Mumu and I went for our second afternoon tea in Tokyo recently! The first afternoon tea [post here] was my treat to celebrate her birthday, and this time, it was her treat to celebrate my birthday, heh.
I realize I cannot ask her to plan surprise events. She will hold out up till 90%, then cannot take it and spill the beans lol.
She was secretive about where we were going at the start, but on our way there, she couldn’t take the suspense and revealed it’s Odaiba.
Another example: On the train, she said there’s something not so good about the afternoon tea. She refused to say what when I asked, and said I’ll find out for myself later. Then while queuing to enter the restaurant, she couldn’t take it and told me -_- What happened to me finding out for myself???
Anyway, lots of pictures up ahead again! Enjoy!
Even though the cherry blossoms have long scattered with the wind, the Sakura Afternoon Tea set was still available, so that was what we had!
We had to choose our teas, and it was also the “demerit” of the afternoon tea (that Mumu couldn’t keep silent about).
We could only have two kinds of tea, and one was fixed (Strawberry Herb Tea):
This effectively means we could only choose one kind of tea. There was unlimited refills for the chosen tea though.
Mumu chose Royal Milk Tea while I chose the Original Blend Tea, which is a blend of Darjeeling and Assam leaves. I had a sip of her milk tea and it was nice, but too hot, so I said I’ll drink more when it cools. The next time I looked, her cup was empty -_- Fine, we asked for a refill.
I waited for it to cool again, then the next thing I knew, it was empty again! Zomg.
Can you believe that I never got that second sip despite the multiple refills she had? She keeps forgetting and drinking up everything!!!
Mumu reserved seats for outside, but unfortunately, it started drizzling the moment we arrived, so we had to sit inside :(
We had adjacent seats with a view of the bay and Rainbow Bridge, so while it was not as comfortable talking, the upside is that we both had equally nice views!
We tried to take a photo together but with the sun behind us, we turned out to be silhouettes instead -_-
We started on the lower box first…
I enjoyed this! The matcha flavor was rich enough, and the cake was moist and with sweet white bean paste to mix up the texture and flavors
This was quite disappointing because they didn’t even serve any preserves apart from the clotted cream! As usual, I found the scone very dry, hard and cold, but I’m starting to think that the warm, moist Holy Grail scone I had in London was the exception rather than the norm…
At this point, the waiter walked over and lowered a plate with an unknown white lump (my brain processes everything so quickly it summarizes things for efficiency, ok?) towards us.
I was about tell him he got the wrong table when I caught a glimpse of Mumu’s smiling face. I looked at the plate again and finally saw it for what it was.
It’s my…
It’s also one my favorite cakes – Strawberry shortcake!
THANK YOU MUMU!!!
After finishing the cake (I ate almost all of it by myself omg), we started on the sweet tier next!
Mumu found this too sweet (the cake, the cream and white bean paste are all sweet), but it suits my sweet tooth just fine, heh.
This was really good! It’s not a typical mont blanc cake, and has many layers, making it a joy for the tastebuds to discover the various flavors and textures
Traditional 和菓子 (Japanese dessert) with a glutinous rice flour skin and sweet bean paste. The sakura flower is so pretty! (but pretty much tasteless)
There’s a layer of jelly on top of the panna cotta and bits of strawberry in it. This tasted really weird and we both didn’t like it >_<
I was running out of time by this point and was eating as quickly as I could, and can only remember that the skin was super sticky!
Not sure if it’s a design thing, because both Mumu’s and mine were tipping over on the side. But I liked the rich and full matcha flavor in this one!
And that’s our afternoon tea ^^
Thank you for planning everything, Mumu!
I ♥ our us-only afternoon tea time together!
——
SERVICE
Wait staff was the usual standard of good Japanese service.
Mumu also told me when she called and she was trying to arrange the birthday cake surprise, they were very patient as she tried to explain how to spell my name lol.
AMBIENCE/VIEW
Odaiba is a really lovely place (one of my favorite!) and it’s a pity we couldn’t be outdoors! But at least we got a nice view still!
PRESENTATION
Generally simple with no elaborate details, so they didn’t score very high marks on this.
TASTE
I would say their sweet tier tastes much better than the savory tier, which is average at best. The savory items most definitely could be improved. I’m still in denial that they gave scones so little thought. Scones are the epitome of afternoon tea to me, so what’s with just one crummy scone with no preserves?!
PRICE
The Sakura Afternoon Tea set came up to 3,100 yen per person (before tax and service charge).
FINAL THOUGHTS
This afternoon tea was quite enjoyable, but would have been much better if there wasn’t the 2-hr time limit.
Like the afternoon tea before, towards the end, I was just cramming food into my mouth like I hadn’t eaten in a week. WHY ALWAYS LIKE THAT?!
And I don’t know if it’s worse, but we stayed on for an additional hour, and we weren’t kicked out. Gah, if you weren’t going to kick me out, why did you set a time limit?! I could have properly enjoyed my food otherwise -_- Our guess is they didn’t get enough customers for the next round, because they didn’t boot the couple beside us either.
I don’t know if it’s because my expectations are so damn high, that I’m so hard to please (are they they same thing?), or that the hotels are simply not up to standard, but so far, I’ve never been blown away by any afternoon teas here.
Sure, I enjoy them (possibly more because of the company) but I’ve never felt “OMG. This is SO AWESOME!” or “I think I just died and went to afternoon tea heaven”, y’know?
Still, I will continue the search!
HOTEL NIKKO TOKYO
(will join Hilton in Oct 2015)
Website (English)
so weird, think my comment got eaten up by the internet. Anyway I was saying that we have to go for high tea when you come back to Singapore (or I go to Japan, whichever comes first)! M and I had really good tea and scones (plus other food) at the Regent. And English Rose cafe at Holland V also has good scones, but the rest of their tea set is a bit meh… And/or we can also try other places! heheh I love high tea!
YES LET’S!!!
Ah darn. Why didn’t we go to Regent when I was back in Dec?
Good scones! I don’t know if that’s possible for me to ever taste those again. London has destroyed my scone life >__< Are the ones at HV warm? So far all those I've eaten here are cold and hard -_-
YES they’re warmed when you order!! MMm. I dunno, I think I didn’t remember that you love scones/tea! Never mind, I’ll def remember now!
That’s a lot of sweets in one afternoon. I’m not sure if I would be able to cope.
Anyway I will be in this hotel for one week (work period) and you are welcome to come and stay here with me for few days (if you get tired of Fu!)
Haha I’m opposite of you mah. For me it’s forever sweet > savory!!! Does the offer come with afternoon tea? Haha