changed our orders to 5 x tea set for 1 person (the difference was that we had to pay a bit more because tea set for 1 person was $240 while tea set for 2 persons was $420, i.e. $210 per head). The waitress agreed with the arrangement but then she recalculated the bill wrongly... so much hassle before we eventually got our gift - 2 small samples of Eau Moheli eau de toilette - at Diptyque's Pacific Place store!

THE VERDICT 

Ambience: B+

Service: B- (misleading beverage menu, mean voucher policy, wrong bill... enough said)

Food: B- (average food, awful tea)

Overall remarks: Cafe Gray is an acceptable tea place if you know what to expect (and which tea to order). Go for MO Bar (see here or here) if you want a truly amazing branded tea experience! 

The Moheli tea set was hardly impressive, but the afternoon was just as enjoyable with my dear friends and Baby Valerie.  ;) Thanks for organizing, Vivian! 

INFO

Cafe Gray Deluxe Hong Kong (website)

Level 49, The Upper House, Pacific Place, 88 Queensway, Hong Kong

Afternoon tea: 3:30pm-5:00pm daily

* Diptyque Moheli Afternoon Tea is served until 30 June 2013. 

$240 per person, $420 per 2 persons

Sodashi Afternoon Tea @ MO Bar, The Landmark Mandarin Oriental

When MO Bar started to offer branded tea sets a few years ago, I thought the whole idea was sheer gimmick. The accompanying gift aside, the tea set actually had little to do with the collaborating brand (which was why food in 2 different tea sets could be quite similar - see Chloe Inspired Afternoon Tea and Marc Jacobs Splash Afternoon Tea on my old Xanga blog). My impression however changed following MO Bar's recent production of branded tea sets that were completely unique and true to the spirit of their partnering brands, as exemplified by their wildly popular Jimmy Choo Afternoon Tea. Their culinary team's creativity and skills are formidable. I am now officially a convert who's constantly looking forward to MO Bar's new creations! ;)

MO Bar has just launched another branded afternoon tea with Sodashi, an Australian label that specializes in chemical-free skincare products. To ensure that the tea set will be just as wholesome as Sodashi's products, only natural ingredients are used in its preparation. Hmm, sounds like the perfect kind of detox programme for me! :P

When Hellish and I visited MO Bar last Sunday, we were excited to see that they had stupendously enhanced their weekend dessert buffet (included in the price of afternoon tea set), both in terms of quantity and quality. :9 It was actually hard to decide whether the buffet or the tea set was the main course because both were equally fabulous!

Scream, ladies: there were EIGHT different macaron flavours, including raspberry, chocolate, lemon, Earl Grey, pistachio... the macarons had shells that were marginally thicker than ideal (which always means the macarons by Pierre Hermé :P), but that didn't make them any less tasty. I liked every single flavour! If I have to name a favourite, it would be Earl Grey (orange one in this pic) - such elegant bergamot fragrance! ;) The crème caramel in mini jar was soft like a baby's cheek and very likeable too. 

Ice cream was perhaps the only thing that could rival macarons' unshakable popularity. There were creamy chestnut ice cream, zesty clementine sorbet, and refreshing pear sorbet, all tasted totally natural and fresh (there were even tiny bits of pear in the pear sorbet!). Just a spoonful of each is enough to fly you to cloud nine! ;) 

My other favourites: green tea panna cotta and strawberry trifle + cream puff

More sugary food before our healthy tea experience: apple and basil cocktail, raspberry eclairs, and cakes! There were so much food that we had only sampled half of the dessert buffet when our tea set arrived - 

Savouries (from left): heirloom tomato skewer with artichoke mousse and green olives (remineralization); pita wrapper with green bean, tandoori yogurt, cheese and peppermint (improve digestion); ginger macaroon with goat cheese cream (detox); Tasmanian salmon sour dough with lavender mayonnaise (relaxation); multigrain bread with lemongrass chicken and Thai basil salad (detox)

Sweets (from left): ginger and lemongrass mocktail with green apple (detox); organic chocolate, banana cupcake with virgin olive oil (increase alertness - improve mood); lavender panna cotta with rhubarb compote (relaxation); almond biscuit, strawberry mousse with rose petal (boost skin radiance, calming, hydrating); coated chocolate ganache biscuit with peppermint marshmallow (improve digestion)

Raisin and plain scones with clotted cream and preserves

Looking at the beautifully crafted tea set that was just as healthy as promised, I knew a nourishing spa journey for my stomach was ahead! There's no calorific chocolate cake, artificially coloured macaron, fatty meat, or anything that was half as evil. What showed up on our plates were mostly veggie- or fruit-based nibbles, each carrying a certain health benefit as denoted above. 

The use of fragrant herbs such as lemongrass and mint gave the food a Southeast Asian touch. Once again I was more impressed by the savouries than sweets. The tiny heirloom tomatoes on skewer bore a huge surprise. They were so much juicier and sweeter than those uniformly red tomatoes sold in supermarkets. There was an explosion of flavour once I bit into their bubble-thin skin! Another top pick, pita wrapper, was a little boat loaded with delicious treasures such as cheese, yogurt, and greens. There surely were lots of piquant flavours but they were skillfully harmonized. Our savoury spa was concluded with succulent, glitteringly fresh Tasmanian salmon, leaving us feeling pampered and satisfied. :) 

We rinsed our palate with a small glass of revitalizing ginger mocktail and moved on to the sweet section of our gastronomic journey. We had the bland slightly-too-healthy cupcake and fragrant lavender panna cotta that reminded me of Jurlique handcream, before our notable encounter with strawberry and rose mousse. There was only a tiny rose petal but I swore that the mousse tasted like a whole rose. I reckoned that everybody wanted to kiss me after I had savoured it, because my breath, seriously, smelled of rose! :P

The scones were buttery as always. We had to take some of them home because we didn't want to stuff ourselves with too much food at a time. I was glad that I had ordered peppermint tea, which soothed my stomach and rounded off its detox treatment nicely. 

There's a gift pack containing sample size body lotion and body polish by Sodashi for each guest to take home. The best part? Hellish obviously had no interest in  the gift so his became mine too, wahaha... :P 

THE VERDICT 

Ambience: A- (I think I am getting to like the place more and more... :P)

Service: A

Food: A

Overall remarks: I am not too sure if you will have better digestion or more radiant skin after having the all-natural tea set, but I can assure you that the good food and nice gift set will boost your mood effectively. ;) Do visit MO Bar for tea on weekends as you won't want to miss their wonderful dessert buffet spread!

INFO

MO Bar (website)

Lobby, 15 Queen's Road Central, The Landmark, Central, Hong Kong

* Sodashi Afternoon Tea: 3:00pm-5:30pm (Mon-Fri) and 2:30pm-6:00pm (Sat-Sun), available from now to 30 June 2013 

$260 per person (Mon - Fri), $280 per person (Sat - Sun)

Vive Le French May!

It's May again, the time to indulge in French food. I've decided that today I will eat nothing but French food! 

Today begins with a cup of Betjemen & Barton's Une Journée à la Campagne. There will be crêpes for lunch and fine French food for dinner. :) Isn't that awesome? Though the need to do revision for the coming Japanese quiz does in some way ruin the French mood... 

Btw, I must thank Ysaurella, the loveliest French Steepsterite, for swapping teas with me! I sent her some of my Lupicia teas and received a generous amount of French teas (e.g. Mariage Frères, Betjemen & Barton, Dammann Frères) that can never be found in Hong Kong from her in return. Merci beaucoup! Sharing the love for tea with people around the world is one of the most beautiful things in life. :)

(Leave me a message if you are interested in swapping teas with me too!)

Signature Tea Set @ C'est La B

Many people who read my post on SEVVA agreed that their tea set looked marvellous but its price tag was a huge put-off. If you share the same view, perhaps you would like to take a look at the cheaper tea set offered by SEVVA's sister cafe, C'est La B? 

Following the feverish success of SEVVA's awe-inspiring cakes (most notably Marie Antoinette's Crave and Le Louis), owner Bonnie Gokson has set out to expand her sweet empire in HK. In 2011 she opened Ms. B's Cakery, a tiny cake shop in Sheung Wan that has received disproportionate attention from local sweet lovers (and from the general public too, when Maxim's Cakes was accused of unabashedly copying their Rainbow Connection cake). C'est La B was born after Ms. B's Cakery and is the third in the trilogy. It is a line of casual cafes where you can buy Ms. B's desserts and enjoy them right at the spot. I didn't visit C'est La B until they started to offer afternoon tea set - there were simply too many pretty sweets that I didn't know where to start, so I guessed a tea set would be my best bet!

C'est La B currently has 2 outlets, one in Tai Hang and another in Pacific Place (shown here). A third branch is due to open in busy Tsimshatsui in the coming months. The quirky and whimsical design of C'est La B makes me think of Tim Burton. Black-and-white striped floor, candy-colour cushions, floating teapots... just the kind of cafe that you expect to see in Burton's movies! :)

I love literally every corner of the cafe - it's so surreal, so cool! I really should have asked where they bought all these gorgeous cushion covers!

There are both indoor and outdoor seating (but it's still inside the mall, of course). With all these jazzy stools and chairs, one cannot be blamed for mistaking the outdoor dining area as a kids' playground. ;) 

We arrived at the cafe at about 1:45pm, which was 15 minutes before teatime... but the waiter was so kind that he offered to serve us the tea set right away as he did not want to keep us waiting. This was just the opposite to the treatment that we received in SEVVA! Props to the wonderful waiter!

1st tier (clockwise from top):

Sunshine

Lemon & poppy seed chiffon filled with tangy lemon curd
and finished with fresh cream topped with delicate sugar poppy flower

Vanilla Cheesecake with Queen Anne Cherries

Glorious and velvety vanilla bean cheesecake balanced with sour Queen Anne cherries

Blessing in Disguise

Carrot & cheesecake with berry glaze

2nd tier (clockwise from top):

Berry Delight

Delectable strawberry + raspberry mousse with homemade berry jelly

Panna Cotta

French vanilla Panna Cotta with biscotti "dust" + caramel crunch

Childhood Dreams... Smarties!

Caramel Toffee Choc Cup

Chocolate mousse + caramel toffee

3rd tier (clockwise from top): 

Panfried Jiaozi served with Mango Chutney

3 Signature Sandwich Rolls

Smoked salmon, cucumber & cream cheese

French ham & Gruyere

Egg & tomato

The tea set definitely scored full mark in terms of presentation - everything looked so chic on that glossy black tiered stand (easily the coolest stand I've ever seen). The first time I tasted Ms. B's aptly named Better Than Sex I was totally blown away, so I was expecting the tea set to take my breath away in a similar fashion. Sadly, it was quite a let-down... :(  

Well, the food wasn't too bad, but I couldn't help feeling disillusioned when it tasted just like mass-produced Maxim's cakes/desserts... or worse. The desserts in plastic cups and vanilla cheesecake all needed more time in the fridge as they appeared to be runny or slightly melted. Sunshine was incontestably a beauty and was pleasantly spongy, but that was pretty much all it's about. For the Smarties, I really would not bother to mention them had they not been rancid. :0 Caramel toffee choc cup was the only sweet that could be described as truly enjoyable. It had my favourite sweet elements all packed into a cup and was like the down-to-earth version of Better Than Sex. It was as sinful as you can infer from its name! It's rich but it's so smooth that it slid down my throat before I knew it, leaving a long, satisfying, chocolatey aftertaste. :)

There was a star among the savouries too: dainty sandwiches in C'est La B's signature black and white! Smoked salmon + cream cheese + cucumber is an infallible formula, and when the ingredients are as fresh as those used by C'est La B, the result is lip-smacking! :9 The rest of the savouries were, however, just ok and far from being memorable. Tea was another area where C'est La B lost marks... there were only a few boring everyday teas to choose from. If they were willing to invest so much in all those fancy decorations, why didn't they give some more thoughts to the tea selection? :( 

THE VERDICT 

Ambience: A- 

Service: A

Food: C+

Overall remarks: I want to love C'est La B so much, but the reality is, I don't. It's a shame that their food is hardly as mind-blowing as the decor. I'd rather go to SEVVA for the good food and lament its poor service and outrageous price afterwards... 

INFO

C'est la B (website)

Shop 202, Pacific Place, 88 Queensway, Admiralty, Hong Kong

Afternoon tea: 2:00pm-7:00pm daily

$380 for 2 persons

Ladies' & Gentlemen's Afternoon Tea Sets @ Tea Saloon by Another Fine Day

A review that everybody is waiting for!! According to the stats of this blog, quite a number of people bumped into my site over the past 2 weeks when they googled "tea saloon another fine day". I feel really sorry for these poor souls as they were likely disappointed to learn that my previous entry was about the original store of AFD... that's why I feel obliged to write up my review on its tea saloon ASAP despite being smothered with work this week!

The tea saloon is nestled in a placid residential area at Mid-Levels, where the only thing you can hear on a Sunday afternoon is the gentle tweets of birds. There's no signboard outside, but the pastel purple walls are eye-catching enough to arouse the curiosity of any passer-by. 

Fans of AFD will not be disappointed because the tea saloon is even more girly than the original store!

The only window seat, which is also my favourite corner

The quaint setting is strikingly similar to Antique, which in my opinion is one of the best afternoon tea places in HK. Both with pastel interior and faux fireplace, Tea Saloon and Antique are equally successful in creating the atmosphere of a quintessential English tearoom. :)   

A somewhat exotic corner at the back of the saloon

One thing I really like about the saloon is that it offers tea sets throughout the day, which gives you greater flexibility in planning your tea session. :) Antique does the same thing too, but Tea Saloon is more customer-friendly because they do not require you to prepay for the tea set (yes, this is what Antique does... weird huh). Another thoughtful touch is that the saloon offers 2 different tea sets catering to the differential needs of ladies and gentlemen. The ladies' tea set has more sweets, whereas the gentlemen's tea set has more savoury items. We found this a cute idea (even though sugar-hungry Hellish and savoury-toothed me obviously do not fit into the gender stereotypes :P) and ordered a set of each. 

There were a reasonable number of choices on the tea menu. I had Mdm. Grey, a yummy variation of Earl Grey. Roses and cornflowers were added to the classic tea to give it a feminine twist. :) Hellish's Rooibos with Vanilla proved to be another decent choice. The rooibos base had no weird taste of straw (which is rather common in rooibos), and the scent of vanilla was so powerful that it overshadowed the aroma of Mdm. Grey - for a moment I thought I was given Hellish's order instead of Mdm. Grey because all I could smell from my cup was vanilla!

Ladies' Afternoon Tea Set & Gentlemen's Afternoon Tea Set, served on a tea stand matched to the cutlery (which had an interesting but impractical design - the leaves made it so difficult to hold the fork and knife...)! 

Top tier (clockwise from top): lemon meringue tart, strawberry & rose macaroon, mango mousse cake, chocolate truffle cake

(Red = in Ladies' Afternoon Tea Set only, blue = in Gentlemen's Afternoon Tea Set only, purple = in both tea sets)

Middle tier: (clockwise from top): Earl Grey tea cupcake, crab rillette, duo filo tartlets - egg mayo with smoked salmon & creamy forest mushroom, mini popover filled with black truffle cream cheese

Middle tier from another angle

Bottom tier (clockwise from top): proscuitto & manchego cream cheese croissant, mini chicken burger with oolong tea sauce, mini house salad with special plum tea citrus dressing, oolong tea jelly panna cotta pot, signature rose scone with clotted cream & homemade rose petal strawberry jam

A better view of the scones

Garnished with violets and green herbs, the pretty tea sets echoed the arrival of spring. :) In terms of sweets, there were the usual suspects such as chocolate truffle cake, mango cake, cupcake etc. Not too exciting, but predictably good in general. The uber-dense chocolate cake hit all the right notes and beat the delicate lemony meringue tart by a nose. :P The macaron would need some improvement - while I liked the sweet rose filling, the shells were soft and lacked crunchiness. The real problem, however, lay in the scones. The scone I had at AFD main store was a bit hard, and what we had this time was even harder and drier. :( It tasted like the moistureless banana walnut cake that my former Filipino maid used to bake... :0 Thankfully the perfumy rose jam could to some extent made up for the scone's deficiency.  

As expected, I was more interested in the savouries. I was titillated by the sight of my favourite mushroom filo tartlet, and this time it had even got an eggy twin! :9 As a bona fide lover of rich, fattening cheese, I was appeased by the Manchego cheese croissant (despite the croissant being slightly dry) and truffle cream cheese (read: divine) popover. There's even crab rillette, something which I had never expected to see on a tea stand! Did you know how rillette is made? With fat - a lot of fat, be it butter or cheese!! :9 It's only seasoned lightly, so that the subtle sweetness of crab was preserved. I couldn't believe that there were only 3 tiny pieces of toast to go with it. We almost wanted to lick the little jar after scooping out the last bit of rillette... :P

Apart from tea sets, the tea saloon serves lunch every day and also a special brunch set on weekends. There are endless options for brunch in HK nowadays, but Tea Saloon is probably the only place that you get to enjoy the whole lazy affair on a tiered cake stand. ;)

(Latest update @27.4.2013 16:54: Antique has just announced that they are going to launch something called "brunch tiers" in June!!! I think I smell rivalry... :P)

THE VERDICT 

Ambience: A 

Service: A-

Food: B++

Overall remarks: Believe it or not: tea Saloon by AFD is going to be the It tea place of 2013. Just as what I have said to my friend: book a table before it gets busy, because it will! Another reason to visit it this month is that, a 15% discount will be offered to all customers as the soft opening promotion! ;)

INFO

Tea Saloon by Another Fine Day (FB page of Tea Saloon / FB page of AFD Main Store) 

G/F, 80-82 Peel Street, Mid-Levels, Hong Kong

All-day tea:  12:00pm-7:00pm (Tue - Fri), 10:30am-7:00pm (Sat-Sun)

$288 for 1 person, $498 for 2 persons