The Lounge  

Had an out-of-town visitor and came to the Lounge in search of afternoon tea. We made reservations a few hours before and were seated right away.

We ordered the duetto- which is at $480 for two people. It was more food than the both of us could possibly finish.
They had the best scones I've ever had -- crispy on the outside, moist and rich inside, with really generous portions of raspberry or maybe it was black currant jam and sweet cream. The savory tea sandwiches (salmon, ham, cucumbers) were blah, but the rest (mini quiche, cakes) was delicious.

Everything was quite pleasant except for one thing -- afternoon tea here is also mommy day care. There were big groups of women and families with their small children and infants and strollers packed into the lounge. We were pretty much surrounded by tables full of crying, screaming and shrieking infants. The swarm of kids pretty much overpowered the pianist and we could barely hear each other with so many wailing children. I could see the late business lunchers scurry out as soon as possible.

We luckily were re-seated after my companion requested a different table. Thankfully, although the place was quite busy, the staff did their best to re-seat us.

Excellent, fine tea, pricey, but the ambiance might drive you nuts if you're not into sitting in a Bermuda Triangle of screaming infants and strollers.

The Four Seasons High Tea, is one of the more renowned high teas in Hong Kong and their scones are highly praised by everyone that has eaten them. Held at the The Lounge, it is quite a small area, but brightly lit by the sunlight streaming in from the windowed wall on the right hand side. The tea starts at 3pm, but you are advised to be there at 2.30pm to put your name down in order to guarantee an early seating.

The high tea set can be chosen as a single or duetto portion size and includes a choice of tea and coffee. We were a party of three so decided to order the duetto set to share between us. I picked the earl grey, while my friends had the darjeeling and black coffee.

Our drinks arrived first. And I must say I was very impressed with their Earl Grey. Having sampled the Earl Grey from London's own Fortnum and Mason, I really haven't found any other quality Earl Grey tea in Hong Kong. I am told that Four Seasons blend their own tea leaves, and I must say they did this very well. The rich and fragrant citrus flavour of the tea was evident and nearly as good as the one from F&M.

Our tea set soon arrived on a 3 tiered stand. The top layer consisted of sweets, the middle held the scones and the bottom layer held the savouries. As usual, I had my scones first, opting for the raisin one over the plain. They were warm, fresh from the oven and emanating a tantalising buttery smell. The crust of the scone is baked harder than others I have tried so it offered a contrasting crunchy texture with its soft insides. The choice of jams were strawberry and fig and also a dense scoop of clotted cream for those wanting a more sinful indulgence.The savouries consisted of a mix of items. Tiny squares of sandwiches with a choice of smoked salmon and cream cheese, ham and cucumber. There were also salmon napoleons, egg salad on choux pastry, chicken salad in a miniature crusty roll and prosciutto on rye bread. Everything was fresh and us girls loved the fact that the items were all bite-sized enhancing the cute factor.By the time we approached the dessert plate, I was already quite full so was only able to try two of the sweets. One was the blackberry macaron and the dessert cup. I found the blackberry macaron to be very sweet, and I was not fond of the jam filling. I much preferred the red velvet macaron they offered previously. The dessert cup was quite good, from what I remembered it was blueberry compote on the bottom, a dense cakey middle layer and topped with yoghurt vailla cream. The other two sweets was a sour cherry foam on a shortbread biscuit and dipped in dark chocolate, while the other looked like a slice of hard boiled egg which unfortunately none of us tried.As an additional dessert, they served all guests with a salted caramel ice-cream pop. I didn't like this as the ice-cream had a slight sour taste, and the texture was too icy.

All in all we had a good time, and 3 of us sharing the duetto tea set was just right. The scones are highly recommended as well as their Earl Grey tea. Their hot chocolate is supposed to be quite good too, so I will be back to try that next time

Like many girls, I love HIGH TEAS. I love cakes. I love chilling.
So this day I decided to try out Four Seasons.

Didn't really have to wait. Maybe it's because its a weekday?! PLUS, i got a window seat NICE! its the first time in Hong Kong that i've tried good scones! The scones were crunchy on the outside and soft in the inside.
However, the macaroon was a bit too sweet and by the time my friend and I made it to the top level, the chocolate coated strawberry mousse had already melted.

In general, was worth a try! Two person's high tea set: 450HKD +10% SC. So 250HKD each.

It was 1645. Full of diners inside the Lobby Lounge. Finally we got a table at nearly 1730. It didn't matter as the most important was the food quality. We finally got a table when many people had finished their tea =]

When I sat down, I found that my chair was quite high (i'm 1.7m tall). A waiter discovered me that I was 'eye-catching' so he changed another chiar for me. I suddenly found that I became shorter! Good service.

We ordered High Tea Set for Two ($410) only as it was nearly dinner time. For the drinks, I was curious about the Black Tea called the Chocolat Is it added chocolate? It would then be weird. Have a try then. Another one was the white tea called the Silver Leaf. My chocolat. tea came minutes later. Normal tea colour but not as black as other black tea. When I put it near my nose, I could smell the chocolate aroma!! According to the waiter, no chocolate was added. It was just simply tea. Its special aroma came from the leaf itself. It was so aromatic that I dared not to drink. It was because I knew it would taste like tea and would be disappointing. Yeah, it just tasted like tea definitely as it was actually tea. (I had to come back to reality!! XDD)

For the Silver Leaf, as it was a white tea, it was as tasteless as a cup of water. Nothing special. The High Tea Set came when I had nearly finished my half pot of 'chocolate'. This stopped me from drinking it. For the 1st decker, there was strawberry macarons, mini cheesecake topped with mousse & raspberry, pineapple custard puff and yogurt with jelly on top.

Strawberry macaron: I've tried macarons in the Blue Bar. This macaron was perfectly crunchy outside as expected. Moist. Not too sweet and not too chewy. I had both of the 2 macarons. However, I enjoy having the macarons with ganche inside more, like JPH, since it adds another texture and surprise.

Mini cheesecake topped with mousse & raspberry: Quite rich cheese flavour, but it was not as creamy or cheesy as Mandarin Oriental's. Together with the biscuit-like base, it was like baked NY cheesecake. The mousse was so light (or small) that i could taste nothing.

Pineapple custard puff and the yogurt with jelly on top: The 2 desserts that the older one didin't like. They were shockingly sour, a bit sour though. As a sour lover, I am okay with that. I admired with the chef's creativity. The sour taste just decreased my fullness. The yogurt did the same thing. However, I couldn't taste what was the flavour of the jelly and the sauce in the bottom. For the 2nd decker, it was the Raisin and Plain Scone with clotted cream, raspberry jam and apricot jam. I tried the raisin scone. It was okay. Not crumbly. Yet, Four Seasons' was not as light and fluffy as the one in Mandarin Oriental's. Yeah, this one was a bit too dense and missed the aroma. Fortunately, the clotted cream and the jam could hide its weakness. The famous rose pedal jam in MO was better, though. For the 3rd decker, there were mainly sandwiches, mini quiche and a mini cheese cornflakes wrap. This deck didn't make me excited. Instead, I felt a bit disppointed when I considered the price of the set.

Mini quiche: Ive tasted the cheese quiche tart in Blue Bar. It was amazingly delicious. Yet, this one was worse than that. Perhaps it was so small. And, its tart was a bit moist. I didn't know why. I could only praise it for its lovely size. It should be quite difficult to make this.

Cheese cornflakes wrap: I love cheese, especially those with strong flavour, like blue cheese. However, I think the cheese flavour was too outstanding here, so I didn't know what was inside the wrap. Besides, it was unfortunately the last one that we ate. It was not crispy anymore.

In fact, the high tea set was up to standard. It would usually become harsh when describing the food in a detailed way.

Although a waiter kindly helped me to change my chair, the service was only okay, especially in this hotel. Unlike the Blue Bar next to the Lobby Lounge, the waiters here were not that active. They didn't actively pour water for me.

It was 1815. Some diners started dinner already. We had to go. And one thing I must remember: the 'Chocolate' tea!

1. four season blend came with obvious vanilla
2. best tea ever had
3. much polite staff but still loved to express their true feeling immediately, not caring about any customers would hear them
4. gooseberry jam was much better than rose jam in mandarin oriental and le salon, but mix berry jam was awful
5. eat your plain scone first, with spread, then raisin scone, alone, this will be my recommended style to enjoy this tea set
6. bring your sandwiches home because slightly frying them will add a lot of value to them, especially the ham one
7. macaroon was way to wet and sweet
8. don't be to late to choose your extra small desserts, i lost them because of eating too slowly9. never order a la carte desserts, the high tea set tasted much better, like the so called fruit tart had actually no tart at all, being just whole large boring almond cake

Went there on wed at 8: 30 am , it was so busy , so we need to wait for 10 mins to get a table.

Ordered a Benedict and a Lychee green tea.
Is a perfect Benedict, clean cut on the egg white, with runny yolk no any solid part. U have to add salt yourself otherwise is tasteless.

Friend ordered a traditional breakfast - poached egg cooked perfectly , sausage was tasty . muffin bread is freshly baked.

Special Easter Afternoon Tea at the Four Seasons – Central
http://effli.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/special-easter-afternoon-tea-at-the-four-seasons-central/
(go to my blog for pictures)

We waited one hour for afternoon tea. But it was entirely worth it; today Four Seasons had a special Easter Afternoon tea, and it was cute as well as delicious. Along with the normal tray platter of savories, small cakes, and scones, there was an easter themed buffet of various sweets. There were macarons with rabbit ears, little chicken cakes, cookies decorated with fancy egg drawings, and much more (this doesn’t even cover the tray portion of our meal)!

This was my favorite dessert from the table: a larger-than-normal apple macaron with grass-cream and bunny ears. It wasn’t too sweet, a fault of many macarons, and had just the right tartness to it.

Bunny Apple Macarons
Another specialty of today’s easter afternoon tea, the little chicken “cakes”. It only had a thin layer of fondant and was filled with a thick lemon paste-like substance. Quite good, but not as good as the macarons.

Chicken Cakes
The carrot cupcakes were certainly pretty, but the muffin part of it was dry, and the frosting average. It certainly couldn’t compare to the carrot cupcake with cream cheese frosting from Sift.

Carrot Cupcake
Tiramisu (with white chocolate egg on top), looked great in my pictures. The tiramisu itself was pretty normal, and I didn’t get around to eating the egg on it but it was pretty, so I took a glass.

Tiramisu with White Chocolate Egg
One more specialty from the table: a creamy, thick hot chocolate, and fluffy, soft, rabbit shaped marshmallows to go with it. I love thick hot chocolates and this cup of hot chocolate was perfect. The rabbit marshmallow that goes with it is like soft powder!

Rabbit Marshmallow on Thick Hot Chocolate
There were also a tray of little goodies on the dessert table, but I won’t go into them all. There was a very good “popsicle” of room temperature chocolate that had crunchy bits that tasted good as well.

And now for the tea tray: three levels, as is common, with savories, scones, and sweets. After the sweets from the buffet, we could hardly munch on the sweets. There was youghurt (in the cup), a macaron (which I have yet to try, we have brought the leftovers from the tray home), a cream puff and a cake. Frankly these didn’t taste as good as the stuff on the buffet, but were cute and of quality.

Dessert Plate
Then there were the scones, half of which we packed home as well. The scones here are huge and very filling, which I’m not sure is quite a good thing. They gave us two per person, but each of us only managed to eat one, especially with the other goodies around us. They were warm and had the right texture though.

Scones
We all particularly enjoyed the savory platter. The sandwiches were all normal, but the egg salad topped with a few pieces of caviar tasted superb. Also, I really enjoyed the roll, which was a crepe-like pastry wrapping parma ham. There was also a salmon puff that was quite tasty.

Savory Platter
All in all this was a wonderful afternoon tea (as you may already know, I love afternoon teas in general anyway, but this was special), and the Easter treats were, well, special. Having this afternoon tea was a one-time experience that I savored; waiting for an hour, not eating lunch, was all worth this visit to The Lounge, Four Seasons.

Date: Late April 2011

Heard that the place will be full easily during tea time, My mother and I went there at 2:30 and were offered a seat near the kitchen.We requested the seat near the window and the waiter kindly offered them to us after the ppl left.
We were told that we can order at 3, and the waiter kindly explains their winter special teas and the tea set.

TEA SET FOR ONE:
This is enough for two persons, if you order the tea set for two, then you'd probably couldnt finsh it.Tuna Burger: I saw other ppl on openrice had foie grass burger before! But we got the tuna one today. The burger itself is nice and the tuna is just typical tuna sandwich taste.

Fish Fillet Parma Ham roll: The combination is cute, but nothing special

Cucumber, Salmon and Ham sandwich: Nothing special

Lobster Cake: The lobster is just average with tomato sauce. the cake underneath is like a chinese cake but without any taste. Worst of all.

Egg mayonnaise burger: This is the best of all because I love egg mayonnaise Actually its nothing special either.Raisin Scone: The scone isnt too dry but is only average. Nothing worth remebered. The clotted cream is good though. It is a great match with the strawberry jam on the scone.

Plain Scone: Same taste with the raisin scone, only without raisinsApple Mousse: Really very average. A but disappointed
The one on the left: I thought it would be the best of all but I was wrong... it's the worst! Just a piece of dry cake which taste like tiramisu
Raspberry Cheese Cake: This is wonderful! I'm not a cheese fan but the whole piece of cheese is really yummy when ate with the digestive biscuit layer at the bottom! The cheese had just a tiny hint to cheese flavour but really smooth! Really Good!!
The orange and green cake: Average agin. Dont even remember its taste.Affogato al caffe with hazelnut and lemon meringue: Highly disappointed. It didnt even mentioned that there will be a scoop of vanilla ice cream. And i taste nothing like hazelnut, lemon and coffee. Its just a vanilla ice cream on top of a brownie. Oh, and coffee beans as decoration at the bottom.Bad

Tea:
Ginger Peach tea: Very tiny hint of ginger flavour but a stronger taste of Peach. Typical Tea Bag flavour
Ginger Honey (Winter Special) Add $20 to change it in the tea Set: $70 if not from tea Set: This is really a good winter beverage. The ginger taste is pretty strong. A small bowl of manuka honey is with it. I think it is already good enough without the honey

Date Dined: Weds 12th Jan 2010 2,30pm

Ordered: Tea Set for twoTaste: The tea set consist of 3 layers. Top layer is cakes, second layer is scones and bottom are savoury.Bottom: We started off from the bottom. There are bite size sandwiches, salmon sandwich, cucumber sandwich and ham sandwiches. They were awfully small, about 1.5 cm each. Nothing exciting about the sandwiches, very buttery so anything with that much butter can not be that bad. There was only one egg mayo pastry which my friend said it was very nice. and indeed it looked very looked. There were foie gras burger split in half. Half each. I think that was my best out of the whole tea set. But too bad it was so little. Finished it within one bite.Middle: The middle layer is ONLY Scones. The scones were biggest out of them all. 4 piece of scones. They were still warm when we digged in. Cream Butter and two other jams came seperately on a playe. Generous amount they gave you. I put Butter Creama nd strawbery jam on mine, and they tasted really good. Not too sweet. The scones were lovely. They were buttery and not too hard. I love how they gave you two different types of scones to taste. one was raisin and the other was without raisin.. i prefered the ones without raisin.Top: There were quite alot of small little cakes and two glass of apple mousse. I did not taste the apple mousse but it did nt look very delicious.
PS: Before i started on the top layers of miniature size cakes, waitress came round with some more cakes that is not found on our racks. she asked if we would like to refill. there were some chocolate cake and some other strawberry cakes. We asked for one each.
dark chocolate cake looked very alluring but it was TOO sweet. even if it was dark chocolate it was too sweet. I only managed to have one bite of it.
The was also one pear tart which i did not taste. But there was a cheesecake that was absolutely tasty. It was literally a cheese on top of a biscuit. Nice

Our set took a while to come, so we started with the buffet of sweets. My plate consisted of the berries and port trifle, raspberry floating island, chocolate orange square tart, black forest cake and raspberry sponge cake. I loved the black forest cake, it was incredibly moist. The berries and port trifle was also delightful. I thought the chocolate orange square tart was a little too sweet for my liking.

The traditional tiramisu with crystalised orange zest was served in a martini glass. It was incredibly sweet but incredibly delicious! Hubby ate two of this and I am sure he could have eaten more! He absolutely loved it!

I have yet to finish my desserts, and Hubby stood up to get more – berries and port trifle, tiramisu with crstalised orange zest, vanilla panna cotta with balsamic strawberries and raspberry floating islands. His favourites were the vanilla panna cotta with balsamic strawberries and the tiramisu. I am not a huge fan of panna cotta so did not have any of this.

Finally – our towering of savoury and sweets goodness arrived. The bottom tier consisted of ham sandwich, salmon sandwich, cucumber and cheese sandwich, prosciutto bruschetta , eggplant with potato salad, mini egg salad sandwiches and quiche lorraine.

I absolutely loved the mini egg salad sandwiches and the eggplant with potato salad.

The middle tier, scones – lemon scones and sultana scones. The scones were a little hard for my liking and way way WAY too sweet! It was warm, but when served with jam and cream, I could feel my sugar levels rising. It was definitely way too sweet!

I don’t think we even made a dent on the top tier – macaroons, brioche, blueberry cheese cake and mango pudding in shot glasses. I had some of the blueberry cheese cake and some of the mango pudding and that was it. I was stuffed!

Personally, I thought the high tea at Four Seasons was way too sweet, especially the scones! It filled you up too quickly. I think the fact that we started on the buffet of sweets prior to eating the savoury also made us full. This is great for those who have a superior sweet tooth!

read rest of review: http://gastronomous.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/superior-sweet-high-tea-four-seasons-central-hong-kong/

Afternoon Tea at The Lounge (Four Seasons Hotel)
No. of guest: 2 adults

Food: Meets Expectation
Service: Meets Expectation
Environment: Meets Expectation

Afternoon tea for 2 people, included:
- Savoury items (bite size - salmon sandwich, cucumber sandwich, egg salad/caviar muffin, foie gras/pate? sandwich, parma ham? sandwich, salmon pastry?)
- Scones (with jam and cream)
- Sweet item (fig tart, fruit shortcake, mini chocolate eclair?, )
- Drink (Lychee Green Tea, Coffee)

Bill: $418 ($380 for afternoon tea set + 10%)

Food
Items were tasty without being too heavy. All the ingredients were fresh. But no surprises on any particular item.
The only recommendation is that 4 scones were a bit too heavy. Would have preferred more savoury items (bite size) instead. There was a good variety of drinks (tea in particular).

Service
Nothing to criticise or highlight. Was as expected for a 5 star restaurant. We asked for wet towels and hot towels were offered, quite considerate. Service was prompt and responsive.
Smiles were provided by some staff - always a welcome addition.

Environment
It was Tuesday afternoon and the place was quite full. Tables were a little cramped as we could very clearly hear and smell dishes from the table next to us. The view is relatively plain (say compared to Grand Hyatt or JW Marriott).

To my two best girl friends (colleagues),
Although it's a rainy day, we are still looking forward to this afternoon tea. I promise my friends to write the food comment in English, I hope that you two can understand the followings.
We arrived at about 2 : 45pm. The waitress led three of us to a small table near the window which has a better view of the central. After discussing together, we ordered the afternoon tea set for two, $380 (afternoon tea and coffee) with an extra drink, $55 (Lychee green tea for myself).
Lychee green tea - the taste of fruit (lychee) is not very strong and also has a little bit bitter.
Scones (4 pieces) - plain and with raisin served with cream, blueberry and apricot jam. I felt it warm and the texture was just like those I ate in Harrods. It’s good for not having a rich butter smell inside which can be still topped with jam. For the taste, its mark was roughly the same as those in Mandarin Oriental Hotel. But for overall, I gave them a higher mark because of the warm feeling.
Sandwiches - white and wheat bread…with toppings, e.g. cucumber, smoked salmon, ham, cheese…since I always focused on the texture of the bread, the toppings actually was not so attractive. For the breads, their surface was not soft enough.
Tarts, puffs and pastries - toppings with curry chicken, egg salad, ham, cheese…no impression at all.
Desserts - chocolate cake….the chocolate was very soft and rich. Macaroon … it’s a kind of French cookies which were very sweet with almond paste. For me, this kind of dessert was the least attractive one because of their texture and taste. Really don’t know why….they are so expensive in cake shop! Cookies…not my favourite type, not crunchy! Pineapple panna cotta….not so sure but the texture was quite soft and not so sweet, Good! For the refilling of the desserts, the waitress took some mini desserts in plate and asked whether we needed some more or not….We chose a chocolate cube cake and strawberry custard pastry. Oh no…I was regret to take one coz it only increased my intake calories but not my appetite.
For the services and atmosphere, (among the Hotels, Intercontinental, Peninsula, Mandarin and Four Seasons), I will choose Intercontinental not because the others are bad but it make me feel more comfortable.
I do hope that I didn’t make too many grammatical errors but it is a good start for me to practice more in English! I am waiting for our next time gathering in LUK YU TEA HOUSE!

I must say the so-called Four Seasons is charging 6-star prices but quality of food is 4 star only. Other than the Lounge, Caprice and Blue Bar are good examples.

I specially requested for a window's seat coz I was celebrating my friend's birthday, and I told the girl on the phone about it.

The restaurant was nicely decorated. Simple and yet classy. It was very quiet at that time since we were one of the few groups there. It did make us feel a bit tensed. We ordered red wine, soup (the french onion soup tastes great!) and fish for our main course. We would love to order dessert but were all too full already.

We asked for the bill and 5 miniutes later, the guy came and told us that the credit card machine wasn't working and asked us to wait for a little while. We were chatting and all of a sudden, the waiter was holding a birthday cake and walking towards us...the pianist started to play the happy birthday song. That's was so thoughtful of them to give us such a great surprise. And we were later told that they were only lying about that credit card didn't go through. The truth was the pianist went to the loo so they had to make something up hehe...

Ain't that sweet? I Would definitely go back again. Highly recommended to y'all!