High tea, Zumborons & Batman!

Today was my first experience of high tea! With me, I had my wonderful workmates A, D and J and it was the last time we could talk to J before she leaves for the USA for exchange this semester - how exciting! I am incredibly jealous because she gets to go to America. What a lucky ducky.

J confirmed our booking and we were lead inside to our table with comfy plush seats! I was instantly wowed by the decor in the Tea Room on the Northern side of QVB. The high ceilings, chandeliers and flora wallpaper created such a sophisticated atmosphere. We had all decided on traditional high tea ($39 per person during weekdays) with pots of Vanilla, Milma Gold and Green Dragon tea. D said she was going to be an hour late as she had to run a few errands for her mum and encouraged us to order first.

I love the classic floral chinaware! Our tea had arrived first and we all tried each other's orders. The Milma Gold was described to be spicily fruity but we all agreed that it lacked any aroma at all and didn't have any of these elements at all! We were quite disappointed that it tasted like the black teas you can buy in bags at the supermarket. The vanilla tea however, but wonderfully aromatic. The Green Dragon was also a favourite as it was a light and refreshing green tea.

Our high tea stand!

Scones, spinach & cheese pastries

The scones were served on a separate plate and arrived warm. We started with the spinach and cheese pastries which were really good with nice, flaky, buttery pastry! The absolute real winner here were the scones though. The outside was nice and crispy with a deliciously fluffy inside. Of course, we topped them with lots of cream and jam ;) Check out the monster scone in the background!

Egg, cucumber & beef sandwiches, savoury custard tarts

I don't know what it is, but there's just something decadent about eating sandwiches with the crusts cut off for you! I enjoyed all the sandwiches but the beef one had to be my favourite. Egg sandwiches are always good and it's pretty hard to mess one up haha. I couldn't particularly tell what the tarts were made of - they were creamy, yet slightly eggy at the same time. A bit hard to discern, but it tasted nice and was gone in a bite! The base goes soggy quite quickly so I would suggest eating these first.

Fruit tarts, opera cakes

I really enjoyed the opera cake! It tasted like a creamy tiramisu and was gone much too quickly. The fruit tart was also nice, the sweet fruit and cream giving way to a buttery shell.

Raspberry macarons, passionfruit melting moments, lemon meringue tarts, mini lemon cupcakes

A favourite on this stand would have to be the mini lemon cupcakes! The cake itself was really flavoursome and moist.

Service was a tad slow, but we had several refills in our pots throughout the afternoon without having to ask. The company however, made up for this and it ended up being a lovely afternoon which went by much too quickly. As we were leaving, we realised we had been sitting and chatting for 4 hours! Oh how time flies by when you are enjoying so many lovely sweets with delightful company ;)

I met up with the boy after I said my goodbyes to the girls and he had a late lunch/extremely early dinner at Pepper Lunch (happy hour from 2-6pm!) before we headed off to The Star. I had some macarons to buy!

I was very disappointed with service there. The girl that served me looked like she didn't want to be there and was blatantly very rude. My sister had wanted some popcorn macarons so I asked whether they had any as I saw some on the storage shelves next to the counter. She cut me off saying they had nothing except for what was in the counter. So I picked out from what was there and left.

From left to right: 2 salted butter caramel, custard crunch, malted milk, peach ice tea, mandarin & yogurt

The first one I tried had been the mandarin and yogurt one and it had gone extremely soggy. To the point that it had almost falled apart when I tried picking it up. And it didn't taste absolutely stunning either as all I could taste was tangerine and absolutely nothing from the yogurt - no tang whatsoever. So I would not recommend getting this one. I've gotten salted caramel and peach ice tea before, so they are always winners. The unexpected surprise was the custard crunch! It had a wonderful creaminess and a little piece of crunchy biscuit in the middle. The malted milk one was nice, but nothing spectacular.

Charlotte, $9.00

INNARDS!! From bottom up: coconut sable, soft coconut sponge, pineapple compote, pineapple cremeaux, toasted white chocolate & pepper mousse, toasted white chocolate

I enjoyed this cake and I could actually taste the pepper! At first, I was like hm what's the flavour that seems so familiar yet I can't place? And then I figured that it was pepper!! Don't worry, it's not like eating a spoonful of pepper, it only gives a slight kick. The cake was pretty yummy overall, though the V8 and coconut mille fuille still holds a higher place in my heart.

Number 2, salted caramel & white chocolate, $5.50 for 2 scoops

We also made a pit stop at Gelato Messina with their tempting gelato displays! It was raining and we did not want to venture outside into the wind and cold and decided to buy some gelato instead. At first I was like why is it called Number 2? But I decided to question it not after I tasted it. Peanut butter gelato, chocolate brownie bits and dulce de leche all in one scoop? I died in a little pool of deliciousness. It was so good. And salted caramel was good, but it couldn't hold a flame next to Mr Number 2. I must go back to eat more of you!

Even after we finished our gelato, it was still dismal outside. But we had to go out to catch our bus as we had a movie date with several other friends at Burwood to watch Batman: The Dark Knight Rises. The cinemas were pretty packed despite being quite a late session. I had my doubts about Anne Hathaway being Catwoman but she was actually really good! I really enjoyed the movie, it was incredibly epic. I shall not write about any more in fear of spoiling it for everyone else!

Happy Tuesday everyone!

xx