Cath Kidston Inspired Afternoon Tea at Feast, Hong Kong

If you're mad about Cath Kidston, this afternoon tea set might be for you. Everything's served in cute Cath Kidston florals :)

But we can't eat porcelain now, can we? How about the food?

Classic fruit scone with Devon Clotted Cream & Strawberry Jam? Not bad :)

Sweets:

Rose cream filled macaron: I like the fragrance.

Orange blossom chocolate bon bon: too sweet for me.

Earl grey cupcake: moist with nice frosting, but I could use more earl grey flavors :)

Savouries:

English honey glazed ham & mustard sandwich, tea smoked salmon, horseradish & cucumber sandwich, duck egg mayo & watercress sandwich, asparagus wrapped in gorgonzola & cured English ham, sun-blushed tomato palmiers, & quiche lorraine.

They're not too bad, but could be much better. My socks weren't exactly blown off.

So, if seeing cute Cath Kidston inspired things floats your boat, go for it.

Plus, you get Cath Kidston rose hand cream & discount voucher to buy Cath Kidston's latest goodies.

The set is available for HK&228 for two on weekdays, or HK$195 per person (buffet) on weekends from 3:00 - 5:30 pm until 18 May 2014.

Thanks to East & Petrie PR for the invite.

Feast at EAST Hotel

29 Taikoo Shing Road, Island East

Hong Kong

Tel: +852 3968 3777

Email booking: feastreservation@east-hongkong.com

Earl Grey Tea Cherry Soda - Refreshing Drinks

Last week, we had a couple of beautiful 23C days in Hong Kong, and I thought summer's over.
But of course I was wrong. We're back to hot summer days again :)
Time for refreshing drinks such as this one.

Recipe (for a glass)
- 2 bags of Earl Grey tea
- 1/4 cup hot water
- 2 tsp sugar (or more depending on how sweet you want it to be)
- 3-5 fresh cherries, pitted, halved
- soda
- ice cubes

Dunk earl grey tea bags into hot water remove after 2-3 minutes, add sugar (it should be quite sweet, considering that we will add soda water and ice cubes later), stir until dissolved. Pour into a serving glass, add soda water, cherries and ice cubes.

Of course you can add booze if you wish ;)

Have a great week!

Tea Pairing Dinner at Lingnan Club

You've probably had many wine-pairing dinners, but have you had a tea pairing dinner? It's such a brilliant idea. There were many delicious dishes from Lingnan Club, each paired expertly with a tea from MingCha to complement, but I'm just gonna share my favorite things from the night.

Wild Chrysanthemum with White Peony Supreme, served in martini glasses.

How cool is that!

Black truffle from Abstoss World Gastronomy!


...which we sprinkled on some delicious goodies...


...such as on this stir fried lobster and albumen dish...


...and on this claypot traditionale.

Yum!

Another favorite dish from the night that I am craving right now...

...stir fried beef with walnuts. Super mega delicious! Tasty, tender, juicy!

And I got to eat the last piece which everybody normally wouldn't touch.

They're polite, I am shameless ;)


I forgot to take picture, but my favorite tea that night was the Phoenix Supreme Oolong, it's so fruity, almost sweet. Love it!

More pictures of the event can be viewed here.

Yum Cha at Fu Tung Guang Dong Restaurant - Wharney Hotel - Wanchai - Hong Kong

I got to know this place due to its proximity to my old work place...and I fell in love. It is not one of those super famous dim sum restaurant, but because of that, I love this place even more! Making a reservation is easy, great food, affordable, good service. Love!

After months of having crappy dim sums at the one and only dim sum joint below my flat, this weekend yumcha was a treat indeed! Can't wait to go back there.

The fried fish balls was one of the daily specials for that day, and it was delicious! Crispy on the outside, beautifully bouncy on the inside and the hint of fragrant coriander made it just perfect. Served with clam sauce, but since I'm avoiding clams, I dipped it into chilli sauce (dao ban jeong) and it was still wonderful!


Love the har gaw as well. Thin and chewy skin with juicy and succulent fat shrimps inside. Yum!


The lobak gou (pan fried radish cake) is one of my favorite...what makes it different from the crappy ones is...this one doesn't have the overwhelming amount of flour the crappy one does. Lovely!


The savory pastry with radish filling were wonderful. Light, flaky, not greasy, with tasty filling.


The savory sticky rice uses mixed grain, which I love...and it has subtly flavored filling, which is nicely balanced with the rich salted egg yolk. Precious!

On to the sweets...love their the custard yolk buns. Fluffy bun with runny custardy, yolky, sweet filling. Sigh...I miss them already!


I am not a big fan of grapefruit...but I must admit that it has a certain refreshing quality, perfect to balance the richness of this sweet and creamy mango grapefruit dessert. Each and every spoonful has chunks of mangoes. Delightful!


As if mango pudding isn't already sinful, I still managed to drench it with evaporated milk.


The first layer was clear gelatinous mango jelly, with a few chunks of mangoes on top, and the second layer was creamy, silky, smooth mango pudding with lots of mango chunks. I couldn't ask for more...it was yummy to the max!

...we were totally satisfied, and the whole meal costs us HK$108 per person.

Can't wait to go back :)

Fu Tung Guangdong Restaurant
富東粵菜
3/F, The Wharney Guang Dong Hotel Hong Kong, 57-73 Lockhart Road, Wan Chai
灣仔駱克道57-73號香港華美粵海酒店3樓
Tel: +852 2862 1020

Weekend Tea Party

Last weekend, my friends and I had a small "high tea" party at home. The idea is...trying to recreate the hip and happening "high tea" we normally have in upscale restaurants/hotels at home. Being a bunch of hopeless lazy asses we are, we didn't plan to cook/make anything, well maybe the bare minimum.

Our game plan was...if you can buy it outside, do it. With that in mind, we did our little "task allocation":

J: Savory pastries
S: Indonesian snacks (sweet & savory)
F: Sweet pastries
R: Sandwiches, drinks, fruits
D&K: "Entertainment" & photo bitches heheheh (sorry guys~)

Apart from the above tasks, everyone is free to get whatever the heck it is they fancy, even if it's beyond their category..and as expected, we delivered beyond customers expectations ^_^ and ended up with a table full of deliciousness!

What kind of tea did we have? I was planning to serve earl grey, Indonesian jasmine tea and mint tea...but due to the heat, we ended up having iced green tea, iced water and ahem...iced Coke ^_*

We surely had some savory goodnesses...Japanese corn chewy donuts & sausage wrap...


Plenty of Indonesian goodies...risoles, kroket, lemper, pastel tutup, klepon, durian mochi, kue lapis...yum!


Croissant, Japanese choco chip and red bean chewy donuts...in cutest shapes imaginable!


Of course, we gotta have scones, jams in cute little containers and custard filled pastries


...and some spectacular looking cakes...fruit pastries, chestnut napoleon...oh my!


Indonesian nastar nanas and klepon...


Spongy goodness in the shape of sandwiches...


Cookies...


...and something that's sweet and savory...grilled bacon wrapped pineapple drizzled with maple syrup.

Recipe
- Half a pineapple, peel skin off, remove core and cut into bite sized chunks
- Bacon
- Maple syrup
- Toothpicks (if possible, soak toothpicks in water for 1 hour to prevent from burning)
Preheat oven to 200C. Wrap pineapple chunks with bacon, secure with toothpicks, lay on lightly greased baking tray, drizzle with maple syrup, bake until golden brown.

Of course we took lots and lots of pictures...our new photo bitch did very very well, he deserves a raise!


...and Jason tasted the blessing (or curse) of flexibility...that is Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 :D


...and of course, what's a gathering without a little gambling? ;)

Monopoly deal HK$20/game, the game where we can be a property tycoon/conglomerate for a few hours :D

...and since there was a truckload of food, we didn't go ahead and make sandwiches, so I just ate it the next day as breakfast...

Creamy Minced Chicken Sandwich
Recipe*
- 1/2 lb minced chicken
- quarter of an onion, diced
- 1 tsp butter, a dash of olive oil
- mayo, ketchup, sweet relish, salt, black pepper
Saute onion in butter and a bit of olive oil until fragrant and transparent, add chicken until cooked through, season well. Set aside to cool down. Once cool, add mayo, a touch of ketchup, sweet relish, and mix well. Spread on sandwich bread of your choice.

*Recipes are inspired by/adapted from Pioneer Woman

'Til our next delicious gathering, guys~

Weekend High Tea at Crabtree & Evelyn Tearoom

When SC is busy doing some tech support for his brother...the only right thing to do for me is...not to disturb him :D
So I went for some major retail therapy, followed by a high tea with a blogger gal pal I knew from Twitter, the doufu mafia. She blogs about vegetarian food all around Hong Kong and beyond. Check out her blog for some delicious vegetarian treats ^_^

Now, the high tea...I never knew that Crabtree and Evelyn has a tearoom and serves food and drinks...

But it apparently does, the location is tucked away in an office building in Wanchai. It isn't marketed much, maybe that's why I haven't heard about it before.


The place has super limited seating, so if you wanna go, it's better to make a booking. When the weather is cool enough, you can go for the cute gazebo outside ^_^


We went for the classic high tea set for two...

...which was served in extremely unbelievably pretty Crabtree & Evelyn tableware.

Pink for me...


...and green for doufu mafia ^_^


We ordered Rose tea and peppermint tea...


...which was lovely with a touch of flower honey.

When this tower arrived...


We did the right thing to do...

...which was to snap 10001 pictures of it ^_^

To me, what's on the tower was almost not important, I was too distracted by its prettiness :D

We had warm scones...served with clotted cream, strawberry and blueberry jam. I am not a big fan of scones and had it when it has turned cold, but doufu mafia told me that they were lovely when still warm.


The sweets...fruit and strawberry tarts and some chocolates. Fresh fruits on the tarts, but sadly, I could've bought better ones from elsewhere. The chocolates were good, but again, nothing that'd make me go crazy.


I lovee their savoury pastries. Maybe I am just a savoury girl. Flaky, buttery skin with savoury filling? Yum! The chicken and smoked salmon sandwiches? Nothing worth going back for.


We couldn't finish quite a lot of stuff and they packed everything into a pretty box. I also brought home the remaining jar of honey, and the set comes with a small tube of Crabtree & Evelyn handcream, packed in another pretty box.

It's not so much about the food or the tea, but the experience of having them out of pretty packaging. I'd totally go back to let more girlfriends gawk at the floral beauty ^_^

Crabtree & Evelyn The Tearoom
Shop 126, Sun Hung Kei Centre
30 Harbour Road, Wanchai
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2511 0868