Ode2Fatty

The Best and Worst of High Tea

These ratings are based on ambience, quality, variety of teas and foods, and my personal bias towards all things English (I know I was born a Brit in another life). In case you’ve never done High Tea, in brief, the bare bones/basic components are the following: tea, finger sandwiches, scones with CLOTTED (OR DEVON) CREAM and jam, pastries/dessert. There really isn’t a bad tea as the idea of tea is so fun for me, but some are definitely better than others.

THE BEST TEA EVER:
Four Seasons - London (near Hyde Park). Four Seasons sets the bar. It earns a "10" out of 10 due to the following:
● No other tea provided entertainment, and Four Seasons had a remarkable piano player, who played great Cole Porter songs, show tunes and other classics (one particularly sublime moment was when she played Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World).
● We were served on comfy yet elegant, romantic low-slung settee couches rather than tables.
● The food quality and variety was fabulous. To give you an idea of the variety, here’s a selection of the sandwiches listed on today’s tea menu: Poached King Prawns in Ginger Rémoulade, Smoked Duck and Goat Cheese with Rocket Leaves, Grand Marnier Cured Scottish Salmon with Cinnamon Croissant and Brie Cheese, Herb Mascarpone and Braised Tomatoes and Tandoori Lamb with Apricot and Mint Raita. Definitely not your average cucumber/watercress sandwich!
● Our server was incredibly knowledgeable in teas, and it was at this Four Seasons that my husband and I were first exposed to Lapsang Souchong, now one of our favorite teas. If you haven’t tried it, it’s smoky and salty - think beef jerky in liquid form, but obviously more subtle . . . and not as chewy.
● Lastly, the reason Four Seasons gets a perfect 10 score - well, duh, it’s London.

EXCELLENT TEAS - BUT NOT THE BEST:
Alice's Tea Cup - Upper West Side, New York. Fun, kitschy ambience - like falling into the rabbit hole. Kid friendly atmosphere. The gift shop and bakery in the front is worth a looskey. Alice’s has a wide variety of teas (though I’ll admit I tend to stick to my trusty Darjeeling) which are divided into different tea groups - black, white, etc. My hubby really enjoyed his white jasmine tea. The desserts and sandwiches were average, but Alice’s real strength is in it’s super fresh, selection-changed-daily scones. We were lucky enough to have their tasty pumpkin scone (I think this is very popular). Also a plus is the red velvet cupcake you can purchase up front. One strange thing about Alice’s - there was a very large (disproportionate) amount of Filipinos there. Odd.
Kensington Palace, London. Princess Di’s former residence has a tea room! This informal tea room is quite bright and airy with floor-to-ceiling windows, white furniture and black and white checkered floor. It’s not very fancy-schmantzy, but the food was good, and I had two of the most memorable desserts: the large meringue (the size of a grapefruit) filled with raspberries and other goo and an orange cake - I think it may have been called the Kensington Tea cake. Though the ambience isn’t my favorite (too noisy and informal), well, it’s Kensington Palace, for pete’s sake and if you can’t pay homage to the Late Great Princess Di, then you must be some sort of barbarian. This stop was the end of our Kensington Walking Tour. The walking tours are very popular in London and this was great fun - saw a lot of MEWS. The other walking tour we took was the Jack the Ripper Walking Tour (there is no tea after that). I recommend taking a stroll through the gardens to cap off the tea experience.

VERY GOOD TEAS:
Gilded Rose Manor - Northridge, San Fernando Valley, California. Yes, deep in the heart of the San Fernando Valley (known more for its guacamole than its crumpets) is this little find. I’ve lived in the Valley for over 30 years and didn’t know about this place until August of this year. I don’t know how I missed it as it’s very hard to overlook a purple Victorian house amidst strip malls and grocery stores! The Manor mostly gets its high score because of the ambience. Imagine - a whole house devoted to tea! It’s lacy, Victorian and uber-girly. There’s a gift shop and separate rooms for bridal showers and larger parties. As for the food, the desserts were disappointing as they were more of the truffle/candy type, and I think tea desserts should be more of the pastry variety. Also, there was only one type of scone and the "clotted cream" was more of a whipped cream - too light. The cream should be dense like butter. However, the tea was excellent with a wide variety, and the sandwiches were very tasty. On a side note, Gilded Rose Manor also hold special events and last October, my husband and 2 other couples attended a really fun Murder Mystery there - complete with stuffed "corpse," clues and roles (for example, my friends were WC Fields and Mae West).
Raffles Hotel - Singapore. [Review as copied from Singapore Food entry] So during my first trip to Singapore in 2001, my husband and I were not able to get into the main tea room (the Tiffen Room) and had to settle for snacks at the more casual cafeteria style dining area. This time we got reservations, and I was not disappointed. First off, the Raffles is a welcome respite from the very modern hotels and spas that I had visited so far on this trip and really gives one a feel for how it was in colonial times (well, if there was a Tiffany & Co. in those days . . . ) I immediately had to deduct 1 point because it was buffet style. As great as it was to have such a selection and unlimited supply, I believe the traditional High Tea should come in the fancy tea service. I also deducted a point because while the other food was great in quality and variety, the actual "tea" food - the scones and finger sandwiches - were simply average. There was only one variety of scone, and the wait staff manning the buffet weren't too knowledgeable about that part of the buffet. For instance, they had what looked to be a butter dish and a clotted cream dish side by side and it was difficult to differentiate b/c the consistency of both was such that they were almost identical. When I went to confirm that what I had put on my plate was indeed clotted cream, I was told by a flustered fellow that it was "cream cheese." Thankfully, it was not. The sandwiches were simply average, and I believe that for tea sandwiches, one must use a thinner sliced bread than average, which they did not. This however are very minor blemishes on an otherwise fantastic tea experience. The room was lovely and the wait staff was very attentive (at one point, my SIL rose to get more food and placed her napkin down, whereupon a server promptly picked it up, folded it lengthwise and placed it neatly over the arm of her chair.) The food had quite a variety and added a native flair on the old standard. When was the last time you had a shrimp and mango steamed dumpling at High Tea? There was also local soups, fish paste in banana leaves and other dim sum type offerings. The dessert area was a sugar fiend's (me!) dream come true - different Christmas logs, puddings, as well as local treats such as glutinous coconut balls that were filled with a maple sugar type liquid (my favorite). I wish I had more room so that I could have tried everything, but I managed to okay nonetheless. Raffles High Tea is a must!
The Ritz - Pasadena, California. Very elegant, bright and roomy. The balcony overlooking the gardens made this an especially delightful place. The Ritz, like the Four Seasons, had elegant settees/chaises and armchairs.
The Plaza, Midtown, New York. Excellent. One drawback was that it was soooo crowded and noisy. Kind of out in the open too. But I do remember the lovely center table which was beautifully decorated with tea stuffs and the Plaza was especially festive this time of year (we went during Christmas).
The Peninsula - Hong Kong. This was my first tea ever, and there was a line to get in. This was when the English still ruled Hong Kong - tea was very important. It still could be for all I know - haven’t been back there since. Don’t really remember anything else so this really more a sentimental vote than anything. Go at your own risk.

OKAY TEA:
Huntington Gardens - Pasadena, California. Marked off because it was all-you-can-eat. Very informal and - well, to be honest - felt cafeteria-like. The quality of food - as is the case with most all-you-can-eat places - was low (think Hometown Buffet). Yet, there wasn’t much variety of food - unlike most all-you-can-eat places. The saving grace and only reason to go to this tea is that the Huntington Gardens is really a peaceful, colorful, beautiful place to walk around. My favorite is the Japanese Garden section. The museum is okay (don’t forget to see Blue Boy), but I don’t really go for that type of art - I’m more into contemporary art (meaning Monet forward). So, after strolling through the gardens and/or museum, the tea house is a nice way to end the afternoon. But I wouldn’t go there if I wasn’t doing the garden.

UNSURE WHERE THIS TEA FALLS:
Four Seasons - Newport Beach, California (The O.C.). I would take this ranking with a grain of salt as I don’t really remember much about the actual tea service. I think I wasn’t eating dairy at the time so I probably didn’t try much of the food. Hmmm. The hotel is nice, and the tea china and service was pretty. I really can’t give a detailed assessment as the most remarkable thing about this tea was its unremarkability. Another bummer was I had to drive soooo far to get there.

MISCELLANEOUS:
Enjoyed tea - but not full service - at Mariage Frères, Paris. Yes, the French drink something else besides strong coffee and vino. So what I remember most is that I flippantly told the waiter I wanted the best tea there thinking "What the heck - I’ll splurge for a $10 pot of tea. Well, I think it was closer to $25 for a pot that held 4 cups of tea. It wasn’t even that great - I liked my husband’s (more reasonably priced) tea better. However, I made sure I drank ALL of it because sh*t, I paid a lot of money for that!

My Teas To-Do List: (1) Four Seasons - Laguna Niguel which supposedly has High Tea in a library setting; (2) Hotel Bel Air; and (3) Waldorf Astoria.

Finally, though it’s’ not Tea, it’s worth mentioning. I had a very enjoyable Latte experience at Florians, St. Mark’s Square, Venice, Italy. The weather was lovely, the square was packed and there was a very enthusiastic and rowdy Italian band playing. Yay!

posted by Fatty @ 8:40 AM