| rev:text
| - Review for afternoon tea at the Lobby Lounge
Would have love to give this place five stars, but service was below expectations and food servings was unusual for afternoon tea which makes for the okay rating.
Upon entrance into the hotel lobby, it was a wow factor with the high ceilings, grand piano, modern fireplace at the centre, lovely orchids at the tables and the jade planters near the back entrance. Everything looked simple, but elegant decor, plus pretty sophisticated servers dressed in lovely Asian inspired theme dresses. Their dresses reminded me of those blue and white china plates from the Ming Dynasty.
Seating was casual with sofas and chairs, but fact they wanted 4 ladies seated on the sofa was ridiculous. Sure we can fit or perhaps have the child in our group sit at the sofa, but it won't make for a comfortable tea experience when we have to watch our elbows every time we reached for our teas, so requested an extra chair. We were a party of six.
Tea was served in large teapots and presses and they had proper strainer for individual servings. Choice of various tea selections from the booklet for everyone's palate and teas were available both hot or cold.
Afternoon tea menu listed on a menu card placed on the table and selection was variety of finger sandwiches, scones and pastries. All the sandwiches were fresh tasting and quite delicious as the flavours of all the ingredients were prominent and blended well together. Pastries were also tasty, but some of the desserts were just too sweet. I have a sweet tooth and even I thought it was too sweet, so I didn't manage to finish my desserts.
One complaint was the servings for the pastries as we've been to numerous establishments for afternoon/high tea and were always served one pastry per person on the same tiered platter. We were expecting everyone to enjoy what was written on the menu card. When we brought this to the server's attention, she informed us that some desserts were meant to be shared as that's the afternoon tea experience to share. We were baffled at the explanation as we've never heard of this or experienced a shortage of food. Three of one dessert, two each of two desserts and only one dessert of another to share among three people, just doesn't sound appropriate and fair when everyone is paying the same price.
Since I was a little late, server forgot my order on the tiered platter even though my friends told them number of people and I arrived just shortly before my friends had their teas served, so I wasn't too late. Server simply forgot, but was apologetic and my tier came shortly after. I managed to have one of each desserts for myself, so lucky for me, but it didn't seem fair that my friends had to share.
They do get bonus points for making everything in-house, plus having options for gluten-free and a kids menu which we had both of in our party. They were both served their individual tiered platters.
I had to ask for water upon my arrival and we also had to ask for a hot water refill which was only replenished once which we weren't used to as normally the hot water would be refilled without us asking for it. Plus fact our server had disappeared after we brought the missing desserts to her attention seemed bizarre. Our empty dishes only got cleared once by another server. Perhaps we were used to places that cleared plates off the table as we finished each tiers.
Worse part we were told at time of phone call reservation reminder that we had an hour and half seating limit, but lucky we weren't rushed out and ended up staying an hour after our supposedly seating limit. We still had some food on our tiered platter including empty plates, no water refill either cold or hot. The lounge was busy, but we felt ignored and no service available when needed. We even had to flag another server when we were ready to pay our bill as our server was nowhere in sight and didn't inform us that another server was serving us because we didn't have anyone.
It was nice going to the Shangri-La for the afternoon tea experience, but we probably won't be back because of the lack of customer service experience.
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