Australia Day & Farewell High Tea at Le Jardin, Palazzo Versace

The ladies planned a farewell outing for one of our good friends who is moving back to Singapore. Our initial plan for a picnic in the beach had to be cancelled due to rainy weather. We had to look for someplace indoor that is still fun and memorable. After looking and asking around for suggestions, we came across Palazzo Versace. As none of us have been there before, we decided to give it a go and head down to the lobby bar, Le Jardin for High Tea.

Le Jardin is a casual restaurant located right at the lobby. Besides high tea, it serves light meals such as antipasti, cheese, oysters and a range of salads.

We ordered the Fashionista High Tea ($45pp) that is available between 11am to 5pm. High tea was served in a 3-tier stand, shared two ways. 

The bottom tier consists of a quiche, a sausage roll and 4 scones. With only a single quiche and sausage roll, we either had to fight for it, or cut it in half to share. We went for the more civilised way and cut it in half so we both could have a taste.

We had a choice of apricot, cherry and strawberry Bonne Maman preserves to go with the scones. After tasting all three, I have to say that the classic scones with strawberry jam and cream is still the best.

The second tier consists of an assortment of sandwiches (ham and cheese, smoked salmon and egg) and sliced bread with dip.

The top tier consisted of a range of sweets themed around Australia Day: meringue with passionfruit curd, lamington, chocolate éclair, fruit tart, chocolate cakepop, chocolate macaron, tiramisu chocolate cup, lemon mini cupcake and macadamia tart.

Overall, we found the food to be just average. My least favourite was the fruit tart because the pastry was too soggy and the chocolate cakepop which was overly sweet. On the other hand, I loved the macadamia tart – crumbly pastry, nutty but not sickly sweet. The sundried tomato dip was another favourite which went really well with the toasted bread.

Throughout the service, we noticed that the waitresses were rather unfriendly and did not smile even once. Although it had never bothered me in the past, this was quite obvious and slightly uncomfortable. For a classy hotel/restaurant like this, I expected a higher level of customer service.

In the end, the most important thing is that we enjoyed ourselves and had a few good laughs along the way. Which we did. :)



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High Tea at McMahon's Restaurant

Continuing on our food journey and post-exam celebrations, a couple of girlfriends and I headed to McMahon’s Restaurant at Quay West for high tea. The normal price was $38 each, but thankfully we had a Spreets two-for-one voucher.

There was a big storm when we arrived and it was quite hard to get parking closer to the place (street parking is off-limits on weekends). Therefore, we decided to give ourselves a treat and used the valet parking at the hotel. We drove right up to the entrance, handed the key to the valet and off we went. The valet service costs $30, but since we carpooled and shared the cost, it worked out alright.

Unlike some other tea houses that provide a more Victorian style setting, the restaurant is quite modern but still has a classy touch. There is even a little leaflet with tea-etiquette information. It was quite informative and we had a good time ‘scoring’ ourselves against it.

 

High tea was served on a three-tiered stand with an additional plate of scones.

The first tier had a selection of assorted sandwiches. We found the sandwiches to be just average.

 

The second tier was quiches. The pastry was short, crumbly and very buttery.  I loved it!

The third tier had a selection of assorted desserts. The downside was that there was only one of each, so we had to cut it three-ways for sharing. All I can say was that cutting delicate desserts three-ways was a little messy. My favourite was the white chocolate cheesecake with lavender cream. The lemon tart and lemon meringue pie were both too citrusy for me.

The unanimous favourite that day was the scones – light and fluffy, not too crumbly or cakey.

Overall, we enjoyed the experience as it was a good change from having high tea at a traditional tea room.



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Pink, White and Everything Lovely High Tea

Last Saturday, I had a high tea at home with a few ladies from work to celebrate the new home. Since it’s a girls only thing (sorry D), I have decided to go all PINK. After tossing through a few ideas, I have decided on the menu below.

Savoury:
Caramelised Onion Tarts
Assorted Sandwiches
Assorted Sushi

Sweets:
Scones with Jam & Cream (Recipe from ExclusivelyFood)
Chocolate Cheesecake Brownie (Recipe from Donna Hay)
Lemon Cupcakes
Strawberry & Jam Whoppie Pie (Betty Crocker's Packet Mix)
Rose & Coconut Jelly

Drinks:
Lychee Punch
Earl Grey Tea
(didn’t get to do the other drink as these 2 were enough for us) :)

The girls brought beautiful fresh flowers which lit up the whole place.  Thanks girls for helping out and also for the lovely presents.  Most importantly, thank you for your friendship~!

*Thanks Inge for the photos~!


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Keri Craig Emporium

I finally got around to writing this post about my high tea experience at Keri Craig Emporium. We saw the 2 for 1 voucher at Groupon and decided to organise a girls day out. The visit was in March, but I have been putting off blogging as the experience was sadly rather underwhelming.

Keri Craig Emporium is located in the lower level of Brisbane Arcade. According to their website, it “offers a unique shopping experience incorporating Fashion, Homeware, Gifts and licensed Fashion Cafe”.
 

Prior to our high tea visit, I have walked past Brisbane Arcade many times and never dropped in to Keri Craig Emporium. It looked rather exclusive and I was never brave enough to enter. Therefore, I was rather excited about finally visiting the store for high tea.

I was running late, but my friends who arrived ‘on time’ were waiting at the counter for at least 15 minutes before being acknowledged and shown to their seat. First impression = fail. We found the service pretty average and almost non-existent. Not only was it quite hard to get the waitress’ attention, but when we finally did, we were not presented with friendly service.

The food came in an elegant 3-tier stand.

The first tier was an assortment of sandwiches and quiches. It was simple and ordinary.

The second tier was the traditional scones with jam and cream. This was my favourite of the day.

The final tier was the sweets tier with a custard tartlet and rich lemon tart. The lemon tart was extremely lemony and zesty - it was entertaining to watch each other’s reaction after taking the first bite. :S

Overall, we were not overly excited by the food and it is unlikely that we will return. 

As for the fashion part, the style was beyond our age. However, this might be a suitable place to bring mum or grandma for afternoon tea.
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Forget Me Not Tea Room

Today I got to indulge myself with high tea with an old friend. While looking online for a place that I hadn’t been to before, I found Forget Me Not Tea Room at Graceville. It is located in Honour Avenue, next to Regal Cinema, and just across the road from the railroad.

It is quaint little tea room that also sells unique home ware gifts and flowers. The range of quirky looking teapots caught my eye and I’ve made a mental note to return to this shop when I am ready to get a new teapot.

A pot of tea or a cup of coffee was included in the $35 price.  There was also a non-caffeine option of hot chocolate or milkshake.

When the waitress brought the food displayed on the two-tier stand to our table, we were questioning in our minds the number of serves represented on the tier. It did not seem like a lot of food and some of the sweets only came in one serving instead of two.

Our slight disappointment was replaced by enjoyment when we started eating. The savoury muffin was soft with a crunchy top. It was well complemented by the chutney. The pastry on the savoury cups was short and I really enjoyed it. The sandwich just plain compared to the other savouries, but we were not complaining.

Moving on to the scones, the light texture went very well with cream and jam.

As for sweets, the tartlets were my favourites. I loved the short and crumbly pastry on the all the tartlets. The coffee mousse chocolate cup was impressive too, with an interesting coffee flavour minus the bitter taste. Both chocolate cupcake and carrot cupcake were rich and moist.

Overall, everything was delicious and fresh. I enjoyed it so much that I can still picture the food now while writing this blog.





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Restaurant Manx - High Tea

Caught in the wave of new daily deal sites, I bought a high tea voucher at Restaurant Manx on impulse. $59 for a high tea for two, valued at $166 sounded like a bargain!  However, doing the math later, $30 per person for high tea is not really a good buy.  Furthermore, the bottle of wine that comes with the deal is no good for non-drinkers like us.  I have to admit that was partly my fault for not reading the deal clearly. 

I was hugely disappointed when the 3-tier stand arrived. The ribbon sandwiches, scones, sausage rolls and petit fours looked like they had been prepared in a rush and just dump on the plate. Not to mention the measly amount of food on the plate. Surely a restaurant can do better than that!

High tea with champagne instead of tea is not what I would call a high tea at all. The effort to modernise the traditional high tea is a big flop in my opinion.

I have learnt an important lesson about impulse buying and will in future stick with the high tea venues I know and love.


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Tea and Niceties

Tea and Niceties is everything you would expect from a classic European tearoom. Like its name suggests, it is all about tea and everything that is delicate and elegant.

Be warned though that the shop is extremely pink. From chair sashes, table decorations to staff uniforms, everything is one colour, PINK! Even the sugar is pink and sugar cubes are topped with a pink rose. There is definitely no lack of attention (or pink) here.

There is a choice between Traditional Tea ($40) and Elegant Tea ($45). Knowing in advanced that we will be given a box for the leftovers, we happily settled for the Elegant Tea. For a difference of five dollars, we get two savoury muffins, Panna Cotta and two additional petit fours. There was also a selection of 18 types of first grade teas to choose from.

The food is served on a 3-tier stand, sharing between two people. I was lucky (maybe?) to have my own stand because we had an odd number of people at our table. We spent the first few minutes admiring the daintiness of the food, before going on a photographing frenzy, snapping endless shots of the delectable delights from every angle. We wanted to make sure we did the place justice, capturing every bit of our experience.

We slowly worked our way from the bottom up, starting with the ribbon sandwiches, savoury muffins, scones to petite fours. Everything was very tasty, but if I had to pick a favourite, it would be the Chocolate Cup with Caramel and Mousse. I expected the mousse to be heavy and the caramel sickly sweet like others I have eaten before - but it was the exact opposite. The salty sweet caramel, topped with light and fluffy mousse in a chocolate cup was absolutely perfect!

Smooth & Creamy Panna Cotta

This is by far one of the best High Tea places I have been to in Brisbane. It is highly recommended to anyone who wants to indulge in a bit of elegance from the past, or just share a relaxing day out with girlfriends. From experience, weekends are usually booked out up to a few weeks in advance so make sure you book early; and if you're like us you'll even have some leftovers to help with midnight munchies.

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