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| - Review is for Afternoon Tea in the Lobby
2 stars for Overall experience and 1 add'l star for ambiance & setting
Having had High Tea throughout the city (King Eddy, Royal York, Windsor Arms and also little indie coffee/tea shops) this one was rather disappointing.
LOCATION - you dine in the hotel lobby
- I don't like to eat at coffee table height (I know, this is a personal preference, but I like a tablecloth to hide the carb-baby from the scones!)
- As it is a hotel lobby, there's too much chaos. For example, there was some tourists settling down after a day of shopping, chatting and regrouping, using lobby WiFi to plan their evening and there were people that would come and go as their group got larger/smaller. No problem because they're staying there and this is what you do in a hotel lobby, but it was chaotic. When I go out for tea, I like the atmosphere to be serene and almost reverent, I get dressed up, linger a long time with my g'friends chatting, etc. and this is in stark contrast to what's going on around you.
- the additional star was given because we were given a reserved table right by the fireplace. The gesture is a wee bit moot, as it's July; but I appreciate the forethought to giving our table one of the prime locations in the lobby.
SERVICE
- the women who work in the lobby are better suited to serving (liquor) drinks to lobby patrons, than to serving tea. If you'd ordered a cocktail, you would be checked-in on, asked if you wanted another drink, etc. If you're there for tea, you get your tea pot, your food and that's it. No one checked-in to see if we liked the tea they had helped us choose. No one asked if we needed our pot filled with additional water.
- When ordering our tea, they were explicit that it was one choice per person, no switching. She said that the menu might mislead you in to thinking you can sample tea from the seven sections, but you only get one kind of tea. Fine, that's about par for any tea service; but if other patrons have been confused/misled by the menu, why not change it? The tea is delivered and then we waited over 30min for our scones/sandwiches/dessert tiered tray. By the time the food came, our tea was tepid. But we were so hungry that tea was an afterthought. After they put the food down, no one ever came by to check on us. Least of all, no one ever came by to ask if we wanted additional hot water, (which is unheard of, during tea service!)
FOOD
- servings are very small
- Desserts: not portioned out per person. Some desserts, you have to cut in half to share. There was a vivid yellow dessert that was very artificial tasting, I couldn't discern whether it was suppose to be lemon or passionfruit, irregardless, it tasted like yellow Flintstone vitamins.
- Sandwiches: Egg Salad tasted no better/worse than what you get from a sandwich tray ordered for corporate catering; Cream cheese & cucumber, all 4ppl at our table had a bite, and no one finished more than that. It was tasteless, quite literally tasted like Philly cream cheese on Wonder bread. Curry chicken on brioche was divine! If I was given 4 piece of that as part of the sandwich tier, I would have given them one more star in my review! Alas, you only get one and it's the size of a toonie.
- Scones: each person gets two types, plain and cardamom. Both tasted the same. Rather good, but other than one looking speckled, like whole wheat, they tasted the same. For four scones (2ppl), you only get one small ramekin of clotted/english cream and two ramekins of jam. When I say small, I mean that it probably holds the same amount as one of those packages of jam you get with your toast at your local diner.
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