L'espresso

I really love the food served at L'espresso's high tea buffets, and I love it that I always feel happy and at ease when I dine there.

 

To more happy days and more happifying food (:

The Tea Lounge @Regent Hotel

Hello (:

I woke up extremely early today to send a couple I know to the airport and on the way back, I started to crave Ya Kun's Kaya Toast but since it was way too early and none of Ya Kun's outlets are opened (save for the one, ironically, at the airport), I went to Bukit Timah Market for some toast and carrot cake (: It was nice eating some local fare for breakfast because I realised that I usually eat bread from bakeries for breakfast during term time.. and I didn't realise that I actually quite enjoy eating local breakfast food till I went to the market today. So it was quite a nice surprise (: Perhaps I'll try to go to the market once or twice more this holidays before I'm back to my bread-for-breakfast routine when school starts.

Speaking of local food, I think I don't really have a "local palette" because I don't particularly miss eating Singaporean food when I'm abroad, maybe because, like a close friend pointed out, I seldom eat local food when I go out nor do I actively make it a point to eat it. I'm fine with not having a local palette cos it doesn't mean that I don't enjoy.. it just means that I don't particularly like it or love it. Am fine with or without it (:

Anyway, enough of talking about local food. Shall move onto the main topic of this post - English High Tea.

I have always known that I prefer English High Tea to other types of High Tea. In fact, one of our very first meals after our return from Japan is a weekend high tea buffet at The Tea Lounge at Regent Hotel (: Since it was near Christmas when we visited The Tea Lounge, there was a huge inedible Christmas centre piece in the middle of the Tea Lounge, the pianist at the piano played Christmas songs, and there was a Christmassy mood all around (: It was a nice welcome back to Reality and I enjoyed the couple of hours spent there, just indulging in good food and good chatter (: The only downside was that they decided to replace their famous Chilli Crab with Fried Mantous with Christmassy food like turkey and ham so we didn't get to eat our share of mantous dipped in chilli crab sauce that day! But it's alright, we're most likely to go back anyway so we'll have that another time.

Okay enough of blabbering. Time for photos! (:

 

 

 

I'll be posting photos of our other High Tea session at Goodwood Park Hotel (another favourite of mine!) soon (:

Happy Friday and enjoy the last weekend of 2013! (:

The Bar and Alfresco

Hello!

I'm still very much in the holiday mood and I persist in being ignorant about work but I realise that this self-indulgence has to come to an end soon =S So I shall make most use of the last few days of unbridled freedom before 2013 (and work) comes!

If there is one thing that I like and dislike at the same time about dining during the festive period, it is the ubiquitous festive menus! It can get quite frustrating when all you want is to eat something that you normally would be able to get but I guess it's also quite a nice change from the usual if you are 'forced' to have festive dishes. A few days ago, we went to Four Season's Bar and Alfresco for their Classic Afternoon Tea, which came up to $50/pax after taxes. Pardon the rather dark photos. Lighting was low and we were seated at a corner so there was even less light, hence some of the rather dark photos.

Tea begins at 1pm and ends at 5pm so you drop by anytime in between though I would highly recommend that you call to make a reservation, especially during this busy festive period, lest you end up not having a table! We managed to get an indoor table so I was quite thankful because I didn't want to be battling the afternoon heat (it was extremely sunny when we went!). That day, I tried the Jade of Africa decaffeinated tea and it was surprisingly nice! (: The waiter had recommended it so I thought to give it a shot! I think it's my first time drinking decaffeinated tea and I don't think it tastes very different from normal tea. 

This was our refillable three-tier high tea stand! (: I think it's only refillable if all parties at the table choose to have the hightea set. Otherwise it'll be non-refillable, which I guess makes economic sense.

On the top tier, we have festive cookies and fruit cake, which I didn't really like because they tasted like the things we could get from Cold Storage or other supermarkets that sell these =S I wish they didn't serve these but I guess they had to since it adds to the 'festivity'.

The second tier was made up of their signature chocolate desserts and red velvet cupcakes. Comparatively, these were much better than the festive cookies and fruit cake but if I were to compare these with other chocolate desserts that I've had, I don't think these were anything special. I guess the most 'outstanding' would have to be the kumquat-chocolate rounds (on the far right of photo) which I thought was something interesting, but other than that, the rest were just so-so.

The last tier was the savoury tier that had excellent egg and smoked salmon dishes. They were actually quite good so we ordered a second helping of only these two items! The rest - the cucumber sandwich, the ham and sunflower seeds nibbles, some turkey loaf (?) - were merely average. I must say that the BEST sandwiches still come from Goodwood Park's L'espresso! So these definitely couldn't hold a candle to those.

Thankfully, the plain and pumpkin scones saved the day! They were well-baked, not too crumbly, not too dense and were actually aromatic! (: We also ordered a third pair because we liked them so much! (: I actually prefer to eat the pumpkin scones plain, without clotted cream or jam, because it is quite sweet by itself.

And that was how we spent one languorous afternoon! Eating and drinking tea at The Bar and Alfresco (: (: (: How indulgent!

The Lounge at Four Seasons Hotel

Hello everyone (:

It's a beautiful Sunday and I'm feeling pretty pleased that I'm at home and away from the heat outside! This post shall be my final post on HK food for now because I think I need to start keeping track of the places that I've been (re)visiting in Singapore so this shall be it.

It was stormy and rainy on our second last day in HK so we were somewhat limited by places that were accessible only via the MTR underground. Thankfully, HK's MTR system is very advanced and there are many underground walkways to facilitate our commuting from place to place (:

Since we'd such a wonderful time at Peninsula's high tea, we decided to go for yet another high tea but this time, we chose to have it at The Lounge at Four Seasons Hotel! (: It's easily accessible because it's connected to the Central MTR station as well as the famous ifc mall.

Like many other renowned hotels that serve afternoon high tea sets, The Lounge also does NOT take reservations and you will have to start queueing before tea time starts. Alternatively, you can go about 1.5-2hours AFTER tea time starts because that's when the first wave of diners will make their exit and you will be able to get your table without having to wait too long.

We chose to have the high tea set for two which comes with two different pots of tea/ coffee as well as a three tiered tea set (:

Personally, I feel that the scones at The Lounge were better and slightly more buttery than the ones served at Peninsula but the rest were more or less above average (: Special mention has to go to the savoury plate - their sandwiches and other savoury pastries were GOOD! (: Definitely something you should try to finish if you can't stomach the rest of the sweet things!

And lo and behold! We ordered our first bowl of fries at The Lounge! (: I was having a bit of a craving for fries and when I saw these bowl of golden shoots at the table near us, I knew we had to order one of ourselves and I'm glad we did! (:

If I ever go back to HK again in the near future, I would certainly love to try having high tea at other hotels that serve them! To me, having a good and long conversation with a buddy over 'finger' food in a place with top-notch ambience is pure indulgence (:

Alright back to reality.. will update this place again soon! (:

High Tea at Peninsular Hotel

Hello everyone,

school has officially started so it'll be a little more trying to update this space but I will definitely do my best since I enjoy keeping a record of the nice foodie places that I've been to.

I think this will be my second last post on HK because I think the rest are pretty average/ slightly above average so I will not blog about them (:

Today's post will be on the famous high tea at Peninsular Hotel, Hong Kong. It's possibly HK's most renowned high tea place and if you have the luxury of time to queue for a table, you definitely should visit this place!

The building retains the old colonial/ British structure and it stands quite stoutly amongst other well-known hotels in that area (:

The high tea officially starts at 2pm but people start queueing as early as 1.15pm! This photo was taken when I was in the queue around 1.45pm. The diners who were still seated were there before high tea (possibly brunch-ers or lunch-ers) so we had to wait for some of them to be done with their meals before we could sit down too!

Thankfully, we didn't have to wait too long for our table as we were seated around 2.20pm (: The lighting's pretty dim because the ceilings were quite high but I guess that adds to the homely ambience.

A warm cup of cappuccino to begin! (:

My sisters are going to roll their eyes when they see this but I spotted bread & butter pudding on the menu and could not resist ordering it! (: hahaha It was tres bonne! Delightfully warm and well-made!

We also chose to have the high tea set for two and it was very filling! I think three tiered high tea sets are deceptively small because it actually takes quite a bit of effort to polish off everything on the three tiers! Maybe the long conversation also helped to make us feel fuller faster since we tend to take our time to eat the individual items instead of tucking in and finishing a course. The high tea food was pretty good and I think the item that left the fondest impression on me is the bread & butter pudding. haha

Sprite to end the meal! (: They serve it in cute little green bottles (:


I do miss HK and all the activities that I did there but I comfort myself with thoughts of the next adventure! (:

Alright that's all for now. Time to head out! Have a great weekend everyone! (: