The Observatory Hotel, the Rocks
High tea at the Observatory Hotel! Hosted by my friend, the Vintage Queen, it was delightful fun.
Alas, I forgot to take photos of the interior design and lighting! Oops. Usually one of my favourite parts of food blogging.
High tea takes place in the Globe Bar and it is quite a large space, with a combination of round and long tables. The decor is old fashioned, with plush seating and mahogany accents all around the room.
We were a party of seven so were seated at a long table. From the selection of teas, we were allowed to choose four blends.
For our teas, we chose Warm Spice, Dragon Eyes (Jasmine), White Peony and…I think the last one was Earl Grey?
They each came out in a different style of teapot.
And of course, there was sugar and milk on the table. I love sugar cubes! I would like to use sugar cubes at home.
The tea themselves were a bit ordinary.
Having seen lots of tiers being carried out to other tables, I was looking forward to trying the pastries and sandwiches.
On the top tier, there were mini scones.
The scones were very cute in their mini size but the inside was a bit crusty. I prefer my scones to be light and fluffy (and warm if I’m very lucky!) but I still enjoyed eating these ones. Scones with cream and jam is just plain yummy!
On the second tier, there were various sweet treats.
The tall glasses in the background are pannacottas which had a strong cherry flavour.
Here are some closeups of the sweet treats:
Finally, on the last tier, there were sandwiches and mini quiche lorraines.
The sandwich varieties were cucumber, egg, ham & cheese and smoked salmon with mustard.
It was the Vintage Queen’s birthday and during the middle of the afternoon tea, they presented her with a lovely tray of birthday treats.
The Vintage Queen was nice enough to share her tray around and I carefully selected a macaron to try.
And it was really good!!!! The exterior crumpled softly when I bit into it and the filling was a light mandarin jelly jam. Much better than the ones I tried at Adriano Zumbo…
I think I would like to try more High Teas. So far I have only been to this one, the Swissotel and the Shangri-La. It is in the interests of food blogging that I should try some more…