Rose Veranda

Hello! (:

Today has been a really slow and lazy day but I'm loving every bit of it because it's rare to be able to catch up on restful sleep. I say restful sleep because I've been having really tiring dreams of late! I dream almost every single time I sleep and it's tormenting becuase the dreams that I have aren't relaxing or sweet, instead they're always about having to do this mission or having to run from this place to another or trying to solve something before time runs out! It's extremely draining and I often wake up feeling as exhausted as I was before I slept =S Thankfully, there seems to be an invisible time limit for my tiring dreams (at least for now) because I didn't dream the second time I napped today! Whoopee! Yes I know it's awfully piggish of me to do so but I couldn't fight the fatigue!

Okay enough of sleep talk! I shall post an entry on our trip to Rose Verada at Shangri-la! Prior to our visit, we heard from our friends who had been to Rose Veranda that the savoury food isn't that great but their tea is pretty amazing so we went there only having high expectations for their tea. Contrary to what our friends have said, our verdict at the end of our very long meal was that the food wasn't as bad as we had thought it would be - in fact, most of the dishes served were great - and that the tea that was served certainly lived up to its reputation!

We visited Rose Veranda on a Saturday afternoon and the meal costs about $40++/ pax. There are two seatings and we chose the earlier one because we wanted to have lunch instead of tea.

This photo was taken from where we were seated. The restaurant had floor to ceiling glass windows and that definitely helped to brighten up the place. It actually rained while we were eating so we actually weathered a storm that day! =P

This is a photo of Jeffrey's English Breakfast tea. We chose the cheaper high tea set which did not allow a change of tea but if you were to opt for the slightly more expensive high tea set, you will be able to change your choice of tea twice during the meal (: The tea is refillable so you can drink as much tea as you want!

I chose to have iced tea instead (I can't remember if it's a fruit tea). Both our teas had very strong tea taste and I supposed that's why most peoplt (including us) really like it (: If I'm not wrong, Rose Veranda gets their tea from TWG so I suppose TWG serves good tea! Speaking of TWG, we were at Takashimaya this afternoon and we saw the teapot that Rose Veranda uses at the TWG booth so if you really like the teapot and tea at Rose Veranda, you can find these items at TWG (:

Keeping in mind that this buffet at Rose Veranda is meant for high tea and not lunch, I would say that the range of food served is quite large! It's definitely comparable to Goodwood Park's L'espresso (which I'm very fond of!) but I would think that the savoury food at Goodwood taste slightly better. The desserts at both places are of premium quality and they're bound to make any dessert lover happy! =)

Alright here are some snapshots of the food that we had that day! It was one of those rare days that both of us were feeling hungry so our already huge appetites were larger than usual! The end result is that we ate many plates of food and forgot to capture some of them so here are those that we actually remembered to take!

From left in clockwise direction: some lettuce, fresh crabmeat sandwich (yum!), mini spinach quiche

From left in clockwise direction: egg and ham sandwich (not bad!), slices of some kind of meat (turkey?), some lettuce

From left in clockwise direction: plain rice (I wonder why Jeffrey took that!), fried beehoon (surprisingly okay), salami sandwich, smoked salmon

From left in clockwise direction: baked salmon and spinach pie with sauce (YUM!), mini spinach quiche, some vegetables, smoked salmon and some sushi

From left in clockwise direction: fried beehoon, more sandwiches, a strip of chicken, more smoked salmon and two siewmais

From left in clockwise direction: carrots and cauliflower, chilli squid and prawns, fried beehoon, steamed prawd dumpling, crab meat sandwich

Ooh next comes the desserts! Because I'm a dessert monster, I tried MOST of the desserts on display! =) Feeling mighty proud of myself for that! haha Here are some photos!

From left in clockwise direction: a small piece of chocolate, bread and butter pudding (YUM!), eclair with rose filling, scone (MUST TRY!)

Oh my plate ran out of space so I took this on its own: rose creme brulee. Very interesting (: You should try!

From left to right in clockwise direction: sponge cake with lemon meringue top, what I thought was pineapple tart but no, it was some kind of tart with lotus paste filling =( Didn't go very well with me, the absolute winner on this plate: rose macaroon! I tried ALL their macaroons and I still think that this is the best =)

From left in clockwise direction: tiramisu with chocolate top (YUMMY!), strawberry in a chocolate boat filled with custard, strawberry mousse with flakey top and base.

From left in clockwise direction: strawberries covered with chocolate fondue sauce, rose macaroon again (just can't get enough of it) and some fruit cum cheese tart cake.

We were so stuffed at the end of our meal that we had to sit a while before taking a tour around Shangrila! We'll definitely go back again but we probably won't go back too soon because we're hoping to see a slight change in menu the next time we return. Otherwise it's okay with us as well.

Alright that's all for now! (: Hope you'd a good weekend. Bye!