Ladurée afternoon tea at The Landmark Mandarin Oriental

Laduree is partnering up with The Landmark Mandarin Oriental for afternoon tea on this month of December, and the whole city is raving about it. After having been, I don't really get what the fuss is all about. The only thing from Laduree in the whole set are the macarons (2 per person), the individual paper tablecloth (similar to the one you get at Laduree in Paris), and the big macaron pyramid (for decoration only) at the entrance of the restaurant. 

This afternoon tea set is good yet really overpriced. The Landmark Mandarin Oriental cannot be compared to the much more splendorous Hong Kong Mandarin Oriental located at 5 minutes walking distance, which happens to offer one of the best afternoon teas in town for way way cheaper!!! I really felt I was ripped off by this Laduree nonsense. The set is not worth the price.

The first bad impression was when I went to look at the tea selection. There were just 4 really common teas (Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Jasmine and Peppermint) and then oolong, white tea or green tea, for which you had to add $25! Excuse me?! First of all, in a so called Laduree afternoon tea, it is not acceptable that the only thing from Laduree are two macarons. The least would be some other petit four, or Laduree tea. 

The clotted cream and the jams were very good, but the scones were not really scones. Others may not realize, but for a connoisseur like myself, these were not the real deal. And it's a shame seeing how its brother, the Hong Kong Mandarin Oriental, has the best scones in Hong Kong. These scones had yellow cake consistency. And by the fact that the edges were not toasted, you could realize they had actually just been cut with a round mold after being baked. What kind of a scone is that?!

Don't think the set was just laid on our table like this. You know how I dislike not having a tiered stand for afternoon tea! We actually had a 2-tier stand right next to us, I just forgot to snap a picture of it.

The food was overall good. My review may seem a bit negative but the truth is the food was tasty. It was just overpriced and with not enough Laduree goodies, that's it. 

The best part were obviously the macarons. The silver one was really beautiful. It was mandarine and orange, and the pink one was my all-time fave: rose macaron! Woohoo!!! The other best thing, that I accidentally left for the very end (lucky again!) was this peanut and chocolate tart in the picture below. It was SO good, I inspected every part carefully to try to replicate it at home!

Think twice before heading for this high tea. All everyone is excited about is Laduree, and then there's just too miserable macarons! 

If you call to make a reservation, they'll tell you it has been completely booked. I don't know booked by whom, since I went there and was perfectly able to walk in even though there was a huge line in front of me, which I'm assuming didn't have a reservation either! Is this some sort of marketing technique? 

Visited on: December 12th, 2013

Overall Rating: 3.5* Even though this set was overpriced, most of the food was of high quality, and the service was excellent.

Price: HK$634 for two (CRAZY)

Value for Money: Negative! 0*

Would I recommend it? Let's face it. We all go here attracted by Laduree. Now when you know that all you get from Laduree are two macarons, and that this tea set is one of the most expensive in town, would you still want to go? Probably not.

  

Afternoon tea at the Four Seasons Hong Kong

The Lounge at the Four Seasons Hong Kong is one of my favorite venues, atmosphere-wise, for afternoon tea. I love how bright it is, with its huge windows all over its right hand side facing the harbor. I've been here for lunch, tea and dinner, and I like it best during the day, when the whole place is bursting with sunlight. 

By the looks of it one would think this is the conference center with so many guys in suits! Yet I assure you this was afternoon tea time! Business over afternoon tea, oh how perfect!

I love how they always decorate this table so perfectly! Look at these floral arrangements, it's the first time I've seen roses in a vase set up like this! I'm still not 100% sure how they are holding up! Gorgeous!

You may remember I blogged about the Four Seasons Festive afternoon tea buffet, but I still hadn't had the regular afternoon tea set, so last Thursday my friend Aurora and I went to check it out!I had the chocolate tea and unfortunately it was not as good as I had expected. It had another flavor besides chocolate which I'm unable to describe but which I'm not really fond of. 

The tea set itself was gorgeous, specially the top, with those two lovely daisies! The bottom layer had savories that were good yet not outstanding.The scones on the middle layer were PERFECT. I think they are the best in town together with the ones at the Mandarin Oriental. They came with delicious clotted cream, too. This tea set is worth the visit even if it's only to eat scones! The top tier had very good sweets, I was actually surprised by their good quality.

Visited on: November 14, 2013

Overall rating: 4.5 / 5

Price: HK$470 + 10% service charge for a tea set for two. HK$250 + 10% for one. 

Value for Money: 4.5 / 5

Would I recommend it? Definitely! This is a great high tea experience!

Airplay : blowouts, updos and makeup in Hong Kong!

After being in Japan for 4 days and seeing the amazing hair girls have there, I decided it was time for me to get a nice hairstyle of my own. I mean, seriously, Japanese girls seem to have just been out from the hairdresser all the time! How is that even possible, huh? Secret, please? Anyway, I decided to go to the newly open Airplay blow dry bar, which landed in Hong Kong a month ago and it's already the new buzz in the city. 

Airplay blow dry bar is not your conventional hair salon. They specialize in blowouts and updos, meaning that this is not the place to go to get your hair cut, you go here exclusively to get a fabulous hairstyle for a special occasion, or just for any day you feel like it really! Say you have a date at 8pm and you're just out from work around 6pm with your hair not looking its best after a long day. Well, now all you have to do is head over to Airplay and you'll be all set in an hour! In case your make-up needs some retouching as well, don't worry, they offer make-up service, too! How cool?! Reservations are recommended in advance, but if you eventually have an emergency, you could just call and ask whether they could fit you in their schedule. They have two different kind of make-up services, a simple one for 15 minutes for HK$180, and a full make-up service for 45 minutes for HK$380 called "Party Queen". I just love the names they gave to all their services, keep reading and you'll understand what I'm talking about...

Blowouts and updos cost HK$280 and come with an aromatic shampoo bar, meaning they wash your hair before proceeding to the hair setting, and in no ordinary way! They have six shampoo shots for you to choose! Each of them has a different scent (cherry blossom, green tea, jasmin, blueberry, mandarine...), and a different function, too! My favorite scent was blueberry but I finally went for green tea because it had the function of giving extra volume to the hair, which is what I needed for the hairstyle I wanted! My hair is naturally super straight, and I chose their "Mojito" hairstyle, which is with lots of curls and volume, so the volumizing shampoo kinda was a must.

You may be wondering why the hairstyle I chose is called Mojito instead of simply Curly with volume or something like that. Well, Airplay blow dry bar plays with the idea of a "bar" so all their blowouts and updos have cocktail names! In fact, they also have Mocktails which is the same service but for girls under ten, and for just HK$150! I thought that was so witty! 

So I visited Airplay last week Thursday at 2pm and I was greeted by the charming manager Olympe, who showed me around and introduced the concept to me. She gave me the blowouts and updos menu, which comes with pictures so that you know what you're choosing, and the shampoo shots for me to smell and choose! I recommend you choose your hairstyle first, because you might need a special shampoo for it, like in my case, because I chose the curly Mojito I needed the green tea shampoo that could give more volume to my hair. 

Everything at Airplay is done efficiently yet in a relaxing way. The hair washing comes with a three-minute head massage, which I looooved! Then back to my seat I was offered sparkling rosé, green tea cookies and a French heart-shapped biscuit. You can choose tea or water instead of the rosé if, say, you go to Airplay early in the morning and you're still not up for it! This was the first time for me to be at a hair salon where there's no mirror in front of me but behind me! In fact in front of me there were two huge TVs streaming Project Runway and a movie of Sarah Jessica Parker. There were a bunch of magazines, too, of course.

TVs on the left, mirrors on the right!

I had a really great time, I mean, let's face it, I love getting pampered, plus the stylists were really nice, so it was a wonderful experience I couldn't recommend enough. I'd say my hair turned up marvelous, judge by yourselves...

And this is me with Olympe, the gorgeous Airplay blow dry bar manager:

Airplay blow dry bar

7/F, W Pace, 52 Wyndham St., Central, Hong Kong

Appointments: 2641 9888

Opening hours: Mon-fri: 8am-9pm ; sat 11am-9pm

Enjoy getting fabulous!

I was wearing blouse and necklace from my shop Frill Me.

Classified - Central

Last weekend was awesome. We did plenty of things and had a lot of two-people-world moments! I feel like we did so many interesting stuff and yet I got enough time to have a good rest, isn't that the best weekend plan?! :)

 

On Saturday J and I joined the Sparkling Wedding Fair at the Mandarin Oriental. I'll be sharing everything with you on this week's Wedding Wednesday. All I can say at the moment is we loved it! Before going to the fair we had brunch at Classified, in New World Tower, Central. Neither of us had eaten here before but we really enjoyed it. The place is relatively big and mostly empty, so bye bye Central crowd ^^ I guess not a lot of people venture on the first floor of New World Tower on weekends unless they know Classified is there, since it's an office building! They serve salads, sandwiches, pasta of the day, home-made cakes and pastries and cheeses. Everything was very good! Definitely a place to remember if you feel like having a small bite around Central. 

 

 

Classified has 8 branches in Hong Kong, all of them in Hong Kong island except for the one in Sai Kung. Have you ever been to any?

 

Classified
1/F
New World Tower
16-18 Queen's Road Central

The Herbivores

I love Staunton Street. There's so many small, cozy restaurants to choose from, it always takes me a while to choose which one to go into. Some days ago, Chloris and I went to The Herbivores, a new vegetarian restaurant, for brunch.

Brunch consists of a choice of a main dish, a drink and a set dessert. There are 5 dishes to choose from, and we got the Eggs Benedict and the Bruschetta to share. Both dishes were not up to our expectations. The eggs benedict were a bit sour because of the tomato, and the bruschetta was actually on toast bread {I mean, really?!}

 The dessert was a chocolate mousse which was more of a chocolate paste, and it turned out to be my favorite part of the meal. I wonder if their a la carte menu is any better, but as far as the brunch set goes, I wouldn't recommend it.

Visited on: February 23, 2013

Overall Quality: 3.5*

Price: HK$128 + 10% service charge per head for the brunch set

Value for Money: 3.5*

Would I recommend it? Not really, at least not the brunch

The Herbivores

35 Staunton Street

Central

Sift Patisserie @ Prince's Building, Central

Yesterday my colleague and friend Marie joined J and I on our sweet treats quest. You may remember I blogged about Sift Patisserie in Wan Chai not so long ago. Since that time we only got to try two cupcakes and one petit four, I had to go back to explore some more! So we headed to the branch in Prince's Building, Central, which has pros and cons compared to the Wan Chai one. The Wan Chai branch has way more food variety, but there is no sitting area. The one in Central has less to choose from but 4 convenient tables are available.

It was great that Marie joined us, we had a great time and we got to order more food too!

This time we had four cupcakes and two petit fours, what a feast! We had the Strawberry, Red Velvet, Lemon, and Salty Caramel Chocolate Cupcakes; and the Chocolate Hazelnut Crunch, and Strawberry Muffin with Cream.

As I said on my previous review about Sift, their cupcakes are highly overrated. Specially the Red Velvet one, I still can't understand some people agree on it being THE Red Velvet Cupcake in town. NO WAY. I liked the Strawberry Cupcake (4.5*) and the Salty Caramel Chocolate Cupcake (4.5*) the most. Those were truly delicious. The Red Velvet (3.5*) and the Strawberry Muffin (3*) were average, while the lemon cupcake (1*) was well below average. The Chocolate Hazelnut Crunch was good (4*).

Sift Patisserie
Shop 240 - 241, Prince's Building, 10 Chater Road, Central