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
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.
Violette
macaroon with lychee & blueberry | deconstructed “black forest”
tart | coffee & cardamom éclair | tarte exotique | fraisier shot
glass
“Black
forest” is the 1st 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.
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!
MO Bar
Italian Tomato Café (馬鞍山店)
小皇府 (MOKO新世紀廣場)
The Drawing Room
大堂茶座
九龍香格里拉 Lobby Lounge
The Lounge (香港JW萬豪酒店)
G-fit