I really wanted to experience The Mad Hatters Afternoon Tea at the Sanderson in London but I didn't have a chance before we moved. When I saw this deal on Groupon I hoped it would be something similar.
The tea was at Pacific Penthouse in Glebe - a one stop shop trying to appeal to multiple tastes.
We made our way up the stairs from the old man section of the pub and quickly realised the chinese restaurant was where we would be eating our Mad Hatters Afternoon Tea.
It was quite dark inside with limited natural light. There was a long bar with a fish tank built in spanning the entire length. There were little chinese gnome characters with feather bowers hanging as decoration inbetween them. As a final touch there were yellow and red chinese lanterns hanging from the ceiling - not quite what I was expecting wonderland to be like.
After we sat and had a few laughs at the venue our waiter delivered our drinks and a copy of the menu.
It started with a cocktail.
I did what it told me to do.
Then came the Mad Hatters Afternoon Tea
We started from the middle as we were hungover and needed something substantial ASAP.
Caterpillar Slider
Wagyu burger, lettuce, cherry tomato, jarlsberg & mustard.
What this slider really was, was a mini lump of meat with pickles. Don't get me wrong it was good, it just wasn't as great as the name would suggest.
Lizard Bills Baguette
Roast beef, asparagus, cherry tomato, cornichon, onion, mustard & chutney
I'm not sure what happened to Lizard Bill's baguette but the asparagus was hard and undercooked. It was wrapped in a thinly sliced beef sandwich filler and plopped on top of a small slice of dry bread.
Rose Sandwich
Champagne ham, jarlsberg, cherry tomato
What you can see here is two slices of white bread, a piece of tesco thinly sliced ham (no butter - or tomato) cut into a circle shape and folded over.....
Cheshire's Puff
Smoked salmon mousse choux pastry
This was my favourite part of the savoury section. The pastry was a good representation of what was described on the menu and was a little puff stuffed with smoked salmon mousse.
Next we moved onto the sweet section of the tea.
Mad Hatters Cupcake
Hatter theme cupcake
This was good. It was a red velvet cupcake with some cream on top and an Alice In Wonderland themed message. I'm pretty sure they didn't make these cupcakes.
Again, I did what it told me to do.
White Rabbits Pocket Watch
Macaroons
These cute little macaroons had clock faces iced onto the side and a mini marshmallow on top. It would be pretty hard for me not to like a macaroon. It was good but not quite Ladurée standards. Again - we are pretty sure these were shop bought too.
These two treats were followed by some scones that were a little gritty and fell apart which made it difficult to eat them properly.
We finished the afternoon tea with what we thought would be the pièce de résistance.
Dodo Egg with Passion
Cheesecake filled chocolate easter egg with passion fruit sauce
It looked good.
I am obsessed with passionfruit and this egg looked amazing compared to everything else on the menu.
The 'cheesecake' filling was actually yoghurt and the passion was a type of puree that separated and left a watery remain at the bottom of the egg. So disappointing.
What could have been a really delicious experience in wonderland was actually a very poorly executed afternoon tea in a chinese restaurant. The food wasn't bad, it tasted okay but the standard was low and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who comes to Sydney.
No comments:
Post a Comment