I finally got to go out to high tea. It has been a long time and I was so excited to go, shame the excitement didn’t last.
I went out with a couple of friends that I’ve gone to high tea with many times before. We decided that our first high tea in over two years would be at the Park Hyatt. Part of the reason for that is because we have been there quite a few times before. We have always enjoyed it, so it seemed a no-brainer to go back there.
When you go to places for high tea what you get is always changing and there can be disappointments when you were hoping to get something that is no longer available.
One of the biggest problems with everywhere I go is the fact that I am a vegetarian. If you want to know how much a chef is lacking in vision tell them you are a vegetarian. Here it seems every vegetarian must like pumpkin, eggplant, or mushrooms. Plus they were all roasted. They lack imagination and always go for the easy options for the token vegetarian meal. If you eat meat you get lots of options and choices, but not for me.
Starting the high tea with some sparkling wine. This one is unlimited sparkling wine, but with all of us driving afterward only one glass was needed.
One of the things they do with a high tea is sandwiches. So one was pumpkin, and another was eggplant. So half the sandwiches were horrible. I was dreaming of egg sandwiches which I have had there before, but they didn’t appear on my plate. They did appear on my friends. Apparently, they didn’t think that egg sandwiches were for vegetarians. I was so bummed and my excitement was waning fast.
You can’t tell from the image, but they obviously make the sandwiches very early on so when you get it the bread has a dry crusty feeling. It is disappointing because you want really fresh bread.
There were two scones. A plain one and a fruit one. I don’t like the fruit ones, but they did give me two plain ones. They were a bit squat and looked more like rock cakes than scones, but eating them wasn’t too bad and they tasted okay. Though having said that I am used to going to places and getting lovely big fluffy scones.
One thing I always find so frustrating is that strawberry jam is often the only one made available for scones. I really don’t like strawberry jam, I find it too sweet. This time I remembered to take my own. I filled a small jar with my raspberry jam and was very happy that I did. The cream was fantastic. No idea what they did, but it was really good.
They did have some marmalade and rhubarb jam plus the strawberry, but I stuck with my jam.
There is always a warm element and I wish I knew what it was, but I didn’t catch the name when they said what it was.
It was nice, but not memorable.
The cakes were not really what I expected and I can’t say that any of them will go down as fantastic.
I love cake, I mean I love love love cake. A couple of them, the profiterole and the little one with the chocolate mouse on top were very sickly sweet. I couldn’t finish the latter one. Even the first one was hard. The other two were nice, but very much a powerful chocolate flavour. I am not a massive fan of chocolate. I mean I like it, but more as an accompaniment rather than the dominant flavour.
I have had much better cakes elsewhere.
I finished it off with a coffee.
The coffee was nice and I enjoyed it.
Overall the high tea was very disappointing. I asked my friends to rate it and we all thought 5 or 6 out of 10.
It wasn’t all bad and it was nice to get out somewhere with friends. It was good catching up with them outside of our homes.
I suspect we now need to start going to high teas all over Melbourne. The hunt will be on to find the best place to have high tea here.
Do you like having high tea? What do you look forward to?
Nice
Thank you.
Great piece,
Thank you.
My pleasure
😊😊
Never had the pleasure of high tea. That is not something I every came across. But it does sound interesting. The offerings, maybe not up to par in taste, do look amazing in the photos. I was especially intrigued by the gold leaf. Is that really gold leaf?
It is interesting Ludwig, a bit posh really. Thank you, I took the photos with my phone, so it is good to hear you liked them. Yeah, I think it really is gold leaf. Apparently, you can eat it. Who knew?
Sorry you High Tea was disappointing. When I was a child my grandmother would do High Tea which meant ham and tinned peaches as well as cake.
Yeah, it was that, but oh well. That sounds lovely too, not sure about the ham though, haha. Thanks for sharing that RJ.
The Windsor did an excellent HT back in the day. It’s been a few years so don’t know if it is still good.
I really want to go there for high tea and know I will get there soon. I’m sure it is still very good. Thanks.
What a marvellous treat. High Tea is always a special event.
It was a great thing, love high tea. Thank you Carol.
That does sound disappointing
It was, sadly, oh well, means we have to try some other places. Thanks Bushboy
Sorry that your “high tea” wasn’t very “high” 😂😂😂!
Good way to put it Svetlana, and so very true.
What fun! I don’t like really sweet jam either, I’d probably go for the marmalade.
It was fun Dorothy, and yeah sweet jam, no thank you.
It’s funny, even though I don’t eat it, I love to make it! A ritual, since I pick the berries with the grandkids.
There is something about making things yourself. I’ve been having a ball growing things and then doing something else with them.
And giving them away too!
I give away too many and then don’t have enough for us, but I was determined that I wouldn’t give as much away this time.
It’s been a few years since my last proper high tea. I miss those little sandwiches.
Sounds like it is time to go again Khürt, lol. Those sandwiches can be very good. Thank you.
I’m sorry that your trip out with the ladies wasn’t a good experience after two years, bummer! Honestly, I don’t know what High Tea is. Lunch with tea? Dumb Americans, right? 😂
It was still good to catch up, but yeah, shame the food wasn’t up to scratch. High tea is a lot of food, haha, you start with sandwiches, then scones with jam and cream, followed by cakes. There can be a hot element at the start like a small quiche or sausage roll. Of course lots of tea to drink, or sparkling wine. I hope that helps John. Thanks