MO BAR | THE LANDMARK MANDARIN ORIENTAL HONG KONG

15 Queen's Road Central, The Landmark, Central, Hong Kong

Tel. 21320077

Breakfast | Mon to Fri. 7am - 10.30am.

Breakfast | Sat & Sun. 7am - 11.30am

Dining | Mon to Sun. 11am - 11pm

Drinks | Mon to Sun. 7am - 1.30am

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Perfect environment, perfect service. That is the most impressive what MO BAR gives to me during the afternoon tea time. It's not difficult to call in for a table reservation, and afternoon tea set is charged per head which is much more flexible than the idea of Hightea Set for 2. Enjoying the great space of lobby in width and height, MO BAR's 1st floor gives an open environment with a spacial and scattered placement of dining tables, along the window the people can also enjoy the typical busy-street of Hongkongers. 2nd floor is more private, with lower sofa, this area is more lounge setting, but also good for a relax afternoon talk. Downstairs, the bar area is designed in style with a large glass placed in the right angle to reflect those beautiful alcohol bottles. In the afternoon, all the bar area is decorated by the lovely sweets which is also included in the AFTERNOON TEA package. On the tea menu, you can feel free to choose Afternoon Tea or Sweet Tea; the only difference is the Hightea Set. Also you can order a glass of Champagne.

完美的環境和服務是 MO BAR 給我的第一印象。下午茶預訂並不緊張，價錢也以人數來計，比起兩人共享的下午茶套餐要自由得多。MO BAR 在置地文華底樓大堂，擁有超高的樓高優勢，就餐環境相當開闊舒適，餐桌的擺設分散且呈不規則型，坐在窗邊則能一邊慢享下午茶的悠閒時光一邊留戀中環街頭的匆忙。樓上以較暗色調的低位沙發座為主，樓高有限，給人以相當私密的感覺，這個空間很適合夜晚過來喝一杯，當然也很適合下午茶的私密聚會。下午茶時段，水吧區被滿滿的甜品裝飾，中間一大面鏡子以一定角度擺設，剛剛好將成列出來的酒瓶子反射出來，瞬間琉璃閃爍。下午茶餐分為兩種，均包含水吧區的甜品自助部份和咖啡或茶， 唯一的區別在於三層高架的Hightea Set，當然也可以另點多一倍香檳助興。

Savories and pastries of MO Bar are served per head; the 2^nd floor lounge has the separated pre-set shelves for the placement of savories and pastries. One level of pastries and the lower level is filled with savories. Each piece is tiny but decent in appearance, and you can find some Eastern element built in the presentation of those afternoon treatments, well, you can just say it’s “combination of Eastern and Western”, which is played well by Mandarin Oriental.

I don’t want to introduce all one by one, to be honest, I’m not 100% satisfied by all in their taste, standing at a luxury & high reputation hotel level (maybe it’s just my personal bias).

RAISIN AND PLAIN SCONES WITH CLOTTED CREAM & PRESERVES

It’s kind of Mandarin’s signature dish, scone, which is also the ‘can-not-skip’ item for an English Afternoon Tea. I love their little China pot filled with purely white clotted cream. Paste it on the plain scone, never let me down; it’s smooth and light in both taste and flavor, just moisture the slightly-dry scone, and add in a fresh flavor of milky cream fragrance. Normally, I prefer to have raisin scone without any cream or jam, while the also-for-sale orange and berry jam are the must-try items, even both taste too sweet. To talk about the scones, it’s not warm and not moisture enough in the center, but in general it keeps the good quality. I cannot be too tough 

SAVORIES

Quiche with moreis, spinach & parmesan reggiano | Alaskan king crab & vegetable roll | air-pita with hummus & Mexican prawn | Vietnamese banh mie with bbq pork & salami | Mexican spiced chicken wrap with iceberg lettuce & guacamoie

The bbq pork sandwich is one of the recommended savories. High quality and well-done bbq pork with fluffy and soft bread, for girls, two bites can finish it. Pork is very tender and chewy, slightly sweet and not too greasy. The second impressive item is a combination of crispy bun, scattered sesame and mashed fillings (air-pita with hummus & Mexican prawn), giving a natural seafood sweet while rich in its texture.

PASTRIES

Violette macaroon with lychee & blueberry | deconstructed “black forest” tart | coffee & cardamom éclair | tarte exotique | fraisier shot glass

“Black forest” is the 1^st recommended sweet by me, just coz of its rich presentation and interesting name. I guess most of people will like it. It uses the semi-ball size of thin chocolate layer as the ‘container’ for chocolate cream filling, chocolate ‘paper’, etc. By chewing it, I have an interesting but short tasting journey in chocolate kingdom, feeling that I were a child who is too excited to have full mouth of different chocolates. Éclair is quite not bad, crispy texture of puff under the coffee-flavor cover, simple and standard taste while yummy for sure. I have completed feeling towards “shot glass”. It’s good looking and I do like the taste of fresh strawberry with the light-taste pistachio mousse in the middle layer, but I don’t like the jelly at the bottom, to me, it’s too sour and sweet (you know some people will never think white chocolate is too sweet, while they do mark ‘fruit jam/jelly’ as a too-sweet item! That must be me :D).

For the dessert buffet part, first it’s all sweets; second, it’s not in a large scale; lastly, do not expect too high. My friends give high comments on all the Italian-style pudding (they have blueberry one and mango). I don’t recommend the lovely green little glass bottle which induces me by its fresh looking, while I find it’s just apple juice. What I like are chocolate lady finger biscuit, kind of play-play flavor, and chocolate tart (Mandarin’s signature chocolate item) which gives a really rich taste of dark chocolate. Chocolate-lover won’t give it away, while luckily, it has a mini size, otherwise it will full you teeth and stomach by just one piece coz of its super rich texture of chocolate mousse filling with a super thick and sticky texture. I’m quite disappointed about the colorful collection of macarons. They offer vanilla, coffee, salted caramel, pistachio, orange, strawberry, etc. The only recommend flavor is salted caramel; freshly crispy, fluffy and smooth; good presenting of salted caramel flavor and sweeten in a natural way; however others, especially the fruit-flavors, are just too sweet and give a slightly fake feeling.

JING TEA IN A POT

Lemongrass ginger

Paired with the dishes you definitely need a cup of tea or coffee, that afternoon, my choice is lemongrass with ginger hot tea, which balances my tongue by its fresh taste. It’s not strong lemongrass flavor nor ginger, just a kind of mixed fresh similar to mint & herb.

In summary, MO Bar’s afternoon tea set charges you $288+10% per head is not too unreasonable while it is not as good as what I expect. Personally, I won’t recommend having SWEET TEA ($200 per person) at MO Bar, coz it just includes tea and dessert buffet which doesn’t offer a rich selection with satisfied taste. However, in terms of Mandarin Oriental brand, I would like to recommend visiting CASSETTE at Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong directly, which provides you a much better hightea experience in a slightly higher but reasonable price, plus you can order from a la carte menu for those cannot-miss desserts!

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感謝 Menty Yu 提供以上資料

Menty Yu的網誌: http://mentyinhk.blogspot.hk/

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