During their visit, mum and aunt-in-law love their tea time at the Mandarin Oriental so much they wanted to go again. We immediately called around for a reservation, but given it was the second week of April, everybody and their mothers and sisters were out having high tea, plus it was very last-minute and most places were booked full. We counted our lucky stars when we got a table at the Lobby Lounge on the 28th floor of the Shangri-La Hotel Tokyo. Even better was that the tea session had a sakura theme, given it was sakura season.
The first thing I noticed about the hotel was that it smelled heavenly! They had a special oil blend dispersed with reed diffusers, and the result was a gentle but pervasive fragrance, very luxurious. Well, when we got to the Lobby Lounge, we saw that they do sell bottles of the scented oil for home use too--for 9,500yen/bottle! Right. No, thanks.
Although the food and sweets weren't as elaborate as those from the Mandarin Oriental (still #1!), all were very decent.
I'd say the table was a tad small for 4 people though, and as a result everything was very crowded.
I think I definitely enjoyed the savories best, then the sweets, then the scones.
The bite-sized cubes in the black bowls were fried scones. Yes, deep fried. Why? I don't know. None of us really liked it.
The sweets were much better than the scones. The sakura eclair was yummy. The cream puff was good. The white chocolate covered raspberry mousse was simply delectable and melted in my mouth. And I quite enjoyed the morsel of jelly with a pickled sakura blossom inside while mom and aunt-in-law didn't care for it.
In short, we had a great time, enough that hubby and I brought our monthly tea
club back here since they haven't been to this location yet.
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