Sunday 31 March 2013

Happy Easter! Easter Afternoon Tea 2012 @ The Lounge, Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong


Happy Easter to my dear readers! :D I hope you are enjoying the holiday as much I am. What I really like about Easter is that, unlike Christmas or Chinese New Year, you can enjoy the long holiday without the obligation to attend parties or gatherings. But a coin has two sides - if you are neither a Christian/Catholic, nor a child who is crazy about egg hunt, you may be left to wonder what you can do to share the festive joy. Instead of the classic option of overdosing yourself with Cadbury Mini Eggs, what about having an Easter afternoon tea? Yes, tea is for EVERY occasion!! ;)




Last year I went to The Lounge of Four Seasons for their Easter afternoon tea and truly enjoyed it! The Lounge is one of my top 5 favourite tea places in HK, though I don't go there very often because of its somewhat annoying no-reservation policy. Still, it is much better than the ridiculously overrated Peninsula, which requires you to queue up like an idiot until you get assigned a table (which usually happens after an hour of waiting). The FS way is, when The Lounge is full and you want a table, they take your name and phone number. Then you can shop around freely in IFC, until they call and let you know that a table is available. That's service, if not humanity!




I am not sure if they are still doing it, but when I visited The Lounge for regular tea set some years ago, they served us extra pastries in addition to our tea set! What a lovely touch. During Easter, an Easter inspired dessert buffet is included in the price of tea set. I have to show you the pictures I took last year! Btw I know the cassis macaron tower in this pic didn't look so great because it's half-empty, but that's what I saw because I only managed to get a table after waiting for 45 minutes...




On the buffet table - flower chocolate cookies! 




Blueberry and vanilla Easter eggs with a molten berry-flavour core :9




Bunnies!!! Cute but the royal icing tasted of raw egg white... 




Mini cupcakes: flower power!




This little carrot was eye-catching but it tasted like play-doh. The crunchy cookie base of the cheesecake should be the real highlight!




Soft and sweet strawberry cake pops. Tempting!



Of course, one cannot call it an Easter afternoon tea without the much-loved chocolate eggs...




... and Easter staple hot cross bun! It's my first hot cross bun but perhaps it's my last too. I never like things with dried fruits and spices much...




I named this plate "Easter Egg Hunt in Blooming Garden". ;P The desserts were actually a bit hit-and-miss and I will blame the extensive use of icing decorations. But since I am a sucker for cute things, I was happy whenever I looked at my plate!! :P




Assortment of pastries - they were okay but not exceptional. I only remembered that the roasted pecan and vanilla profiteroles were the best because I ate at least 2 of them. Creamy profiterole is one of my favourite desserts; when I was an exchange student, I would always show up for dinner in college refectory when profiterole was on the menu. ;)




Spearmint marinated spring berries: a refreshing must-have after tasting so much sweets




I felt sorry to the tea set because I had little room for it after sampling the dessert buffet. While the set we had on the day wasn't the best (the menu changed frequently and I had tasted better tea sets at FS before), it was decent by any standard. 




Top tier: sweets. I don't remember what they were but the general impression was that they were too sweet. A slight disappointment I must say... perhaps it's because my taste buds had been assaulted by enough sweetness! 




Middle tier: savouries. They were superbly made with fresh ingredients. From the tangy curry puffs to egg-cellent truffled egg open sandwiches, every savoury item was made to perfection. FS should consider including sandwiches on their buffet table! 




Bottom tier: scones. They were so enormous that we had trouble finishing them and had to take 2 of them home in the end! They were a wee bit harder than expected, but that's not a big problem and I wasn't sure if it's because I didn't eat them right away. Anyway, the scones were nice, especially when being eaten with lots of apricot jam and clotted cream!



THE VERDICT 
Ambience: A

Service: B+ (waiting staff were friendly. I only hope they would allow people to make reservation for tea some day!)

Food: B++ (the Easter tea was not bad but you know, I expected something impressively splendid because it's FS! But anyway I would give the food a slightly higher rating because of the lovely presentation :P)

Overall remarks: If it's food that you are after, it may be better to visit The Lounge on non-festive occasions - it's understandable that the quality of food may be compromised to some extent when they put so much thoughts in decorating the festive desserts. But if you want some fun in Easter, FS's Easter tea is your best bet because you will not find such adorable food elsewhere. Their Easter tea 2013 seems to be even more creative, which will definitely brighten your day despite the gloomy weather. Check out the pictures here! ;)



INFO
The Lounge (website)
Lobby Level, 8 Finance Street, Central, Hong Kong
Easter Afternoon Tea 2013: 2:30-5:30pm, 29 March to April 1
$328 per person


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