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| - I'm glad they removed the mandatory 18% gratuity cost that everyone complains about in the reviews below. When the boyfriend and I decided to go, we took the recommendation of a few reviews that said it was a lot of food - plus, spending $100 for two people on tea just seemed ridiculous - so we did one tea set for 2 people. We both disagreed with this however, and feel like it is NOT a lot of food and it would have been fine for each of us to get our own tea order.
I appreciate the fact that they did the vegetarian version no problem. I noticed other people had different desserts than us...though, I can't imagine the desserts weren't vegetarian, so I was confused on why we were the only ones with the dessert that we got. I'm thinking it's randomized on who gets what but not sure. We had a health tea I can't remember but it was lavender and chamomile. It was very very good! They had a slimey olive thing on a plastic spoon and were calling those the vegetarian "sandwiches" - what?
We paid $48 for the tea with tax and tipped appropriately. No problem with the actual servers like some of the other reviewers mentioned. But I can't get over the price point on this one, especially when it IS in the lobby and just doesn't seem as fancy as high tea should be. Just my opinion. For what you pay I do NOT think it's worth it, but I read lots of reviews on here where people said it was. I took stars off for location of where they decided to put this tea, lack of value for your money, and less fancy than I thought it would be (we were only ones dressed up). We asked for a window seat but did not get one. We didn't want to go to the window to take a look because there's other people sitting right in front so I felt it would be rude to stand in front of them. I felt like I couldn't get the best experience because of this. One thing that just pisses me off and definitely deserves a star off is the fact there's no self parking at Mandarin Oriental. You have to valet for $20 (plus tip obv) and you only get your parking validated if you spend $100. We parked at Aria/ Crystal Shops for $12 and walked. Still a hassle, and for what you pay here you shouldn't have to go through all this trouble to get to the place and be forced to valet! Now, we did have a good time, but just not sure if I would come here again.
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