Of Toys and Co: Afternoon Tea at the Oriental Lounge, Mandarin Oriental Tokyo Part III

Thursday, August 25, 2016

Afternoon Tea at the Oriental Lounge, Mandarin Oriental Tokyo Part III

A week after our day trip to Nagoya, my in-laws came for a quick one week visit, partly because mum-in-law wanted to visit her old college roommate, Mrs. H with whom we've been acquainted since our days in Yokohama. Hubby has always credited his mum for his interest in East Asian literature. Thanks to Mrs. H who has kept contact with mum-in-law through all these years, hubby was exposed to "Asian things" from an early age.

Anyway, to fight off the jet lag, we brought mum and aunt-in-law to the Mandarin Oriental for a tea session, and they both loved it so much they wanted to go again. We picked a different place for our second visit though, because it's kind of embarrassing to return to the same hotel for tea twice in the same week LOL ^.^" Will post that soon too.

Either way, thanks to the lovely tea service and the view, there was no sleeping for the two ladies who had been up since 5am that day. They had so much fun tasting the delectable savories, the yummy scones, the delicious sweets and teas, they forgot all about the jet lag! It worked so well I think this will become my strategy with visitors from now on :D

We were lucky to have walked in and got seated, probably because it was a weekday afternoon. We were luckier that the seasonal sakura-theme tea service was still going on too! All the photos below are shared among myself, mum and aunt-in-law, because they took some awesome photos!

Honestly, by now my friends and I have tried almost a dozen different hotels for our monthly afternoon tea fix. We always find ourselves returning to the Mandarin Oriental. The Aman Tokyo comes to a very close second (will review when I get to those pictures... =.="), but my friends and I still prefer the Mandarin Oriental. I think I've had their tea service 4-5 times now, and each time the food was consistently delicious and the service excellent.

Not only the food and sweets are delicious, they're also aesthetically pleasing.

I love me some scones to go with my butter.

I appreciate the sweets the most (surprise, surprise). For one they haven't been overly sweet, not to my palate at least. And again aesthetic is important here too, and these sweets haven't been jarring or garish in color or in portion. Bigger isn't always better, folks.

And of course there's the iconic bathroom view. Mum and aunt got a hell of a kick just snapping away at the shutter.

There's also a bakery-gift shop on the ground floor where they sell the special house blend of the lychee oolong that I love so much (by Lupicia, by the way, see why I love Lupicia?). Next time I go back here, I'll grab a backup tin :)