LM and I are continuing on our quest to have afternoon tea in as many places as we can. We put it under the heading of "research" but this is the only kind of research which comes with snacks.
LM had been to a couple of the afternoon tea options available, so today we went to the one at Orchids at the Halekulani - gorgeous setting as always and a beautiful afternoon to match.
Tell me what seems a little off about this picture: the self-professed owner of the sweet tooth (LM) had a blueberry rooibos tea sans sugar. The self-proclaimed owner of no sweet tooth whatsoever (yours truly) had the Golden Assam with sugar. Somehow in the excitement, I forgot to take a photo of the "Tea" portion of our Afternoon Tea. Loved the scone and madeleine (the shape, for us, determines whether or not this is a madeleine, so as delicious and buttery as it was, this was a Not-Madeleine).
Tea Sandwiches with a twist
We started with the savory because...well, because we wanted to have the sweets as desserts. I started from what sounded like the least strong to the strongest flavors. There was the traditional cucumber sandwich with a twist, the twist being cream cheese, not butter. Then the ham and watercress rolled sandwich - actually not bad. The chicken and horseradish sandwich has the peanut crust (top of the photo) - there was some apricot (dried?) in the mixture as well - with the peanuts, almost a peanut buttery flavor - initially odd until LM said it was close to satay chicken. And finally the smoked salmon with capers on...rye? The sandwiches were interesting but couldn't top the scones which came with a lemon curd, a strawberry (?) jam and clotted cream.We have been blessed (or is it cursed?) with standards which aim for perfection - standards which even the Chefs who taught us occasionally do not meet to their satisfaction.
Pretty is as pretty does
I have a feeling our very kind waiters thought we were crazy. We looked, we oohed, we ahhed, and then we took the food apart. We did the tasting by individual elements, then as a whole. Of course top marks for presentation - the desserts were so pretty that I have vowed I will probably try some of these presentations.
However - yes, there is always a "however". There seemed to be an awful lot of gelatine in the desserts - both in the lemon curd of the layered blueberry thing (left) and the lavender cream of the violet topped dessert (right). Whether it's a matter of making sure the desserts set correctly so that they didn't run all over or not, the consistency of somewhere between a custard/curd and a jelly was just slightly off-putting. Or perhaps there has been a new trend in texture of which neither of us was aware.
In any case, discussion about the technical elements led to stories about the things that went wrong in class (yes, we are still haunted by Ghosts of Classes and Bad Exams Past). Also discussions of LM's forays into more stable creams or what we want to try again or our nightmare desserts which we will never attempt again. (For instance, I will never attempt a sugar sculpture again, for obvious reasons.) We sorely missed some members of our little posse.
The good thing about doing a tasting with a friend is that I felt no shame in not finishing my desserts. Or the sandwiches. Or picking out all the raisins (currants?) in my scones with my fingers. But we do have more ideas of things for each of us to try and a cooking date since today we ate - the change in schedule dictated by the days on which afternoon tea was available. It also made us feel like we didn't do such a bad job with our student tea (or at least, speaking for myself, I felt like we did ok despite my large screw up with a huge batch of chocolate mousse for the raspberry and chocolate Galaxie).
So until next time, may you find that your best is good enough and hopefully, better than good!
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