The Continental x Annick Goutal - L'ile Au Thé Afternoon Tea

Price: $$

Cravingness: ★★★☆☆1/2

Here it comes the month most filled with love, February. The month with Valentine's Day which all couples are so very looking forward to. Restaurants are filled with all kinds of Valentine's special and here I am going to introduce a refreshing Spring afternoon tea set launched by The Continental and Annick Goutal. The afternoon tea is to promote the new fragrance L'ile Au Thé with a lovely and smoothing tea launching in Joyce Beauty in April 2015, so many items are infused with tea elements. The afternoon tea is available from Feb 7th to 25th.

It is very exciting to dine at the recently opened The Continental as I have never been. The European styled interior features dark parquet flooring with caramel wood table contrast with forest green padded stool. The table lamps are classy lamps cream yellow light and the head lamps are crazily cool with looks like Saturn. The wooden mural and the ceiling both shaped like waves, creating an ambience of chilling breeze. The outdoor terrace is even better providing a nice cityscape view of Admiralty.

The Annick Goutal L'ile Au Thé fragrance cis a unisex fragrance inspired by the volcanic island of Jeju, South korea, carrying notes of mandarin, citrus, osmanthus, tea and white musk. The ribbed flacon is for Women and the squared one is for Men. Both sizes comes in 50ml and 100ml. A lovely scented candle is also available to purchase.

The afternoon tea set at the Continental tries to incorporate the scent of L'ile Au Thé by adding elements of mandarin, citrus and green tea into the pastries and cakes. The three-tier high tea set features scones in plain and raisins, mandarin polenta cake, green tea roulade, lobster roll and many more kinds of sweet and savoury items.

As usual, I went for the sconces first. Both Plain and Raisin Scones are available in this tea set. The scones were marvellous. It was crumbly, dense and buttery. It tasted a bit dry on the first bite but turned creamy quickly on your palate which was lovely. The clotted cream and raspberry jam were very nice to match with the Green Tea special for this tea set.

I also tried the Almond Tuile on the first tier, which I originally thought it was potato crisps or something. The Almond Tuile was utterly chewy and almondly. I had a hard time getting the Tuile off my teeth, but it's tasty and worth the work.

The third tier placed several savoury items., but the spot light naturally went to The Lobster and Prawn Brioche Roll. This was a lovely lobster roll with sweet lobster and prawn meat on a soft brioche. The meat was however chopped up too finely, it would taste better in larger chunk in my opinion.

The Smoked Salmon Roulade on Pumpernickel tasted nice too! Smokey salmon with sweet caviar on a grainy pumpernickel. I thought I would never like pumpernickel, but The Continental's version is nice, and tasted much better than some cafe named after the bread.

Two finger sandwiches are available on the tea set, the Coronation Chicken and the Duck Egg Mayonnaise. The Coronation Chicken was okay but raisin was absent in there.

The Fruit Tart was a surprise as many restaurants screw on this. This chocolate based was lovely, the creme was smooth and the fruits were fresh! Apricot Cheesecake with Confit Apricot was one of my favourite on this tea set. The cheesecake was smooth with bold cheese flavour. The apricot sauce on top paired nicely with the cheesecake, and the topped confit apricot was yum. Mandarin, Almond and Polenta Cake was lovely with ample mandarin flavour! It's really interesting that they use polenta to make this, I have never tried before. Also an excellent job on the Caramel Eclairs! Got the texture right and absolutely love the caramelised glazed!

The Chocolate and Caramel Truffles was very sweet, great for sweet tooth. Also got a bit disappointed that the filling is hard but semi-soft. The Raspberry macarons were a bit disappointing. The shell was crisp but hollow without. The flavour was good though. The Green Tea and White Chocolate Roulade was alright but can be made better! The chocolate cream was silky but the green tea flavour wasn't strong enough. They should infuse some green tea in it.

Rating
Food - ★★★☆☆
Service - ★★★★☆
Ambience - ★★★★★
Overall - ★★★☆☆1/2

The Continental

Address (E) Shop No. 6, 4/F, Pacific Place, 88 Queensway, Admiralty, Hong Kong
Address (C) 香港金鐘金鐘道88號太古廣場4樓6號舖
☏ 2704 5211
Opening Hours: Mon - Sun: 7am - 10:30pm
Reservation Available? Yes
Walk In Possible? Yes
Bill Per Person (Dinner inc. Beverages) - $$ ($150 - $300)

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