Wednesday, April 09, 2014

Le Salon de Thé de Joël Robuchon - Afternoon Tea So Fancy, Wah

Tiered afternoon tea at Salon de The de Joel Robuchon - so dainty, so fancy, wah
This is a gonna be a pretty short post because there isn't much to report about the JR afternoon tea at the Elements branch. The food is perfectly fine. In fact, it's all very well done, and I rather liked the cranberry scones, although they could be a) a bit larger, b) less dense, and c) warm.

Can I just add that the matte black tiers are chic, but when you remove a moist sandwich or pastry from it, it leaves a greasy smudge. Not so chic. Clearly, the person who designed it has never touched food.



Another thing about presentation - please someone tell me this way of "decorating" a cappuccino was never approved by Mr Robuchon...

I was here with my parents, who also ordered a ham and cheese baguette, which, IMO, is still the best sandwich (and deal) in town. Though I think we were mainly here because they could park their car without fuss.

The main reason why I'm writing this post is to rant about the service.

1. The tea set is for 2, and comes with 2 drinks. We asked for one more cup as my dad ordered a pot of earl grey and it was too much tea for him. The server refused to give us a cup, saying that the tea set is for two, and therefore they will only give 1 cup per drink (I ordered a cappuccino as part of the tea set).

2. About 5 mins after the set arrived, we wanted to start eating but realised there was no jam or cream for the scones. (We asked and it came - they had forgotten).

3. We asked for hot water twice. The first time, no-one seemed to have heard us, the second time, they filled our glasses with room temp water. Which part of "hot" is so hard to understand?

4. The place seems short-staffed. It's a rather plush cafe of about 25 seats, which were all full when I was there - I think I saw 3 servers in total.

The food part of the Robuchon formula works great (well, bar the so FANCY la presentation) - if only they had the service and management down too.

Le Salon de Thé de Joël Robuchon
Shop 1020B (near the South Exit towards W Hong Kong)
Elements
West Kowloon
Hong Kong
+852 23516678
8am-10pm daily

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